Age in Korea matters a lot!

Hello!

Today I will tell you about calling people in South Korea. Yes, calling people. There, in South Korea, they use their names, but more often they use words which can sound strange for tourists or random people.

Depending on where you’re from, the saying “age is just a number” might ring true. But in Korea, it’s a BIG number. Koreans have their own age-calculating system where your age is calculated based on your birth year. It's quite simple, in most of cases you have to add one year to your age. Knowing someone’s age will let people know where they stand on the super hierarchical Korean respect scale - they’ll know how to act, how to speak and how to listen.

When both of you are in the same age you can call yourselves friends. But what when you are younger or older? Only one year matters a lot.

Hyung is what boys call their older brothers, older men, and their close friends who are like their brothers.

Oppa is for girls same meaning as Hyung, but it also means boyfriend which makes it confusing sometimes.

Eonni (unnie) is what girls call their elder sister, older women and close friends who are like their sisters.

Nuna (noona) is for boys same meaning as Eonni, but probably it can mean a girlfriend too.

Dongsaeng means younger sister or brother, so people use it when they're talking with someone younger. If you want you can use namdongsaeng what is only about younger boys or men.

Of course if you would use someone's name probably nothing will happen, but using those terms tells about your recpect and propriety. If you would use it in South Korea while you're not Korean, people will look at you differently and have respect to you too.

See you soon!

/Karotka