Korean Slang // 25 Super Slang Terms You Must Learn (for 2025)

Sound Like A Native // Discover These Korean Slang Words You Must Know

Do you want to learn something that you can’t find from the textbooks?

Do you want to sound more like a native Korean speaker?

Do you want to be able to crack a joke among your Korean friends like a true local and blow their minds?

Say no more. Today, I provide you with some up-to-date 2024 Korean slang that is spoken every single day in Korea!

Learning slang is a superb hack for levelling up your language ability in an instant.

This is the Korean slang that you will hear on the streets, and on your favourite Korean Dramas or movies.

Your Koreans friends likely to speak to each other at a café in Seoul using these words.

Not only is it going to make you sound much cooler and funnier, but you’ll also be able to understand more recent Korean culture and the language in greater depth.

This is the fun part of language learning for sure!

These Korean slang words are rather playful and colloquial, often used when texting and chatting online.

Try to practice and actually use these phrases by yourself once you are done reading this post, put them to use with your Korean friends! You’ll be sure to raise a few eyebrows!

We’ll give you some primary examples with explanations about them and then follow these with some bonus terms which are used all the time!

Korean Slang #1 – 대박 (Dae-Bak)

Korean Slang #2 – 심쿵 (Sim-Kung)

Korean Slang #3 – 빡친다 (Bbak-Chin-Da)

Korean Slang #4 – 코스크, 턱스크 (Ko-Seukeu, Teok-Seukeu)

Korean Slang #5 – 엄친아 / 엄친딸 (Eom-Chin-Ah / Eom-Chin-Ttal)

Korean Slang #6 – 뭥미 (Mwong-Mi)

Korean Slang #7 – 썸 (Sseom)

Korean Slang #8 – 횰로 (Hyo-Lo)

Korean Slang – BONUS

FREEBIE EXTRA – Free Korean Slang Quiz

Korean Slang – FAQ’s

Korean Slang #1 – 대박 (Dae-Bak)

Play 대박

TRANSLATION – Awesome

You can use this phrase to describe anything and everything from your food, your mood or any recent events that impact you.

The phrase means “awesome“, “a big hit” and/or “a great success”.

Here are some examples how to use this phrase. 

• You’re walking on the street and a gorgeous looking man walks by. Before you even realize it, you say “Dae-Bak” as you stare at him walking away.
• Your friend cooks you a delicious meal and as you enjoy the first bite you say “Dae-Bak”.
• You start to watch the first episode of a new Korean drama and as it comes to the end, you shout “Dae-Bak” and quickly put on the next episode.

Very useful and also equally easy to apply in day to day speak!

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Korean Slang #2 – 심쿵 (Sim-Kung)

Play 심쿵

TRANSLATION – Heart skips a beat / Heartthrob

This is a shortened word which is abbreviated from Play 심장이 쿵쿵 (Simjangi Kungkung).

심장 (Sim-Jang) means heart and 쿵쿵 (Kung-Kung) is the thud sound of your heart.

So, this word usually refers to when you have a mini-heart attack due to cute little animals, seeing your favourite crush or when you meet someone you find super attractive.

The English equivalent would simply be heartthrob.

It literally means ‘my heart skips a beat’. This is how you can use this phrase in your daily life.

• When I saw him smiling back at me, I went completely “Sim-Kung”.

TOP TIP – To make this even more extreme, you can use Play 심쿵사 (Sim-Kung-Sa) which comes from Play 심장이 쿵하고 사망 Simjangi Kunghago Samang’.

Play 사망 (Sa-Mang) means death. 

Therefore, this can mean ‘The heart has suddenly stopped’. So, 심쿵사 means ‘Wow! I am so excited and happy, that my heart is stopping!’.

Essentially it’s a way to further emphasise 심쿵 (Sim-Kung).

Korean Slang #3 – 빡친다 (Bbak-Chin-Da)

Play 빡친다

TRANSLATION – P!ssed Off

This is very close to a curse word.

However, it is still considered more of a Korean slang word than a swear word as this can be used when you are very p!ssed off, annoyed, irritated and/or angry.

It can also mean ‘I went mad’ or ‘I went nuts’.

You might shout this if you bash your elbow against a wall, kick the table or if someone really annoys you!

Kind of like when you’d shout “sh!t” or “fcuk” in English.

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Korean Slang #4 – 코스크, 턱스크 (Ko-Seukeu, Teok-Seukeu)

Play 코스크, 턱스크

TRANSLATION – Something about how you wear a mask!

COVID-19 inspired

These slang terms are perhaps the newest and youngest of all the Korean slang we will talk about today.

코스크 and 턱스크 actually recently emerged due to COVID-19.

We all know that one friend who always wears the mask with their nose exposed or hang their mask on their chin… right?

I’m pretty confident that you have guessed by now what this Korean slang refers to!

• 코 (Ko) means nose
• 턱 (Teok) means chin

How can we use these words though? Let’s see some examples.

• Don’t even bother wearing a mask if you’re going to wear 코스크 Ko-Seukeu!
• Please be considerate of others and don’t 턱스크 Teok-Seuk.

Nice and simple, one for the nose, one for the chin!

