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Korean Phrases for Travelers: Which Ones 54 Visitors Actually Used

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📄In 54 first-hand accounts, 33 travelers used Korean phrases: thank you in 15, hello in 12. Ten say learning to read Hangul paid off. What it changed.

A person in a gray hoodie speaking and gesturing to a small group in front of a market stall with trays of side dishes, with signs in Chinese and Japanese behind

💡Quick Answer

Do you need to learn Korean phrases before visiting Korea? Travelers say no, and that a few help. In 54 first-hand accounts on Reddit, 33 used Korean phrases on the trip, and the ones they name are short: thank you in 15 accounts, hello in 12, sorry in 6. Eleven describe Koreans reacting warmly, three say it changed nothing, and three managed without a word. Ten learned to read Hangul and say it paid off, mostly for bus stops and food.

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Which Korean Phrases Travelers Actually Used

Reviews of Seoul’s markets rarely say anything about speaking Korean, so this article uses a different source: first-hand accounts posted on Reddit travel forums by people who have been to Korea. Thirty-three of them say which Korean they used.

🗣️ Korean phrase travelers say they used	Accounts that name it
Thank you (gamsahamnida)	15
Hello (annyeonghaseyo)	12
Sorry	6
Goodbye	4
Please, or “can I have this”	3
Excuse me, to call the staff (yeogiyo, jeogiyo)	3
Numbers	3
Delicious	3

The list is short, and it is mostly greetings. Thank you appears in 15 accounts and hello in 12. Phrases for ordering come far behind: three accounts name a way to ask for something, three a word to call the staff, and three mention numbers.

One traveler in 2025 wrote down many phrases before the trip and reports what survived contact: hello, thank you, goodbye, sorry and the numbers one to three. The rest was too hard to pronounce in a way anyone understood, and a translation app took over. Another, in 2026, learned two phrases, hello and thank you, and says they covered most interactions.

A few accounts go past greetings. One advises learning please, sorry, excuse me, “this” and the numbers up to five, because you need them when ordering food. One learned how to say “just a moment” to buy time while the translation app worked. Another got by with the words for bathroom and water and by showing the number of people with their fingers.

The trade-off: the phrases that are easy to say are the ones that matter least for getting fed. A traveler with several trips to Korea notes that romanized spellings mislead, because the letters are not pronounced the way an English speaker expects.

What Changed When They Used Them

📊 What travelers report	First-hand accounts, of 54
Used Korean phrases on the trip	33
😊 Koreans reacted warmly	11
It changed nothing	3
Managed without a word of Korean	3
📖 Learned to read Hangul and say it paid off	10
Lukewarm about Hangul	4

Eleven accounts describe Koreans reacting warmly to a few words. One traveler says the staff in a restaurant loved hearing “delicious.” Another says poor Korean got a smile and more help. A family reports that people were delighted when their daughter said thank you and goodbye. One traveler found that older women selling street food were the most pleased, while younger people simply answered in English.

Two Japanese reviewers of Gwangjang Market, both in 2019, say the same thing from the stalls: one felt the service doubled when they spoke Korean, and the other was chatted to warmly by a vendor in spite of broken Korean.

Three accounts say it changed nothing. A traveler in 2025 used polite phrases for hello, thank you and goodbye and says most people did not reply and nobody smiled. Another in 2025 learned the phrases and the customs and still met rudeness. A third, in 2026, learned a few words and the alphabet and felt little warmth, while also reporting some kind encounters.

And one review of Gwangjang Market, from August 2026, is a warning. A Korean reviewer brought a foreign friend who had learned some Korean and ordered the dumplings personally. The vendor mixed two kinds without being asked and charged more. When the Korean reviewer objected, the vendor answered that this was the price for a mix.

The trade-off: a few words buy goodwill from people inclined to give it. They do not protect a bill.

Do You Need Any Korean at All?

Three accounts describe trips with no Korean that went fine. One traveler in 2025 did not speak a single word and made it work with a translation app and a map app. One has been to Korea many times without learning any. A third traveled with a friend who never learned hello or thank you. And a traveler who knew only the most basic words says that in Seoul a surprising number of people speak decent English and almost all the signs are in English.

The picture changes away from the big cities. A traveler in 2025 says the language barrier was very noticeable outside Seoul and Busan, where key phrases and a translation app got them through. Another, on the east coast in 2023, found very few people who spoke English.

The trade-off: in Seoul the question is courtesy more than survival. Outside it, the same few words do more work.

Is Learning Hangul Worth It?

Ten travelers learned to read Hangul, the Korean alphabet, and say it paid off. They name three uses. Bus stops: one traveler notes that the screens for foreigners on buses and trains are not always on, and another that the map app shows your stop in Hangul and you match the shapes. Food: one calls learning Hangul and the names of Korean dishes the biggest return for the effort, and another found it faster to read a short menu than to point a phone at it. Signs: a resident points out that many Korean words are borrowed from English and can be sounded out, and that dish names you already know start appearing on shop fronts.

