๊ฐ์ [gam-jeong] (emotion) is expressed both verbally and physically in Korean language. Just like in English, there are different words appropriate for every emotion. This article will be your guide to wisely choosing which Korean word to use and when to use it to express the exact emotion you are aiming for.
Primary emotions ๊ธฐ๋ณธ ๊ฐ์ [gi-bon gam-jeong]
Joy ๊ธฐ์จ [gi-ppeum]
- Here are some different words to express this emotion:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ํ๋ณตํ๋ค | haeng-bok-ha-da | (be) happy |
| ์ฆ๊ธฐ๋ค | jeul-gi-da | enjoy |
| ์ข์ํ๋ค | jo-a-ha-da | like / love |
| ์ ๋๋ค | jal dwe-da | good for (someone) |
| ๋คํ์ด๋ค | da-haeng-i-da | what a relief |
| ๋ง์กฑํ๋ค | man-jog-ha-da | satisfied / happy |
| ์ถํํ๋ค | chug-ha-ha-da | congratulations |
| ๊ฐ์ฌํ๋ค | gam-sa-ha-da | grateful / thankful |
| ์ฌ๋ฏธ์๋ค | jae-mi-it-da | interesting / fun |
| ์๊ธฐ๋ค | ut-gi-da | funny |
- Sample phrases expressing joyful emotion:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ํ๋ณตํด์. | haeng-bog-hae-yo. | I am happy. |
| ์ ๋์ด์. | jal dwaet-eo-yo. | Good for you. |
| ๋คํ์ด์์. | da-haeng-i-e-yo. | What a relief. |
| ์ต๊ณ ์์. | choe-go-ye-yo. | Youโre the best. |
| ์ฆ๊ฑฐ์ ์ด์. | jeul-geo-wot-eo-yo. | I had fun. |
| ์ถํํด์. | chug-ha-hae-yo. | Congratulations. |
| ์ ํ์ด์. | jal haet-eo-yo. | Good job. |
| ๋๋จํด์. | dae-dan-hae-yo. | Amazing. |
| ๋ถ๋ฌ์์. | bu-leo-wo-yo. | I envy you. |
| ๋์์ด ๋ผ์ ๊ธฐ๋ป์. | do-um-i dwae-seo gi-ppeo-yo. | I am glad to be of help. |
Sadness ์ฌํ [seul-peum]
- Here are some different words to express this emotion:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์ธ๋กญ๋ค | oe-lob-da | lonely |
| ์ฐ์ธํ๋ค | u-ul-ha-da | depressed |
| ๋ถํํ๋ค | bul-haeng-ha-da | unhappy |
| ์ ๋งํ๋ค | jeol-mang-ha-da | despair |
| ๋ฏธ์ํ๋ค | mi-an-ha-da | sorry |
| ์ค๋งํ๋ค | sil-mang-ha-da | disappointed |
| ๋ถํํ๋ค | bul-pyeong-ha-da | complain |
| ์ต์ธํ๋ค | eog-ul-ha-da | unfair |
| ๊ฐ๋ง ์๋ค | hui-mang-i eob-da | hopeless |
| ํฌ๊ธฐํ๋ค | po-gi-ha-da | give up |
- Sample phrases expressing sad emotions:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ๋๋ฌด ์ธ๋ก์์. | neo-mu oe-lo-wo-yo. | Iโm so lonely. |
| ์ฐ์ธํด์. | u-ul-hae-yo. | Iโm depressed. |
| ์ฌํ ์ผ์ด์์. | seul-peun il-i-e-yo. | Itโs sad. |
| ์ ๋ง์ ์ด์์. | jeol-mang-jeog-i-e-yo. | Iโm in despair. |
| ์ ๊ฐ์ด์์. | yu-gam-i-e-yo. | Sorry for your loss. |
| ์ค๋ง์ด์์ | sil-mang-i-e-yo. | Such a disappointment. |
| ๋ถํํ์ง ๋ง์ธ์. | bul-pyeong-ha-ji ma-se-yo. | Stop complaining. |
| ์ต์ธํด์. | eog-ul-hae-yo. | Itโs unfair. |
| ๊ฐ๋ง์ด ์์ด์. | ga-mang-i eob-eo-yo. | What a hopeless thought. |
| ์ต์
์ ๋ ์ด์์. | choe-ag-ui nal-i-e-yo. | Worst day ever. |
Fear ๋๋ ค์ [du-lyeo-um]