Korean Slang #5 – 엄친아 / 엄친딸 (Eom-Chin-Ah / Eom-Chin-Ttal)

Play 엄친아 Play 엄친딸

TRANSLATION – The Perfect Child

These are shortened words from Play 엄마 친구 아들 / Play 엄마 친구 딸 which means My mom’s friend’s son / My mom’s friend’s daughter.

Have you ever met someone who is seemingly perfect in every way?

Good looking with a great figure, smart, successful and earns a lot of money – Nope, me neither.

However, it seems like our moms always know a friend who has this kind of son / daughter.

Especially as we were growing up with Korean parents, we always heard about this ‘person’ who is good at everything they engage in.

As unhealthy as it is, Korean moms love to compare their own child to their friends (we can’t help it, it’s part of our culture)!

Our moms wanted us to be like him / her AKA “the perfect child”. 

That, in a nutshell, is what this Korean slang term refers to, the perfect child!

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Korean Slang #6 – 뭥미 (Mwong-Mi)

Play 뭥미

TRANSLATION – What The Hell!

This slang actually started from the mistyping of ‘뭐임 / Mwo-Im’ in Korean and eventually became a new slang which oddly enough still maintains the same meaning.

That meaning is ‘What the hell / heck’ or ‘what is this?’.

Here are some examples of how you can use this Korean slang.

• When you see something questionable that you’re quite unsure of, then you can say Play 이게 뭥미? Ige Mwongmi?
  • This means “what is this?”
• When someone does something which irritates you, you can say Play 그게 뭥미?! Geuge Mwongmi?!
  • This means “what the heck?!”

Korean Slang #7 – 썸 (Sseom)

Play 썸

TRANSLATION – Reference to a spark between two people

This slang is originated from the English word ‘something’.

It refers to something between two people who are not quite in a relationship nor dating yet.

When two people are just getting to know each other and starting to develop feelings, Koreans tend to use this slang to describe the relationship.

Almost like there is a clear spark that everyone can see.

There are several ways to use this slang in a daily conversation such as…

• When you hardly see your friend that you’d normally see all the time, you can ask Play 너 요즘 썸타냐? Neo Yo Jeum Sseom Ta Nya?’ which means ‘Are you seeing someone lately?’
• It also can be transformed into a noun ‘썸남 Sseom-Nam (Men), 썸녀 SSeom-Nyeo (Women)’. You can use this noun in a sentence such as Play 쟤가 니 썸남맞지? Jyaega-Ni -Sseomnam-Majji?’ which means ‘Isn’t that the guy you’re seeing?’.

Korean Slang #8 – 횰로 (Hyo-Lo)

Play 횰로

TRANSLATION – Enjoying Single Life

This is also a very new Korean slang word which combines another Korean word Play 홀로 Hol-Lo which means ‘alone’ with an English slang ‘YOLO’.

So alone… and YOLO. Any guesses?

As you probably observed, this slang refers to someone who is single and likes to spend money and invest in things to make themselves happy with no regrets.

How do we use this in a sentence? Let’s have a look!

• I no longer waste my time on meaningless relationships anymore, I am a Play 횰로족 Hyo-Ly-Jok. (‘족 Jok’ means family or also can refer to a group of people).

Korean Slang – BONUS

So that’s a few Korean slang words for you to start using right about now!

But we’ve got more!

We won’t delve into as much detail with these but there’s plenty more Korean slang to learn and we wanted to give you some of our favourites.

Let’s discover them now:

• Best friend / BFF | Play 베프 bepeu
• Boyfriend | Play 남친 namchin
• Dirty mind | Play 음란마귀 eumnanmagwi
• Disgust | Play 극혐 geukyeom
• Facebook | Play 페북 pebuk – the trendier, shortened version of the full translation which is Play 페이스북  peiseubuk
• Girlfriend | Play 여친 yeochin
• Great body | Play 몸짱 momjjang
• LOL | Play 현웃 hyeonut
• McDonalds | Play 맥날 maengnal the trendier, shortened version of the full translation which is Play 맥도날드 maekdonaldeu
• My treat | Play 내가 쏠게 naega ssolge
• OMG | Play 헐 heol
• A player | Play 바람둥이 baramdungi
• Selfie | Play 셀카 selka
• SURPRISE! | Play 깜놀 kkamnol
• TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday) | Play 불금 bulgeum
• Very cool | Play 쩐다 jjeonda
• World class (not too dissimilar to GOAT) | Play 클래스 keullaeseu

There we have it – plenty of new Korean slang words to get stuck into.

Which is your favourite? Or did we miss any out that you use when speaking Korean?

Drop us comment below and tell us, we’ll include our favourites in the blog!

If you like learning about Slang in other languages then check out our blog about Chinese slang here, Japanese slang here, Italian slang, Russian slang and also Vietnamese slang too!

Korean Slang || QUIZ

OK it’s time to put your Korean slang to the test.

How many can you remember?

Here you will be faced with 12 randomly picked slang from this blog post, let’s see how many you remembered!

Share your score in the comments below and good luck!

Time is Up!

Time's up

Korean Slang || FAQs

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