How to Say Hello in Korean: Annyeonghaseyo and the Formality Levels That Matter

Hello in Korean is 안녕하세요, romanized annyeonghaseyo and pronounced roughly ahn-nyung-ha-SEH-yo. It literally means something like "are you at peace?", it works with almost anyone you will ever meet, and it is the one greeting you cannot get in trouble with. But Korean does something Spanish and English do not: the greeting itself changes shape depending on who you are talking to. The rest of this guide covers the greetings Koreans actually use, the formality levels behind them, the pronunciation the romanization quietly hides, and why saying goodbye in Korean requires a decision that English never asks you to make.

The Essential Korean Greetings

Two things worth noticing straight away. Korean has no time-of-day greetings the way Spanish and French do. 안녕하세요 covers morning, afternoon and night. 좋은 아침이에요 ("good morning") exists, but it is a borrowed idea and mostly lives in offices and among younger people. If you use it at 8 am with your neighbour, you will sound like a translation.

And 식사하셨어요? is not small talk about lunch. Asking whether someone has eaten is a warm, slightly old-fashioned way of saying "I care how you are doing". The correct answer is just 네, 먹었어요 (yes, I ate), even if you did not.

Formality: The Thing Korean Actually Cares About

This is the section that matters. In Spanish, hola works with your boss and with your best friend. In Korean, the same greeting in the wrong register is either rude or comically stiff. There are three levels you need, built from the same root 안녕 (peace, wellbeing).

안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo), the polite level. This is the -요 form, and it is where 95% of your Korean life happens. Shopkeepers, colleagues, taxi drivers, your friend's parents, strangers your own age, anyone you have just met. If you learn exactly one greeting, learn this one and use it everywhere. It is never rude. At worst it is slightly too polite, which costs you nothing.

안녕하십니까 (annyeonghasimnikka), the formal level. The -습니다 form. This is the register of news broadcasts, military service, airline announcements, job interviews and formal presentations. Notice that the spelling ends in -니까 but you say it -nimkka. It is deferential and impersonal at the same time, which is exactly the point. Use it in a job interview and you signal that you understand the room. Use it with a friend and you are making a joke.

안녕 (annyeong), the casual level. Also called 반말 (banmal), plain speech. Reserved for close friends, people clearly younger than you, children, and family. Here is the trap: you do not choose banmal, it is offered to you. A Korean will say 말 놓으세요 ("drop the speech level") or simply start using it with you. Until then, jumping to 안녕 with someone you just met, even a peer, reads as presumptuous rather than friendly. When in doubt, stay at 안녕하세요 and let the other person come down.

The reason this feels so foreign is that Korean formality tracks relationships, not situations. It is not about being in a formal place. It is about who is older, who is senior, and how long you have known each other. That relationship gets encoded in every single sentence you speak, starting with hello.

Pronunciation: What the Romanization Hides

Annyeonghaseyo looks like six syllables of English. It is not.

The eo in nyeong is not "yong". The vowel ㅓ is closer to the u in "cup" than the o in "song". English speakers reliably say ahn-nyong-ha-se-yo, which is the single loudest giveaway. Aim for nyuhng.

The double n is one sound, held. 안녕 is not an-nyeong with a pause. The ㄴ carries over and links into the next syllable.

하 almost disappears. In fast, natural speech, annyeonghaseyo collapses toward annyeong-aseyo. The h softens between vowels. Nobody teaches this, and it is why the phrase you learned never quite matches the phrase you hear.

The rhythm is flat. Korean does not stress syllables the way English does. If you punch SE in -seyo, you sound like a foreigner reading. The whole phrase rides on an even keel with a small lift at the end.

This is exactly where written guides run out of road. No romanization on a page will teach your mouth ㅓ, and reading ahn-nyong quietly trains a habit you will spend months undoing. The only fix is to hear a native say the whole phrase, then say it back out loud, several times, until your mouth stops resisting. That listen and repeat loop is called shadowing, and it is the fastest way to turn a phrase you recognise into one you can produce under pressure. It is how the Hyperpolyglot app handles every phrase: real sentences, native audio, looped until they come out automatically. Available on iOS, Android, and Web.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Saying 안녕 to be friendly. It is the opposite of friendly with someone you just met. Casual speech is a privilege that gets granted, not a warmth you offer. Default to 안녕하세요 every time.
2. Using 여보세요 in person. It is a phone word. Saying it face to face is like answering your front door with "hello, who's calling?".
3. Pronouncing eo as "oh". Annyeonghaseyo, not annyonghaseyo. Fix this one and half your accent problem is gone.
4. Bowing wrong or not at all. The greeting is physical. A small nod of the head with 안녕하세요 is standard, a deeper bow for elders and formal settings. Saying the words with a stiff neck reads as cold.
5. Confusing 가세요 and 계세요 on the way out. See below. This is the mistake that gets a smile from Koreans every time.

Bonus: How to Say Goodbye in Korean

English has one word. Korean makes you answer a question first: who is leaving?

• 안녕히 가세요▶ (annyeonghi gaseyo), literally "go in peace". You say this to the person who is leaving. You are the one staying.
• 안녕히 계세요▶ (annyeonghi gyeseyo), literally "stay in peace". You say this when you are the one leaving. The other person stays.
• 안녕히 주무세요▶ (annyeonghi jumuseyo), "sleep in peace", the polite good night.
• 잘 가▶ (jal ga), casual "bye", to a friend who is leaving.
• 또 봐요▶ (tto bwayo), "see you again", polite and friendly.
• 들어가세요▶ (deureogaseyo), "go inside", the standard way to end a phone call warmly.

The rule in one line: leaving the shop, you say 계세요 to the owner who stays. Walking your guest to the door, you say 가세요. If both of you are walking away, either works, and 안녕히 가세요 is the safe pick. Get this pair right and you have cleared the bar that most learners trip on.

Learn 안녕하세요, 반가워요, 안녕히 가세요 and 안녕히 계세요 with real audio, drill them until they are reflexes rather than translations, and you can open and close a conversation anywhere in Korea without thinking about it.

Keep Reading

• Language Islands -- the real-sentence method that turns greetings into actual conversations
• The Shadowing Technique -- how to drill pronunciation until it becomes automatic
• How to Learn Multiple Languages at the Same Time