Age, Price & Phone Numbers

Finally, let's cover three things that come up every day: age, price, and phone numbers.

Age — native numbers + 살

Age uses native numbers plus the counter '살' (sal). Remember that 1 through 4 change to 한, 두, 세, and 네.

Age	Hangul	Romanization	English
1살	한 살	han sal	1 year old
20살	스무 살	seu-mu sal	20 years old
서른	서른 살	seo-reun sal	30 years old

💡 Tip: On its own, 20 is '스물', but before a counter it becomes '스무' (스무 살, 스무 개).

Price — Sino-Korean numbers + 원

Money uses Sino-Korean numbers plus the currency unit '원' (won). It helps to get comfortable with the 만 (10,000) unit.

Price	Hangul	Romanization	English
500원	오백 원	o-baek won	500 won
3,000원	삼천 원	sam-cheon won	3,000 won
15,000원	만 오천 원	man o-cheon won	15,000 won

Phone numbers — Sino-Korean, one digit at a time

Phone numbers are read one Sino-Korean digit at a time. '0' is usually read '공' (gong), and the dash in the middle is read '에' (e).

비싸요 / 싸요: expensive / cheap

Here are some useful words for prices: 비싸요 (bi-ssa-yo, it's expensive), 싸요 (ssa-yo, it's cheap), and 얼마예요? (eol-ma-ye-yo?, how much?). For example: '너무 비싸요' (It's too expensive).

Asking age politely

With someone older, use the honorific '연세가 어떻게 되세요?' (May I ask your age?) instead of '몇 살'. With friends or younger people, say '몇 살이에요?', and in very casual settings, '몇 살이야?'.