잘자요 – How To Say Good Night in Korean

Good Night in Korean

In this lesson, we will take a look at how to say “good night” in Korean.  Just like any language, the Korean language has numerous words and phrases for saying farewell to someone. On top of that, it also has the added complexity of the speech levels, just to make things even more difficult. But don’t worry if that scares you because in just a few minutes, you will know exactly what to say and to whom! Anyway let’s start with the most common way to say good night which is:

It literally translates to “sleep well” so it pretty much spot on means the same in Korean as it does in English. That last little bit, “yo” is used to make the expression polite and you would normally use it with people older than you. However, jal-ja-yo is mainly used when talking to an older friend.

Now, what if you were to remove that “yo” (요) part at the end of this word? Well, we would get the informal:

The word is the same, but it sounds much more informal and ‘friendly’ so it is now suitable to use with:

• Close friends or siblings
• People who are younger than you
• Girlfriend or boyfriend (we also made a list with cute things you could say to your Korean boyfriend or girlfriend)

If you want to turn this into a question and ask “did you sleep well?” you would say “jal-jass-eo-yo?” (잘 잤어요?) Naturally, you can remove the “yo” at the end here as well if you want to use this phrase with friends or people who are younger than you.

Now, if we want to be really polite and respectful, you can use the word:

You might see a resemblance with the phrase for “hello” in Korean in that first little part “annyeong.” It literally means “peace” and this whole phrase translates to “sleep peacefully.” You would mainly use this when talking to old people or people of higher status. Moreover, using this with a friend would sound awkward, to say the least. 

Between friends, you could also use the Konglish word 굿나잇 (it sounds almost as it would sound in English). It is especially common when texting and on the Internet. 

For more common words and phrases, please check out our Everyday Korean lessons!

And please like or share if you found this lesson useful. And as always, if you have any questions or something else you want to tell us, make sure to let us know by leaving a comment below and we will do our best to help you out!

By: Kimchi Cloud