Study Korean Together
Sunday, September 27, 2026
Korean Restaurant Vocabulary
Hello my fellow students. This video is going to give you some useful things to say in a Korean restaurant.
First of all restaurant in Korean is
shik-dang 식당
You could also use the English loan word
re-seu-to-rang 레스토랑
Or you could say cook house
yo-rit-jip. 요릿집
요리 yori means cook, 집 jip means house
So what do you say when you enter the 식당 shik-dang?
You may ask for a table. Table in Korean is the same as English 테이블 te-i-beul.
Do you remember how to say please when you are requesting something? It is 주세요 Ju-se-yo
You can say 테이블 주세요 te-i-beul ju-se-yo
You will also want to tell the server how many people are in your group. Say We are X people. Or It is X people. Use the native Korean number and the counter and the polite form of the verb “is/am/are” If you have been watching my videos you might remember your native numbers, that’s these ones. The counter for people 명“myeong” and the polite form of is/am/are 이에요.
We are two people: du myeong I-e-yo 두 명이에요
We are 3 people se myeong I-e-yo 세 명이에요
We are four people ne myeong I-e-yo 네 명이에요
Literally translated this means X people are. Korean puts its words in a different order and often drops the pronoun.
Some other phrases you may find helpful are
자리 있어요?" (jari isseoyo?), which means "Is there a seat available?"
자리=seat
있어요=exists
You can also ask 어디에 앉으면 될까요? (Where should I/we sit?) eo-di-e an-jeu-myeon dwil-gga-yo
어디에=where
앉으면=sit
될까요=can I/would it be possible
So now you and your party are sitting at the table and you might want the server to bring you something. Do you remember how to say please when you are requesting something? We just went over it 주세요 ju-se-yo. Put 주세요 ju-se-yo at the end of the thing you want.
If you want a menu say 메뉴 주세요 me-nyu ju-se-yo. Menu in Korean is me-nyu.
Here’s some more things you may want them to bring you
Water 물 or a glass of water 물 한 잔 mul han jan mul means water, han means one and jan means glass
Tea 차
Cup 컵
Glass 잔/유리잔
Fork 포크
Knife 나이프 regular dinner knife/ 칼 big sharp knife
Spoon 숟가락
Chopstick 젓가락
Plate 접시
Bowl 그릇 / 사발 / 대통-bamboo stick bowls. I’ve never seen these before. Aren’t they cool?
Soy sauce 간장
The bill/cheque 계산서
You can put the word ju-se-yo at the end of any of these words and you have formed the sentence “Please may I have ___”
You can also use ju-se-yo when you are making your order.
The name of the dish ju-se-yo
But wait! You may have questions about the food first.
You might have an allergy. You should let them know
I am allergic to ___. ____에 알레르기가 있어요.
Or there might be one ingredient you really don’t like
I don’t like___. Je-neun ____ an-jo-a-hae-yo. 저는 ____ 안조아해요. Remember the Korean word for like Joh-a-ha-da and remember how we make verbs negative by adding “an” to the front. And we conjugate into the simple present to get an-jo-a-hae-yo.
And because this is Korean food you will probably want to have a discussion about how spicy you want it. Korean food is often spicy.
Spicy in the infinitive form is 맵다 maep-da. That means to be spicy, but it will be more useful to you in the following forms
Mae-un 매운 and mae-wa-yo 매와요
Mae-un 매운is an adjective. Put it in front of a noun.
Spicy vegetable Mae-un yachae 매운 야채
spicy Cheetos maeun Cheetos 매운 치토스
spicy meat 매운 고기
spicy rice 매운 밥
Mae-wa-yo 매와요 means is spicy or are spicy. So you would say
the Cheetos are spicy Cheetos maewayo. 치토스 매와요
The meat is spicy go-gi maewayo.고기 매와요
This word has the is/are already in it. Mae-wa-yo 매와요 means is spicy or are spicy.
Now with the adjective form, mae-un 매운, let’s learn how to describe how spicy something is
You can say
Not spicy an-mae-un 안매운
A little spicy
조금 매운
Or 좀 매운 jom is short for jo-geum
Or 약간 매운yak-gan is more fancy and formal than jo-geum
Very spicy 아주 매운
Let’s make this into sentences. The word for a dish of food is 음식
How word you say
Please give me a non spicy dish 안매운 음식 주세요
Please give me a little bit spicy dish 조금 매운 음식 주세요
약간 매운 음식 주세요
Please give me a very spicy dish 아주 매운 음식 주세요
We would use the word for Please may I have, the same one we used earlier today. Juseyo
So Please give me a non spicy dish is 안매운 음식 (pause) juseyo
And Please give me a little bit spicy dish is
And Please give me a very spicy dish is 아주 매운 음식 주세요
Now you’ve ordered your food.
The server brings it to you
And she says
“많이 드세요”
Or she says
“맛있게 드세요”
What does that mean? Well basically it’s Korean for ‘bon apetit’
많이 드세요 literally means : Please eat a lot. man-hi means many or a lot. And deuseyo means please eat. But the classy honourable way of saying eat. As many of you may already know the Korean word for eat is usually meok-da, but there is another way of saying eat that sounds more elegant and respectful: 드시다 that is where deu-se-yo comes from.