- Here are some different words to express this emotion:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ๋ฌด์ญ๋ค | mu-seob-da | scary |
| ๊ณตํฌ์ค๋ฝ๋ค | gong-po-seu-leob-da | horror |
์๋ฆ ๋๋ค /
์๋ฆ ๋ผ์น๋ค | so-leum dod-da /
so-leum kki-chi-da | goosebumps |
| ๋์ฐํ๋ค | kkeum-jjig-ha-da | horrible |
| ๋๋ผ๋ค | nol-la-da | startle |
| ๊ฒ๋๋ค | geob-na-da | scared |
| ๋นํฉํ๋ค | dang-hwang-ha-da | panic |
| ์์ฌ์์ฌํ๋ค | a-seul-a-seul-ha-da | thrilling |
| ๊ธด์ฅํ๋ค | gin-jang-ha-da | nervous |
| ๋๋ ต๋ค | du-lyeob-da | afraid |
- Sample expressions of fear:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์ด๋จธ! | eo-meo! | Oh my goodness! |
| ๋์ฐํด์. | kkeum-jjig-hae-yo. | How horrible! |
| ๋ชป ๋ณด๊ฒ ์ด์. | mot bo-get-eo-yo. | I canโt watch it! |
| ์์๋ ๋ชปํด์. | sang-sang-do mot-hae-yo. | I canโt even imagine it! |
| ์ฌ์ฅ์ด ๋ฐ์ด์. | sim-jang-i ttwi-eo-yo. | My heart is beating. |
| ๊ธด์ฅํด์ ์์๋ ๋์. | gin-jang-hae-seo sig-eun-ttam na-yo. | I'm sweating because I'm nervous. |
| ์๋ฆ ๋์์ด์. | so-leum dod-at-eo-yo. | I got goosebumps. |
| ๋๋ ค์ด ์๊ฐ์ด ๋ค์ด์. | du-lyeo-un saeng-gag-i deul-eo-yo. | I think I'm afraid. |
| ๋ฌด์ญ๊ฒ ์๊ฒผ์ด์. | mu-seob-ge saeng-gyeot-eo-yo. | Looks frightening. |
์๋ฆ ๋์์. /
์๋ฆ ๋ผ์ณ์. | so-leum dod-a-yo /
so-leum kki-chyeo-yo | Creepy. |
Anger ๋ถ๋
ธ [bun-no]
- Here are some different words to express this emotion:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ํ๋๋ค | hwa-na-da | angry |
| ์ง์ฆ ๋๋ค | jja-jeung-na-da | annoy |
| ๋ฐ๋ค | mib-da | hateful |
| ๊ดด๋กญ๋ค | goe-lob-da | torment |
| ๋ถ์พํ๋ค | bul-kwae-ha-da | unpleasant |
| ๋ฏธ์น๋ค | mi-chi-da | mad |
| ์ด๋ฐ๋ค | yeol-bat-da | burn with anger |
| ์์ํ๋ค | sog-sang-ha-da | upset |
| ๊ธฐ๋ถ ๋์๋ค | gi-bun na-ppeu-da | bad mood |
| ๋ถ๋
ธํ๋ค | bun-no-ha-da | furious |
- Sample phrases expressing anger:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ๊บผ์ ธ! | kkeo-jyeo! | Get lost! |
| ๋ด ์์ ๋ํ๋์ง ๋ง. | nae ap-e na-ta-na-ji ma. | Get out of my face. |
| ๋๋ฌด ์์ํด. | neo-mu sog-sang-hae. | Iโm so upset. |
| ๋ฏธ์น๊ฒ ์ด. | mi-chi-get-eo. | Youโre driving me mad. |
| ๋ฏธ์ณค์ด? | mi-chyeot-eo? | Are you crazy? |
| ์ ์ฅ! | jen-jang! | Damn it! |
| ์ฉ์ ๋ชป ํด. | yong-seo mot hae. | Itโs unforgivable. |
| ์ง์ง ์ง์ฆ ๋. | jin-jja jja-jeung na. | Itโs so annoying. |
| ์ด๋ฐ์. | yeol-bat-a. | Iโm burning with anger. |
| ๋ ๋ฏธ์. | neo mi-wo. | I hate you. |
Confusion ํผ๋์ค๋ฌ์ [hon-lan-seu-leo-um]
- Here are some different words to express this emotion:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ๋ถํ์คํ๋ค | bul-hwag-sil-ha-da | unsure |
| ๋ถ์ํ๋ค | bul-an-ha-da | anxious |
| ๋นํฉํ๋ค | dang-hwang-ha-da | bewildered |
| ๊ฑฑ์ ํ๋ค | geog-jeong-ha-da | worry |
| ์์ด๋ค | sog-i-da | deceive |
| ๋ฉํ๋ค | meong-ha-da | daze |
