Adjectives are crucial for expressing thoughts, emotions, and descriptions in Korean. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, expanding your vocabulary with common adjectives will help you communicate more naturally.
In this post, you’ll learn 50 must-know Korean adjectives with their meanings, pronunciations, and example sentences. Save this list and start using these adjectives in daily conversations!
๐ Basic Korean Adjectives
These fundamental adjectives are used frequently in everyday conversations.
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ํฌ๋ค | keu-da | big, large |
| ์๋ค | jak-da | small, little |
| ๊ธธ๋ค | gil-da | long |
| ์งง๋ค | jjalp-da | short |
| ๋๋ค | nop-da | high, tall |
| ๋ฎ๋ค | nat-da | low |
| ๋ง๋ค | manh-da | many, a lot |
| ์ ๋ค | jeok-da | few, little |
| ๋น ๋ฅด๋ค | ppa-reu-da | fast |
| ๋๋ฆฌ๋ค | neu-ri-da | slow |
๐จ Colors & Appearance Adjectives
Use these adjectives to describe people, objects, and surroundings.
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ์๋ฆ๋ต๋ค | a-reum-dap-da | beautiful |
| ์์๋ค | ye-ppeu-da | pretty |
| ์์๊ธฐ๋ค | jal-saeng-gi-da | handsome |
| ๋ชป์๊ธฐ๋ค | mot-saeng-gi-da | ugly |
| ๊ท์ฝ๋ค | gwi-yeop-da | cute |
| ๊นจ๋ํ๋ค | kkae-kkeut-ha-da | clean |
| ๋๋ฝ๋ค | deo-reop-da | dirty |
| ๋ฐ๋ค | balk-da | bright |
| ์ด๋ก๋ค | eo-dup-da | dark |
| ํ๋ คํ๋ค | hwa-ryeo-ha-da | fancy, flashy |
๐ Emotions & Feelings Adjectives
These words help express different emotions and moods.
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ํ๋ณตํ๋ค | haeng-bok-ha-da | happy |
| ์ฌํ๋ค | seul-peu-da | sad |
| ํ๋๋ค | hwa-na-da | angry |
| ๋ฌด์ญ๋ค | mu-seop-da | scary |
| ํผ๊ณคํ๋ค | pi-gon-ha-da | tired |
| ์ฌ์ฌํ๋ค | sim-sim-ha-da | bored |
| ๋ง์กฑํ๋ค | man-jok-ha-da | satisfied |
| ๊ธด์ฅ๋๋ค | gin-jang-doe-da | nervous |
| ์ธ๋กญ๋ค | oe-rop-da | lonely |
| ๋๋๋ค | nol-lap-da | surprising |
๐ฝ๏ธ Taste & Texture Adjectives
Essential for describing food and flavors in Korean!
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ๋ง์๋ค | ma-sit-da | delicious, tasty |
| ๋ง์๋ค | mat-eop-da | not tasty |
| ๋ฌ๋ค | dal-da | sweet |
| ์ฐ๋ค | sseu-da | bitter |
| ์๋ค | si-da | sour |
| ์ง๋ค | jja-da | salty |
| ๋งต๋ค | maep-da | spicy |
| ์ฑ๊ฒ๋ค | sing-geop-da | bland |
| ๋ถ๋๋ฝ๋ค | bu-deu-reop-da | soft |
| ๋ฑ๋ฑํ๋ค | ttak-ttak-ha-da | hard, tough |
๐น Personality & Behavior Adjectives
Describe people’s personalities and attitudes in Korean.
| Korean | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| ์ฐฉํ๋ค | chak-ha-da | kind, nice |
| ์น์ ํ๋ค | chin-jeol-ha-da | friendly |
| ๋๋ํ๋ค | ttok-ttok-ha-da | smart |
| ๊ฒ์ผ๋ฅด๋ค | ge-eu-reu-da | lazy |
| ๋ถ์ง๋ฐํ๋ค | bu-ji-reon-ha-da | diligent |
| ์ฌ๋ฏธ์๋ค | jae-mi-it-da | fun, interesting |
| ์ง๋ฃจํ๋ค | ji-ru-ha-da | boring |
| ์ฉ๊ฐํ๋ค | yong-gam-ha-da | brave |
| ์ ์งํ๋ค | jeong-jik-ha-da | honest |
| ์์ฌ ๋ง๋ค | yok-sim manh-da | greedy |
๐ฏ Practice Time!
Test your knowledge by answering these questions in the comments:
1๏ธโฃ How do you say “delicious” in Korean? ๐ฝ๏ธ
2๏ธโฃ Whatโs the Korean word for “happy”? ๐
3๏ธโฃ How do you describe someone who is “kind” in Korean? โค๏ธ
Comment your answers below! ๐
๐ฅ Want to Learn More Korean?
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๐น Sports & Exercise Vocabulary
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