How it works
These random Korean words are everyday nouns, verbs, describing verbs, greetings, counting words and loanwords from English. Each card shows the Hangul and its reading in Latin letters; the meaning waits under a cover.
Read the full guide
Read it, say it, then tap
Press Pick 5 new Korean words. Read the Hangul aloud with the romanized reading as a guide, say the meaning, then tap Show meaning for the English meaning and the part of speech. The Word type list under the button narrows the draw to one group.
Two sets of numbers
Korean counts with two sets of numerals, and Counting words holds both: 셋 (set) is the native three and 삼 (sam) the Sino-Korean three. The native set counts people and things, with a counter such as 명 (myeong) for people. The Sino-Korean set serves for dates, money and minutes.
Tips
- Start with Loanwords from English: 커피 (keopi) and 버스 (beoseu) are words you can already guess.
- An apostrophe in a reading only splits syllables: 친구 is chin'gu, chin then gu.
Questions and answers
What is a describing verb?
A Korean word that English translates with an adjective, such as 크다 (keuda), big. Korean grammar treats these as verbs, so they stand here in dictionary form, ending in 다 like the action verbs.
Which romanization does this page use?
Revised Romanization, South Korea's official system, as Wiktionary prints it for each word. It uses plain letters with no accents: eo and eu each stand for one Hangul vowel, ㅓ and ㅡ.
Where do the words and meanings come from?
The choice is ours, from no exam or course list. Each word's part of speech, meaning and reading come from its Korean entry on English Wiktionary, and a loanword is marked as English only where that entry's etymology says so.