| ๋น์ทํ๋ค | bi-seut-ha-da | similar |
| ํท๊ฐ๋ฆฌ๋ค | het-gal-li-da | confused |
| ๋ถ์ ํํ๋ค | bu-jeong-hwag-ha-da | inaccurate |
| ๋ง์ฐํ๋ค | mag-yeon-ha-da | vague |
- Sample phrases expressing confused emotions:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ๋ชฐ๋ผ์. | mol-la-yo. | I donโt know. |
| ๋ถํ์คํด์. | bul-hwag-sil-hae-yo. | Iโm not sure. |
| ์ด๋กํ์ง? | eo-tteog-ha-ji? | What should I do? |
| ๋๋ฌด ํท๊ฐ๋ ค. | neo-mu het-gal-lyeo. | Iโm so confused. |
| ๋น์ทํ๊ฒ ์๊ฒผ๋ค. | bi-seut-ha-ge saeng-gyeot-da. | They look so much alike. |
| ์ ๊ณจ๋ผ์ผ ๋ผ. | jal gol-la-ya dwae. | Choose wisely. |
| ์๊ฐํ ์๊ฐ ์ข ์ค. | saeng-gag-hal si-gan jom jwo. | Let me think about it. |
| ๋ ๋ฐ๋ผ ํ ๊ฒ. | neo tta-la hal-ge. | Iโll follow your lead. |
| ์ผ! ๊ฑฑ์ ํ์์. | ya! geog-jeong-haet-jan-a. | Hey! You got me worried. |
| ์ค๋ช
ํด ๋ด. | seol-myeong-hae bwa. | Explain it. |
Shyness ๋ถ๋๋ฌ์ [bu-kkeu-leo-um]
- Here are some different words to express this emotion:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์ฐฝํผํ๋ค | chang-pi-ha-da | embarrassing |
| ์์ฌํ๋ค | so-sim-ha-da | timid |
| ์์ค๋ค | su-jub-da | shy |
| ์ฃผ์ ํ๋ค | ju-jeo-ha-da | hesitate |
| ์ฐจ๋ถํ๋ค | cha-bun-ha-da | demure |
| ๋ด์ฑ์ ์ด๋ค | nae-seong-jeog-i-da | introvert |
| ์ฅ์ค๋ฝ๋ค | ssug-seu-leob-da | ashamed |
| ๊ฒธ์ํ๋ค | gyeom-son-ha-da | humble |
| ์จ์ํ๋ค | on-sun-ha-da | docile |
| ์์ ์๋ค | ja-sin eobt-da | unconfident |
- Sample phrases to express shy emotions:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์ฐฝํผํด! | chang-pi-hae! | How shameful! |
| ์ฅ์ค๋ฌ์์ ๋ชป ์ฐธ๊ฒ ์ด์. | ssug-seu-leo-wo-seo mot cham-get-eo-yo. | I canโt help it, Iโm so shy. |
| ์ ๋ฐ ์ด๋ฌ์ง ๋ง. | jebal ileoji ma. | Please donโt do this. |
| ๋ฐ๋ณด ๊ฐ์. | babo gat-a. | How stupid. |
| ๋ฐ๋ณด ๋ฉ์ฒญ์ด! | ba-bo meong-cheong-i | Stupid fool! |
| ๋นํฉ์ค๋ฌ์์ ํ ๋ง์ด ์์ด. | dang-hwang-seu-leo-wo-seo hal mal-i eob-eo. | Iโm so embarrassed, I am speechless. |
| ์์ด์ง๊ณ ์ถ๋ค. | eob-eo-ji-go sip-da. | I want to vanish. |
| ๋๋ง๊ฐ๊ณ ์ถ์ด. | do-mang-ga-go sip-eo. | I want to flee. |
| ์จ๊ณ ์ถ์ด. | sum-go sip-eo. | I want to hide. |
Hurt ์ํ [a-peum]
- Here are some different words to express hurt emotion.
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์งํฌํ๋ค / ์งํฌ ๋๋ค | jil-tu-ha-da / jil-tu na-da | jealous |
| ๋ฐฐ์ ํ๋ค | bae-sin-ha-da | betrayal |
| ์ค๋งํ๋ค | sil-mang-ha-da | disappoint |
| ์์ฒ๋ฐ๋ค | sang-cheo-bat-da | bruise |
| ๋ค์น๋ค | da-chi-da | injured |
| ๊ฑฐ์ ํ๋ค / ๊ฑฐ๋ถํ๋ค | geo-jeol-ha-da / geo-bu-ha-da | reject |
| ๊ฐ์ด ์ํ๋ค / ๋ง์ ์ํ๋ค | ga-seum a-peu-da / ma-eum a-peu-da | heartbroken |
| ์ฌ๊ธฐ๋นํ๋ค | sa-gidanghada | be conned |
| ํ๋ํ๋ค | hag-dae-ha-da | abuse |
| ์๋ฐ ๋นํ๋ค | wang-tta dang-ha-da | bullied |
- Sample phrases to express hurt in Korean.
