How to Order Food in Korea: Essential Phrases & Tips
Master ordering food in Korea with phrases like ์ถ์ฒํด ์ฃผ์ธ์ and ๋ ๋งต๊ฒ ํด์ฃผ์ธ์. Learn the spiciness scale and common mistakes. Master dining out!
Master ordering food in Korea with phrases like ์ถ์ฒํด ์ฃผ์ธ์ and ๋ ๋งต๊ฒ ํด์ฃผ์ธ์. Learn the spiciness scale and common mistakes. Master dining out!

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Lost something in Korea? Master ๋ถ์ค๋ฌผ, ์ฐพ์ผ๋ฌ ์์ด์, and more to navigate lost and found centers with ease. Learn essential travel Korean!

Learn how to discuss travel plans based on the Korean weather forecast. Master ์ผ๊ธฐ์๋ณด, ๋น ์์, and more to plan your perfect trip!

Navigate any Korean restaurant with confidence using these five essential phrases for recommendations, spice levels, and paying the bill.
You're at a busy Galbi restaurant in Hongdae with a friend. You need to find the best menu item, adjust the heat, and settle the bill without any awkward silences.
์๋: ์ ๊ธฐ์, ์ฌ๊ธฐ ๋ญ๊ฐ ๋ง์์ด์? ๋ฉ๋ด ์ถ์ฒํด ์ฃผ์ธ์.sonnim: jeogiyo, yeogi mwoga masisseoyo? menyu chucheonhae juseyo. โ Excuse me, what's good here? Please recommend something.
์ง์: ๊ฐ๋น์ฐ์ด ์ ์ผ ์ ๋๊ฐ์. ๋ณดํต ๋ง์ผ๋ก ๋๋ฆด๊น์?jigwon: galbijjimi jeil jal nagayo. botong maseuro deurilkkayo? โ The braised short ribs are our best seller. Shall I give you the medium spice level?
์๋: ๋๋ฌด ๋งค์ฐ๋ฉด ๋ชป ๋จน์ด์์. ์กฐ๊ธ๋ง ๋ ๋งต๊ฒ ํด์ฃผ์ธ์.sonnim: neomu maeumyeon mot meogeoseoyo. jogeumman deol maepge haejuseyo. โ I can't eat it if it's too spicy. Please make it a little less spicy.
์๋: ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๊ณต๊ธฐ๋ฐฅ ๋ ๊ฐ๋ ์ฝ๋ผ ํ๋๋ง ์ฃผ์ธ์.sonnim: geurigo gonggibap du gaerang kolra hanaman juseyo. โ And please give us two bowls of rice and one cola.
์ง์: ๋ค, ์๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค.jigwon: ne, algetseupnida. โ Yes, understood.
์๋: ์ ๊ธฐ์, ๊ณ์ฐํด ์ฃผ์ธ์. ๋ฐ๋ก๋ฐ๋ก ๊ณ์ฐํ ์ ์๋์?sonnim: jeogiyo, gyesanhae juseyo. ttarottaro gyesanhal su itnayo? โ Excuse me, please check us out. Can we pay separately?
When you're overwhelmed by a menu full of Hangul, asking for a recommendation is the fastest way to find the house specialty. It shows you trust the staff's expertise.
๋ญ๊ฐ ์ ์ผ ๋ง์์ด์?mwoga jeil masisseoyo? โ What is the most delicious?
๋ฉ๋ด ์ถ์ฒํด ์ฃผ์ธ์.menyu chucheonhae juseyo. โ Please recommend a menu item.
In Korea, you often pay at the counter near the exit, but in some sit-down places, you can signal the staff from your table. This phrase is the standard way to initiate the payment process.
How to choose your level:
๋ณดํต ๋งbotong mat (Normal/Medium).์ ๋งต๊ฒan maepge (Not spicy) or ํ์๊ฒhayatge (White/No chili).๋งต๊ฒmaepge (Spicy) or ์์ฃผ ๋งต๊ฒaju maepge (Very spicy).์ธ๋ถinbun (portions/servings) for main dishes like BBQ or stews: ์ผ๊ฒน์ด 2์ธ๋ถsamgyeopsal 2inbun (2 servings of pork belly).๊ฐgae (general counter) for side items or drinks: ๊ณต๊ธฐ๋ฐฅ 2๊ฐgonggibap 2gae (2 bowls of rice), ์ฝ๋ผ 1๊ฐ (1 cola).Rewrite: ๊ณ์ฐํด ์ฃผ์ธ์gyesanhae juseyo (Please check us out)
๊ณ์ฐํด ์คgyesanhae jwo๊ณ์ฐํด ์ฃผ์ธ์gyesanhae juseyo๊ณ์ฐ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋คgyesan butakdeuripnidaNotes:
๋ฐ๋ก๋ฐ๋กttarottaro is used when splitting a bill into individual payments.์ถ์ฒํด ์ฃผ์ธ์chucheonhae juseyo is the standard polite way to ask for a recommendation.๋ ๋งต๊ฒ ํด์ฃผ์ธ์deol maepge haejuseyo is used to request a reduction in the default spice level.When you enter a restaurant, look for a button on the table. If there isn't one, a polite ์ ๊ธฐ์jeogiyo (Excuse me) is perfectly fine to get attention. Don't be afraid to ask for ์ถ์ฒchucheonโKoreans take pride in their signature dishes!
์ ๋งต๊ฒ ํด์ฃผ์ธ์.an maepge haejuseyo. โ Please make it not spicy at all.
์กฐ๊ธ๋ง ๋ ๋งต๊ฒ ํด์ฃผ์ธ์.jogeumman deol maepge haejuseyo. โ Please make it just a little less spicy.
~ํ๊ณ ~ ์ฃผ์ธ์.~hago ~ juseyo. โ Please give me [A] and [B].
์ฝ๋ผ ํ๋๋ง ์ฃผ์ธ์.kolra hanaman juseyo. โ Please give me just one cola.
์ผ๋ง์์?eolmayeyo? โ How much is it?
์ ๊ธฐ์, ๊ณ์ฐํด ์ฃผ์ธ์.jeogiyo, gyesanhae juseyo. โ Excuse me, please check us out.
๋ฐ๋ก๋ฐ๋ก๊ฐ์ ๊ณ์ฐํ ๊ฒ์.gakja gyesanhalgeyo. โ We will pay individually.
๋ฐ๋ก๋ฐ๋ก ๊ณ์ฐํ ์ ์๋์?ttarottaro gyesanhal su itnayo? โ Can we pay separately?