친구 – How To Say Friend in Korean

Friend in Korean

In this KWotD we we learn how to say friend in Korean. This is one of the most basic words in any language and it expresses one of the most important ingridients of human life (introverts excluded maybe 😉 ). If you come to Korea, make sure lots of Korean friends, because that’s the absolute best way to learn the language and get accustomed to, and learn about, the culture. So how do we say this in Korean? You simply say:

ching-gu

In Hangul: 친구

= Friend

It’s a two-syllable word and rather easy to pronounce for most foreigners. If you can read Hangul, you might notice that 친 is pronounced 칭. This happens because ㄱ follows the ㄴ directly and the ‘n’ and the ‘g’ sounds melt together and form an ‘ng’ sound. Pronouncing the n and g sound separately will sound unnatural. So even though it’s pronounced like 칭구, it is spelled 친구. Take note of this!

Now since this word is so closely related to boyfriend and girlfriend in Korean, we might as well just learn how to say those as well. How about that?  These are used exactly as in English and they are derived just like in English from putting together boy/girl + friend. So, what do you get?

Also, if you want to say best friend, you can either put  ‘ga-jang chin-han’ (가장 친한), meaning ‘closest’ in front of the word we used above, or  use a slightly different word:

dan-jjak

In Hangul: 단짝

= Best friend

You can also use the slangish ‘beh-peu‘ (베프), short for ‘besutu peurendeu’ (베스트 프렌드).

Examples

For more lessons like this one, please check out our Korean Word of the Day archive! If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below and we will try to help you out to the best of our abilities.

By: Kimchi Cloud