Whether you’re a casual listener or a dedicated K-pop stan, learning essential Korean K-pop vocabulary will make your fan experience deeper and more enjoyable! From fan chants and idol interactions to concerts and comebacks, this list covers the most important K-pop terms, expressions, and slang every fan should know.
๐งโ๐ค K-Pop Idol & Artist Vocabulary
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ์์ด๋ | a-i-dol | Idol |
| ์ฐ์์ธ | yeon-ye-in | Celebrity |
| ๊ฐ์ | ga-su | Singer |
| ๋ฉค๋ฒ | mem-beo | Member |
| ๋ฆฌ๋ | ri-deo | Leader (of a group) |
| ๋ฉ์ธ๋ณด์ปฌ | me-in bo-keol | Main vocalist |
| ๋ฉ์ธ๋์ | me-in den-seo | Main dancer |
| ๋ํผ | rae-peo | Rapper |
| ๋ง๋ด | mak-nae | Youngest member |
| ์ ๋ฐฐ | seon-bae | Senior (in industry) |
| ํ๋ฐฐ | hu-bae | Junior (in industry) |
| ํธ๋ ์ด๋ | teu-re-i-ni | Trainee |
๐ K-Pop Music & Album Terms
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ๋ ธ๋ | no-rae | Song |
| ์จ๋ฒ | el-beom | Album |
| ๋ฏธ๋ ์จ๋ฒ | mi-ni el-beom | Mini album |
| ์ ๊ท ์จ๋ฒ | jeong-gyu el-beom | Full album |
| ์ฑ๊ธ | sing-geul | Single |
| ์ปด๋ฐฑ | keom-baek | Comeback |
| ๋ฐ๋ท | de-bwi | Debut |
| ์ฝ์ ํธ | kon-sep-teu | Concept |
| ํฐ์ | ti-jeo | Teaser |
| ๋ฎค์ง๋น๋์ค | myu-jik-bi-di-o | Music video |
| ์๋ฌด | an-mu | Choreography |
| ์๋ฌด ์์ | an-mu yeong-sang | Dance practice video |
๐ฏ K-Pop Fan Vocabulary & Slang
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ํฌ | paen | Fan |
| ํฌ๋ค | paen-deom | Fandom |
| ํฌ์ธ์ธํ | paen-ssa-in-hwae | Fansign event |
| ์ฝ์ํธ | kon-seo-teu | Concert |
| ์์๋ด | eung-won-bong | Lightstick |
| ๊ตฟ์ฆ | gut-jeu | Merchandise |
| ํฌ์นด (ํฌํ ์นด๋) | po-ka | Photocard |
| ์ค์ผ์ค | seu-ke-jul | Schedule |
| ์ง์บ | jik-kaem | Fancam |
| ๋ฌด๋ | mu-dae | Stage |
| ์ต์ฝ | aeng-kol | Encore |
| ์ฌํฌ | ol-kil | All-kill (chart dominance) |
๐ฃ๏ธ Popular K-Pop Expressions & Phrases
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ์ฌ๋ํด์! | sa-rang-hae-yo! | I love you! |
| ์์ด๋ ์ต๊ณ ์์! | a-i-dol choe-go-ye-yo! | The idol is the best! |
| ์ปด๋ฐฑ ์ธ์ ์์? | keom-baek eon-je-ye-yo? | When is the comeback? |
| ๋ฐ๋ท ์ถํํด์! | de-bwi chuk-ha-hae-yo! | Congrats on your debut! |
| ๋๋ฌด ์์๊ฒผ์ด์ / ์๋ป์! | neo-mu jal-saeng-gyeot-seo-yo / yep-peo-yo! | So handsome / beautiful! |
| ๋ฌด๋๊ฐ ๋ฉ์ก์ด์! | mu-dae-ga meot-jyeot-seo-yo! | The stage was amazing! |
| ํฌ์ด์์! | paen-i-e-yo! | I’m a fan! |
| ์ต์ ๋ ๋๊ตฌ์์? | choe-ae-neun nu-gu-ye-yo? | Who is your bias? |
| ์ ์ต์ ๋ ___์์. | je choe-ae-neun ___-ye-yo. | My bias is ___. |
| ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋๋ฌด ์ข์์! | mok-so-ri-ga neo-mu jo-a-yo! | Their voice is so nice! |
๐ถ Fan Chants & Cheer Terms
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ์์๋ฒ | eung-won-beop | Fan chant guide |
| ๊ตฌํธ | gu-ho | Slogan/chant |
| ๋ผ์ฐฝ | tte-chang | Group singing/fanchant |
| ์ง์บ | jik-kaem | Fancam |
| ์ค์๊ฐ ์ฐจํธ | sil-si-gan cha-teu | Real-time chart |
๐ก Bonus K-Pop Vocabulary
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ์ค๋ ฅ | sil-ryeok | Talent/skill |
| ์ธ๊ธฐ | in-gi | Popularity |
| ํฌ์๋น์ค | paen-seo-bi-seu | Fan service |
| ์์ผ ์ด๋ฒคํธ | saeng-il i-ben-teu | Birthday event |
| ๋ฌด๋์์ | mu-dae ui-sang | Stage outfit |
| ๋ฆฌ๋์ญ | ri-deo-ship | Leadership |
| ์๋ฐ | eum-ban | Record/disc |
| ๋ น์ | nok-eum | Recording |
| ์ฐ์ต์ค | yeon-seub-sil | Practice room |
| ์์ ๋ฐฉ์ก | eum-ak bang-song | Music show |
๐ Practice Time!
Answer in the comments:
1๏ธโฃ What is the Korean word for โfandomโ?
2๏ธโฃ How do you say โcomebackโ in Korean?
3๏ธโฃ What do you call the youngest member of a group?
๐ Want to Learn More?
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