fbpx

Korean Words and Phrases for Romance and Love

by Nie Ae // April 10 // 0 Comments

โ€œI love you.โ€ It is the phrase that everyone wants to hear. It is easy to say โ€œI love you.โ€ The tricky thing is, however, how to express sincere affection in other ways using the proper words. Today we are going to learn how to show affection and love in romantic situations using the Korean language. 

Romantic Korean Words and Phrases

1. ์‚ฌ๋ž‘ํ•ด์š” (I love you)

The most basic romantic phrase in Korean is ์‚ฌ๋ž‘ํ•ด์š” [sa-rang-hae-yo]. ์‚ฌ๋ž‘ is a native Korean word that has existed for thousands of years. ์‚ฌ๋ž‘ํ•ด์š” is a plain phrase but also a genuine way to express your love.

2. ๋ณด๊ณ  ์‹ถ์–ด์š” (I miss you)

If you love somebody, you will miss them when they are away. ๋ณด๊ณ  ์‹ถ์–ด์š” [bo-go-sip-eo-yo] comes from the verb ๋ณด๋‹ค (To see). Koreans use this expression to say they miss their lovers. You can also say ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ๋ณด๊ณ  ์‹ถ์–ด์š” [bbal-ri-bo-go-sip-eo-yo], which means โ€œI want to see you soon.โ€

3. ์˜ˆ์˜๋‹ค (Beautiful) / ๊ท€์—ฝ๋‹ค (Cute)

If you want to express affection to a woman, you can give her a compliment with the word ์˜ˆ์˜๋‹ค [ye-bbeu-da] or ๊ท€์—ฝ๋‹ค [gwi-yeop-da]. It is more common to call someone โ€œcuteโ€ than โ€œsexyโ€ in Korea when you are flirting with a woman.

4. ์ž˜ ์ƒ๊ฒผ๋‹ค (Handsome) / ๋ฉ‹์žˆ๋‹ค (Cool)

If you want to express affection to a man, you can give him a compliment with the word ์ž˜ ์ƒ๊ฒผ๋‹ค [jal-saeng-gyeot-da] or ๋ฉ‹์žˆ๋‹ค [meot-it-da]. As Korea still has relatively conservative gender roles, they would like to hear that they are manly.

5. ๋ผ๋ฉด ๋จน๊ณ  ๊ฐˆ๋ž˜์š”? (Netflix and chill)

If you want to invite a man to your house but feel too shy to make it obvious, you can say โ€œ๋ผ๋ฉด ๋จน๊ณ  ๊ฐˆ๋ž˜์š”? [ra-myeon meok-go gal-rae-yo?]." This sentence means, "Do you want to have ramen at my house?" and has the same implication of โ€œNetflix and chillโ€ in English.

6. ๋„ˆ๋ž‘ ์žˆ์–ด์„œ ํ–‰๋ณตํ•ด (I am happy with you)

If you feel happy with someone and want to let them know it, you can say โ€œ๋„ˆ๋ž‘ ์žˆ์–ด์„œ ํ–‰๋ณตํ•ด [neo-rang it-eo-seo haeng-bok-hae].โ€ You can change the adjective ํ–‰๋ณตํ•ด with other adjectives such as ์ข‹์•„ (good).

7. ํ•ญ์ƒ ํ•จ๊ป˜ ํ•˜๊ณ  ์‹ถ์–ด (I want to be with you forever)

You can say โ€œํ•ญ์ƒ ํ•จ๊ป˜ ํ•˜๊ณ  ์‹ถ์–ด [hang-sang ham-gge ha-go sip-eo]โ€ if you want to say, โ€œI want to be with you forever.โ€ You can also say that you want to spend a specific time with someone using phrases like โ€œ์ด๋ฒˆ ์ฃผ๋ง ํ•จ๊ป˜ ํ•˜๊ณ  ์‹ถ์–ดโ€ (I want to spend this weekend with you).

8. ์ž๊ธฐ (Darling)

์ž๊ธฐ [ja-gi] is a romantic name to call your lover in Korean. It means "darling" in English. You can use it with your husband or boyfriend.

9. ์—ฌ๋ณด (Honey)

์—ฌ๋ณด [yeo-bo] is a romantic name to call your lover in Korean. It means โ€œhoneyโ€ in English. You can use it with your husband.

10. ๋ฝ€๋ฝ€ (Kiss)

๋ฝ€๋ฝ€ [ppo-ppo] is a cute way to say โ€œkiss.โ€ If you want to kiss someone, you can say โ€œ๋ฝ€๋ฝ€ ํ•ด์ค˜โ€ (please kiss me) or just ๋ฝ€๋ฝ€.

Conclusion

Today we learned ten romantic Korean words and phrases. If you love a Korean woman or man right now, how about expressing your affection in Korean at the right time? It will be a delightful surprise for them. If you do not have someone in mind right now, you can practice how to express your love adequately in Korean for someone you will meet soon!

About the Author Nie Ae

Nie Ae is a Filipina by blood but is now bearing a Korean citizenship and residing in South Korea. She is a Christian missionary, writer, translator, and more than 10 years ESL teacher to Korean nationals.