Korean Honorifics

As you guys study about Korean language, you might come across to many different verb ending for example 해, 해요, 하세요, 합니다, 하십니다 and more, each represent different level of speech use to indicated the level of formality of a situation.

The Korean language emphasize a lot on showing respect, thus born the honorific system in Korean grammer which used to differentiate the level of familiarity, or difference in social rank between addresser and the addressee.

There are many way to show respect in Korean language. I will try to simplify and make sure you guys understand the basic behind this honorifics system which often brings confusion to foreigner studying this language.



1. Addressing People

The simple way to show politeness in calling other people in a approximately equal speech level such as among friends is by adding 씨 after the end of name. For example 이승기씨 and 브루스씨. You can simply just call the first name (for example 승기씨) if you are familiar with that person.

Korean seldom say "you" in their sentences. It is more common to call the addressee their name or a proper title if he/she is at higher rank/position. For example, 선생님 is often use to refer to teacher or doctor. 선생님 is also translated Mr. if unspecified. For example: 이승기 선생님(Mr. Lee Seung Gi) or 이 선생님(Mr. Lee).

To say Mrs. or Miss in Korean you can just do it in English. For example: 미세스 김(Mrs. Kim) or 미스 김(Miss Kim). If you want refer to the wife of your superior or any prominent man, use 사모님 which mean Mrs. or Madam.

For more about Pronouns in Korean check out my previous post.


2. Speech levels

Here comes the difficult part. There are actually seven speech levels in Korean, with each level has its own unique set of verb endings. To make things easy I will only talk about 3 most used form here. Taking 하다 as example.

Low form (하다 -> 해)
Used most often between close friends and relatives, and when talking to younger people. Rarely used between strangers unless the speaker wishes to start a confrontation, or the listener is a child.

Normal form (하다 -> 해요)
Used mainly between strangers, especially those older or of equal age. This form is very common used for informal situation but shows politeness to the addressee.

High form (하다 -> 합니다)
Used commonly between strangers, among male co-workers, by TV announcers, and to customers. This is used for formal ocassion and shows high level of politeness to the addressee.

Now, all this form can be converted into an honorific form, simply by adding 시 after the verb or adjective.

For example:
Low form will be 하다 -> 하시어 -> 하셔
Middle form will be 하다 -> 하시어요 -> 하세요
High form will be 하다 -> 하십니다

However, there are a few verb have different way to be express in honorific form.

있다 -> 계시다 "to exist"
마시다 -> 드시다 "to drink"
먹다 -> 드시다 or 잡수시다 "to eat"
자다 -> 주무시다 "to sleep"
배고프다 -> 시장하시다 "to be hungry"

For more detail explanation about honorific form in Korean you can refer to site here.

The END~