And 맛있게 드세요
Well it has the fancy word for eat in it deuseyo and ma-shit-ge. This comes from the word for to be delicious ma-shit-da but it has been conjugated into an adverb: ‘deliciously’ . This is a word that doesn’t exist in English. It’s very useful though. Please eat it deliciously. I keep thinking about this phrase. When I’m being instructed to eat deliciously, I kind of think that is supposed to means that I should taste delicious, while I’m eating the food, right? But that’s not what they mean. They’re saying Please eat the delicious food. But still, maybe they should tell the food to please be eaten deliciously. I’m not the one who needs the instructions.
Anyway. Without deconstructing a popular phrase too much
When you server says Please eat a lot or Please eat deliciously
You can respond with thank you. I really hope you know thank you already: gomawayo or gamsahaeyo
And then say
잘 먹겠습니다 which means I will eat well. Jal might sound familiar from past lessons it means well and moek-get-seum-nida means “I will eat” or “I intend to eat” we’re using the presumptive future tense
Gomawayo jal meog-get-sem-nida
Now you start eating. You may want to describe the taste.
You can say it’s delicious: 맛있어요 / 맛있다
It’s good:좋아요
I like it:좋아해요
And we learned how to make verbs negative in my previous video.
You can say it is not delicious 맛이 없어요
It’s not good an-joh-a-yo. 안좋아요.
I don’t like it. (Jeo-neun) an-joh-a-hae-yo 안 좋아해요. Since Joh-a is an adjective the an goes in front.
Now what about other tastes? I’m going to give these to you in the polite form of the simple present. So it means “it is adjective”
It is sweet dal-kom hae-yo
It is salty 짜요 jja-yo
It is sour 시큼해요shi-keum-hae-yo
It is bitter 써요sseo-yo
You can also describe the temperature of the food You might remember those words
It’s hot 뜨거워요 ddeu-geo-wo-yo
It’s Cold 식었어요 shik-eo-sseo-yo
You can describe the textures
It is chewy 질겨요 jil-gyeo-yo
It is soft 부드러워요 bu-deu-reo-wo-yo
It is crunchy 바삭해요 ba-sak-hae-yo
If you want to say it is very sweet, very hot, very crunchy You can add the word a-ju 아주
It is very spicy a-ju mae-wo-yo
It is very sweet a-ju dal-kom-hae-yo say x2
It is very hot ddeu-geo-wo-yox2
It is very crunchyx2
If you want to say it is too ____adjective__ too spicy too hot too sweet too chewy You add the word neo-mu 너무
It is too spicy neo-mu mae-wo-yo say x2
It is too hot ddeu-geo-wo-yo
It is too sweet dal-kom hae-yo
It is too chewy jil-gyeo-yo
This should be enough vocabulary to get you started. Check out the links in the description including a transcript, vocabulary charts, and merch store. Study hard, then off you go to the Korean restaurant. Have fun thanks for studying with me!
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Making Korean Verbs Negative Part 2
Hello My fellow students this is Making Korean Verbs Negative Part 2. In part one we learned two important words 안“an” which means “not” and 못 “mot” which means “can’t” and we learned how to add them to verbs to make them negative. In this lesson we will learn another way to make verbs negative and it will look kinda similar to ‘an’ and ‘mot’ but different You’ll see. I’ll show you.
Let’s start with “not”.
If you’ve got a verb like 자다 (ja-da) to sleep you can turn it into to not sleep like this:
First cut off the -da and then add + 지 않다 (ji an-da) to the end
Now we have to not sleep 자지 않다 ja-ji an-da.
Now we have a negative verb in the infinitive form. And from here we can conjugate it into any tense we like. For example the simple present
“Don’t sleep”
Ja-ji an-a 자지 않아
Ja-ji an-a-yo 자지 않아요
Jaji an-seum-ni-da
You can do this with any verb and any adjective because in Korean adjectives are verbs.
Now let’s do “can’t”
We’ll use ja-da again as an example “to sleep” let’s turn it into “to can’t sleep”
First we cut off the -da and then add + 지 못하다 (ji mot-ha-da) to the end
Now we have to cant sleep ja-ji mot-ha-da.
It’s a negative verb! And it can be conjugated into any tense you like. Here’s my preferred Example the simple present ‘I can’t sleep’ in the casual, polite and formal forms respectfully
나는 자지 못해 Na-neun ja-ji mot-hae
저는 자지 못해요 Jeo-neun ja-ji mot-hae-yo
저는 자지 못합니다 Jeo-neun ja-ji mot-ham-ni-da
This method can be used with ANY verb or ANY adjective.
And
it’s just that simple. We now know how to turn “to verb” into “ to not
verb” and “ to can’t verb”. Simple remove the -da and add “ji an-da” or
“ji mot-ha-da”. I works universally for any verb or adjective. Now go
forth and negate the practice words! Thanks for
studying with me.