One traveler in 2025 says it paid off most in places less visited by foreign tourists.

How long it takes depends on who is counting. Travelers give thirty minutes with a mnemonic, a few hours, a day, and under a week at thirty minutes a day to read fluently.

Four are lukewarm. One calls it slightly useful, for matching signs to romanized names. One notes that nearly all the important signs are in English anyway. One points out that you can read a word aloud and still have no idea what it means. And one, who reads very slowly, says the restaurant would be closed by the time they finished the menu.

A Korean speaker and a long-term resident put it more strongly: outside the main tourist areas, and on buses, a visitor who cannot read Hangul is flying blind.

The trade-off: Hangul lets you read. It does not let you understand, and the travelers who got the most from it had also learned the names of the dishes.

Phrases Locals Suggest

Three guides posted on the same forums go beyond greetings. A Seoul local advises paying taxis by card and asking for the receipt, 영수증 주세요 (yeong-su-jeung ju-se-yo). A guide to cafés gives the line for finding the restroom, 화장실 어디예요? (hwa-jang-sil eo-di-ye-yo).

A guide from 2026 lists five lines for ordering: 이거 하나 주세요 (one of this, please), 추천 메뉴 있어요? (is there a recommended dish?), 덜 맵게 해주세요 (less spicy, please), 포장 가능해요? (can I take it to go?) and 계산할게요 (I would like to pay).

The trade-off: these are the phrases the guides suggest, not the ones travelers report using. In the accounts we read, the gap between the two is wide.

Methodology

This article does not use the same source as our research on Seoul’s markets. Those articles count rated reviews from Google Maps and TripAdvisor. A search of those 3,923 reviews of Gwangjang Market, Namdaemun Market and Mangwon Market for Korean phrases found none about using them; three reviews found in our research on language are included here and identified as reviews. So we read the part of the SeoulFoodTour research corpus that comes from Reddit and YouTube.

What was read. In three travel forums on Reddit and in YouTube comments, a search for Korean phrases, “Korean phrases” or “words,” and Hangul matched 161 posts and comments. We read the passage around every match. One hundred and seven were set aside: 37 are YouTube comments written in Korean or noise, 47 use the words in another sense, such as the Hangul Day holiday, 16 were written by people still planning, 6 are opinion without an account of a trip, and 1 is a duplicate. The remaining 54 are first-hand accounts, all from Reddit: 37 posts and 17 comments.

What the numbers are. Counts of accounts, classified by hand. They are floors, and they are not rates: people who post trip reports are not a sample of visitors, and those who prepared phrases are more likely to write about it. Of the 37 accounts with a date, 28 are from 2024 or later.

Quotations. The accounts and the reviews are described in our words and not quoted. Phrases in Korean are given as the guides wrote them.

What this article does not do. It does not teach pronunciation, and it does not claim that any phrase will get a particular result. An account records what one traveler found.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to learn Korean before visiting Seoul?+

No, according to travelers. Three accounts describe trips with no Korean at all that went fine, one of them by someone who has visited many times. Travelers do report a harder time outside Seoul and Busan, where two accounts say very few people speak English and key phrases or a translation app carried them through.

Which Korean phrases should a tourist learn?+

The ones travelers say they used are greetings: thank you in 15 accounts and hello in 12, then sorry, goodbye, a way to ask for something, a word to call the staff, small numbers and “delicious.” One traveler who prepared a long list ended up using five words and a translation app for the rest.

Do Koreans appreciate it when tourists speak Korean?+

Eleven accounts describe a warm reaction: smiles, extra help, restaurant staff delighted by a single word. Three accounts say polite Korean phrases changed nothing and the service stayed cold. A review of Gwangjang Market describes a foreign visitor who ordered in Korean and was still charged more.

Is it worth learning Hangul for a trip to Korea?+

Ten travelers who learned to read Hangul say it paid off, mostly for bus stops, menus and signs, and most of all outside the places foreign tourists usually go. Four are lukewarm: the main signs are in English already, and reading a word is not the same as knowing what it means.

How long does it take to learn Hangul?+

Travelers give different figures for reading it slowly: thirty minutes with a mnemonic, a few hours, a day, or under a week at thirty minutes a day to read it fluently. One traveler who reads it very slowly jokes that the restaurant would close before the menu was finished.

What Korean phrases help when ordering food?+

Three accounts name a way to ask for something and three name the word to call staff to the table, yeogiyo or jeogiyo. A guide posted in 2026 lists five ordering lines: one of this please, is there a recommended dish, less spicy please, can I take it to go, and I would like to pay.