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์ํ, ๊ทธ๋งํด! | a-pa, geu-man-hae! | It hurts, stop! |
| ๋๋ฌด ํ๋ค ์ง์ง. | neo-mu ha-da jin-jja. | Youโre unbearable! |
| ๋ง์์ด ์ํ๋ค. | ma-eum-i a-peu-da. | My heart aches. |
| ์ด๊ฑด ๋ค ๋์ ๊ฟ์ด์ผ. | i-geon da na-ppeun kkum-i-ya. | This is all a bad dream. |
| ๊ฐ์ด์ด ์ฐข์ด์ง ๊ฑฐ ๊ฐ์. | ga-seum-i jjij-eo-jil geo gat-a. | My heart is breaking. |
| ๋ง์์ด ๋ฏธ์ด์ ธ. | ma-eum-i mi-eo-jyeo. | It breaks my heart. |
| ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ์ด๋ด ์ ์์ด? | eo-tteo-ge i-leol su it-eo? | How can you do this to me? |
| ๋ํํ
์ ๊ทธ๋? | na-han-te wae geu-lae? | Why are you doing this to me? |
| ์ธ๊ณ ์ถ๋ค ์ ๋ง. | ul-go sip-da jeong-mal. | I really want to cry. |
| ๋ ์ข ๋ด๋ฒ๋ ค ๋ฌ. | na jom nae-beo-lyeo dwo. | Leave me alone. |
Tiredness ํผ๊ณค [pi-gon]
- Here are some different words to express tired emotions:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์ง์ด ๋น ์ง๋ค | jin-i ppa-ji-da | drained |
| ์ํผ์ด ์๋ค | yeong-hon-i eob-da | dead tired |
| ๋ชธ์ด ๋ฌด๊ฒ๋ค | mom-i mu-geob-da | canโt get up |
| ๊ธฐ์ด์ด ์๋ค | giun-i eob-da | have no energy |
| ์ง์น๋ค | ji-chi-da | fatigued |
| ์ฐ๋ฌ์ง๋ค | sseu-leo-ji-da | collapse |
| ์ฐ์ฝํ๋ค | yeon-yag-ha-da | vulnerable |
| ๊ณผ๋กํ๋ค | gwa-lo-ha-da | overwork |
| ๊ธฐ์ง๋งฅ์งํ๋ค | gi-jin-maeg-jin-ha-da | exhausted |
| ํผ๊ณคํ๋ค | pi-gon-ha-da | tired |
- Sample phrases expressing tiredness in Korean:
| ํ๊ตญ์ด | Pronunciation | Translation |
| ์กธ๋ฆฌ๋ค. | jol-li-da. | Iโm sleepy. |
| ํ์๊ฒ ๋ถํ์ ์ด! | ha-yahg-e bul-tae-wot-eo! | I did my best! |
| ์ ๋ง ์ง์ณค์ด. | jeong-mal ji-chyeot-eo. | Totally exhausted. |
| ์๋ฌด๊ฒ๋ ํ๊ธฐ ์ซ์ด. | a-mu-geot-do ha-gi sil-eo. | I donโt want to do anything. |
| ์ถฉ์ ์ด ํ์ํด. | chung-jeon-i pil-yo-hae. | I need to recharge my energy. |
| ํ์ด ์์ ํ ๋น ์ก์ด. | him-i wan-jeon-hi ppa-jyeot-eo. | Iโm totally drained. |
| ๋ ์ด์ ๋ชป ํ๊ฒ ์ด. | deo i-sang mot ha-get-eo. | I canโt do it anymore. |
| ๋ ์ด์ ๊ทธ๋งํ ๋. | na i-je geu-man-hal-lae. | I want to stop now. |
| ์ค๋์ ์ฌ๊ธฐ๊น์ง ํฉ์๋ค. | o-neul-eun yeo-gi-kka-ji hab-si-da. | Letโs wrap up for today. |
| ์๋ฌด ๋ฐ๋ ๊ฐ๊ธฐ ์ซ์ด. | a-mu de-do ga-gi sil-eo. | I donโt want to go anywhere. |
Other Korean vocabulary lists you should check out:
Conclusion
The Korean language has a very unique system in which sometimes all we see is a single word yet it expresses a complete thought. So as you can see in the sample phrases, the Korean word and the English translation differ in the number of words. It is because the Korean language does not require that we state who or what (subject) is being discussed if they already are understood from context.
There are also rules to consider regarding the Korean alphabet, in which some symbols have changes in phonetics when used in a word together with some specific symbols. I encourage you to try using these phrases to express your emotions and become more familiar with the usage and pronunciation for a more natural effect.
Have fun and stay tuned for more interesting topics. Please donโt forget to share on Facebook, twitter, Instagram or send to your friendsโ email. Thank you so much! ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค!
