Addressee Honorifics: Formal and Informal Styles
Addressee honorification expresses your attitude toward the listener through sentence endings. The two main styles are the formal '-seumnida' and the informal '-ayo/eoyo'.
Formal style: -seumnida
The formal style is used in official settings such as presentations, news broadcasts, the military, and interviews. The pattern is stem + '-(seu)mnida', and questions take '-(seu)mnikka?'.
| Type | Formal | Informal |
|---|---|---|
| ํ์๋ฌธ (statement) | ๊ฐ๋๋ค / ๋จน์ต๋๋ค | ๊ฐ์ / ๋จน์ด์ |
| ์๋ฌธ๋ฌธ (question) | ๊ฐ๋๊น? / ๋จน์ต๋๊น? | ๊ฐ์? / ๋จน์ด์? |
| ๋ช ๋ น๋ฌธ (command) | ๊ฐ์ญ์์ค | ๊ฐ์ธ์ |
| ์ฒญ์ ๋ฌธ (suggestion) | ๊ฐ์๋ค | ๊ฐ์ |
Informal style: -ayo/eoyo
The informal polite style sounds soft and friendly and is the most common in daily conversation. Use '-ayo' after the vowels 'ใ /ใ ', '-eoyo' elsewhere, and 'ํด์' for 'ํ๋ค'.
Common mistakes
Jumping randomly between the formal and informal styles within one conversation sounds awkward. Typically you open and close in the formal style and use the informal style for the body, blending them with a sense of register rather than at random.
๐ก Tip: Both are polite, but the formal style feels distant and official while the informal style feels warm and friendly. It is natural to mix the two with the same person.