안녕 vs 안녕하세요 in Korean

Hi everyone, it’s your Korean teacher Jun! What do you think is the most basic word that almost people learn for a second language? It might be ‘I love you’ or some bad word like fxxk or probably ‘hello’. ‘Hello’ is super simple and seems like you can’t mess it up, right? But… what if you can actually mess up with this most simple, basic word? Today I’m going to teach you what’s different between 안녕 and 안녕하세요 in Korean.

Warm Up Your Brain

Do you know how to say ‘안녕하세요’ with a correct pronunciation? Try to say it loud!

안녕하세요 Meaning in Korean

안녕하세요

[annyung-haseyo]
Hello

안녕하세요 is the most common Korean phrase to say hello. It’s similar to ‘hello’. Why similar, not same? Because 안녕하세요 is a question : ‘how are you?’. You probably saw that 안녕하세요 is written with a question mark sometimes. At the moment, you might think it means ‘hello?’ but what it really means is ‘how are you?’ However, native Koreans don’t use it as ‘how are you?’ anymore in almost conversation. Now It only means ‘hello’

안녕 Meaning in Korean

안녕

[annyung]
Hello

I’m sure you are more familiar to 안녕 more than 안녕하세요. Because it’s shorter and easy to remember and a lot of tutorials teach it as ‘hello’. Yes, 안녕 means ‘hello’ technically, but it’s used between people who use 반말 to each other.

반말 is the opposite grammatical idea to honorific. It’s a non-honorific speech style so you really need to be careful to use it because it often can be seriously rude or insultive.  Native Koreans usually ask if they can use ‘반말’ before they use it. You can say 안녕 after you get a permission for 반말.

안녕 vs 안녕하세요

The answer is no. Every single Korean speech is related to 반말(non-honorific) or 존댓말(honorific). You can never avoid that. There are only two options: Option no 1. Being so polite and show the respect in your speech. Option no 2. Being not polite with your speech.

안녕하세요 is option no 1. It’s polite enough and you can use it to anyone in any situation without any trouble. Remember, you can use it anytime WITHOUT ANY TROUBLE. Also, it’s the most common.

안녕 is option no 2. 안녕 is a bit tricky to use. You have to consider many conditions if you can use it. 1st, You have to be same years old or older than a person whom you are talking to. 2nd, you have to personally know a person whom you are talking to. 3rd. You and another both agree to use 반말 (non-honorific).

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안녕 With No Rules

Sometimes, native Koreans just say 안녕 to strangers. That happens especially on the internet or between 2 people who go to a same school. That’s a small part of Korean culture but not everybody accepts 안녕 even for those. Some people actually say ‘who the hell can tell you to use 반말 to me? You know me?’.

Underage Koreans are used to 반말 more because they don’t have many experience to use honorific.

Native Koreans also use 안녕 without caring about the age stuff when they have known each other for a long long time based on 반말 basis. It happens especially between family members.

As a Korean

I’m pretty sure that you’ve met some Koreans are very cool about using 안녕. Koreans know foreigners aren’t used to Korean honorific culture, so they just don’t mind about it.

Personally, I’ve met a lot of foreigners who said ‘안녕’ to me at the very first talk. I’m not offended and I’ve actually never pointed it out before (neither my Korean friends). I know they don’t speak Korean well and I know many foreigners aren’t used to Korean honorific cultures. But, to be honest, it feels a bit weird to me because no Koreans would say 안녕 to me at the first meet and it has some nuance.