WATCH THE LESSON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CtekiyQT70
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Making Negative Korean Verbs - Part1
This lesson is our first lesson on making verbs negative in Korean.
There are a couple ways to do it.
The first way is by adding “an” to the beginning of the verb. “an” is like the start of the word for “no” in Korean 아니요 (a-ni-yo).
So you take a verb like “to sleep” 자다 (ja-da). add 안 (an) to make it “to not sleep” 안자다 (an-ja-da)
How can you say “I do not sleep”
Remember how to conjugate?
나는 안자 na-neun an-ja
저는 안자요 jeo-neun an-ja-yo
저는 안잡니다 Jeo-neun an-jam-ni-da
You can conjugate these negative verbs into any tense you want.
You can do the same with adjectives, because in Korean adjectives are verbs For example “to be big” is 크다 (keu-da) We can add 안 (an) to make it 안크다 (an-keu-da) “to be not big”.
It’s not big is
안커 (an-keo)
안커요 (an-keo-yo)
안큽니다 (an-keum-ni-da)
Another way to make verbs negative is to add 못 (mot) in front of the verb. 못 (mot) means “cannot”. For example we can add 못 (mot) in front of 자다 (ja-da) to make it into can’t sleep (mot ja-da). I can’t sleep:
나는 못 자 (na-neun mot ja)
저는 못 자요 (jeo-neun mot ja-yo)
저는 못 잡니다 (jeo-neun mot jam-ni-da)
Please recognize there is a difference between saying ‘I don’t sleep’ and “I can’t sleep” Make sure you are using the one that means what you want to say.
And also: You can’t use 못 (mot) with adjectives. It doesn’t make sense in Korean to say “it can’t be big” 못 커요 (mot keo-yo). Don’t use mot with adjectives.
Now when it comes to 하다 (ha-da) verbs there is another way we can use 안 (an) and 못 (mot)
You know 하다 (ha-da) verbs. Ha-da means “to do” you can add it to the end of a word to make it a verb.
Like “to swim”
수영하다 (Su-yeong-ha-da)
수영 (Su-yeong) means “swim”
하다 (ha-da) means “to do”
So how do we say “to not swim”
Well! Because it’s a ha-da verb we put 안 (an) right here in the middle
수영 안 하다 (su-yeong-an-hada) and if we want to really be proper about it we add 을 or 를 (eul or reul) to the end of swim
수영을 안 하다 (suyeong-eul an ha-da)
Note that there are two spaces in this “word” for ”to not swim”.
“I don’t swim” polite form: 저는 수영을 안 해요 (jeo-neun su-yeong-eul an hae-yo.)
And we do the same thing with “can’t” 못 (mot) when you have a 하다 (ha-da) verb
You put 못 (mot) right on the middle
수영 못 하다 Suyeong mot-hada
And to be really proper add a 을 or 를 (eul or reul)
수영을 못 하다
I can’t swim polite form 저는 수영을 못 해요 (jeo-neun su-yeong-eul mot-hae-yo)
This means I can’t swim because I just don’t know how.
Now here’s the deal with the spaces
There is always a space between su-yeong-eul and mot
못 하다
If we have a space between mot and ha-da it means you can’t do it. You can’t do it at all, you just don’t know how.
못하다
If there is no space between mot and ha-da it means you can’t do it well. You can make an effort but it won’t be very good. su-yeong-eul mot hae-yo. I’m not gonna down but I’m not going to be able to show you a front stroke with anything resembling perfect technique.
Now Ha-da adjectives are different. You do not put the 안(an) in the middle
You put it at the start, just like with the non ha-da adjectives.
For example 뚱뚱하다 to be fat to make it to be not fat you say 안뚱뚱하다
Got it?
And we do not use the Korean word for “can’t”: 못 (mot) with Korean adjectives. That’s not grammatically correct.
Now you know two ways to make negative sentences in Korean.
This is only part one of our lesson on making verbs negative in Korean. There are more than two ways to do it! We'll learn more in future lessons, but let’s summarize what we learned today.
To add not to a verb or adjective put 안 (an) in front of it unless it is a ha-da verb in which case put 안 (an) in the middle of it. Right before the ha-da. And add 을 or 를 (eul or reul) to the end of the word that comes before the 안 하다 (an-ha-da). Make sure to include a space.
This ha-da style of negation works with verbs only, not adjectives. With ha-da adjectives put the 안 (an) at the front of the word.
To add can’t to a verb put 못 (mot) in front of it and leave a space between 못 (mot) and the verb. You cannot use 못 (mot) with adjectives.
In the case of ha-da verbs put 못 (mot) in the middle right before the ha-da and add 을 or 를 (eul or reul) to the end of the first part of the verb. If you want to say I can’t do it at all leave two spaces in your negative verb so that 못 (mot) stands alone. If you want to say I can’t do it well then eliminate the second space so that 못하다 (mot-ha-da) is all one word.
Thanks for studying with me!
WATCH THE LESSON!
https://youtu.be/P3w0DMiOqhU?si=IqvcdYfafpXE9SqL





