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A Korean Learnerโs Guide To The 7 Main Korean Dialects
by Olly Richards
Korean dialects are some of the most interesting aspects of learning Korean.
Put simply, they're different versions of the same language, and people speaking different dialects of a language can usually understand each other.
In English, probably the most recognisable example is British and American English. Think about how you could easily speak with an American English speaker, but there would be some differences. Like โsidewalkโvsโpavementโ, or โtrunkโvs โbootโ.
On the written level there are spelling changes โ โcolorโvs โcolourโ โ and occasionally there are grammatical differences too. Americans might say โon accidentโ where British speakers would say โby accidentโ.The same words might also be pronounced differently.
All of these differences together make up a dialect. Dialects are not to be confused with accents which are probably more well known โ think Liverpool accent, Cockney accent, California accent โ these are only about the pronunciation of words.
Korean has dialects too. They are called ์ฌํฌ๋ฆฌ (dialect) or ๋ฐฉ์ธ (regional dialect). In this post, you'll discover the most well-known ones as well as finding out about how they're different from one another.
At the end, you'll also discover how North and South Korea have developed distinct dialects since the end of the Korean war.
Hereโs what this post will cover:
The standard dialect (Gyeongi-do) โ ๊ฒฝ๊ธฐ๋ ํ์ค์ด
The Gangwon-do dialect โ ๊ฐ์๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
The Chungcheong-do dialect โ ์ถฉ์ฒญ๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
The Jeolla-do dialect โ ์ ๋ผ๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
The Gyeongsang-do dialect โ ๊ฒฝ์๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
The Jeju-do dialect โ ์ ์ฃผ๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
The North Korean dialect โ ๋ฌธํ์ด
So letโs get started!
By the way, if you want to learn Korean fast and have fun while doing it, my top recommendation is Korean Uncovered which teaches you through my fun, unique and effective StoryLearningยฎ method.
#1 The Standard Dialect (Gyeongi-do) โ ๊ฒฝ๊ธฐ๋ ํ์ค์ด
If you have any familiarity with Korean, this is most likely what you think of. Itโs what youโll hear in most movies and TV shows. Itโs whatโs written in textbooks and what youโll hear in listening exercises too.
This is also the dialect spoken in the capital city, Seoul. Seoul isnโt technically part of Gyeongi-do, itโs its own โSpecial Cityโ district. But given that this district is located within Gyeongi-do, it can easily be associated with it.
Speakers of this dialect are regarded as having quite a mellow or smooth intonation. So donโt expect any changes in pitch when listening to speakers of this dialect.
Although this is considered a standard dialect, it does have a notable pronunciation quirk. At the end of certain words, the ์ vowel becomes ์ด. Two examples you would hear often in conversation in Seoul and the surrounding areas:
์์ โ ์์ด
์ํ โ ์ํผ
These wouldnโt usually be written, only spoken. Some people might write this in texts, but not any kind of formal writing.
#2 The Gangwon-do Dialect โ ๊ฐ์๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
When people think of Gangwon-do, they think of farms and the countryside. This dialect isnโt hugely different from the standard dialect โ which makes sense when you consider it is fairly close to Seoul. People living closer to Seoul naturally sound similar to the standard dialect, while people farther west sound more distinct.
There are a few things you will notice when listening to the Gangwon-do Dialect. The very common verb ending ์์ (to be) is replaced with ๋์.
์ฃผ์ค์์ โ ์ฃผ์ค๋์ โ (Itโs juice)
Another notable change is that the ใ consonant is pronounced more like ใ :
์ -์ด(rice)
์ฐ๋ ๊ธฐ โ ์ค๋ ๊ธฐ (trash)
Lastly, there are quite a few different words that even native speakers might not know upon hearing them for the first time. Letโs have a look at a few:
ํ์ฅ์ค โ ์ ๋ญ (toilet)
์์ โ ์์ (food)
๋จ์ โ ๋จธ์ค๋ฏธ (man)
์ฅ์์ โ ์ฅ์๊ธฐ (corn)
Overall, this one isnโt too different. But there are a few word changes that might catch out even a native speaker!
#3 The Chungcheong-do Dialect โ ์ถฉ์ฒญ๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
This next dialect is described by native speakers as seeming slower. It is another largely rural area of the country, although this area does include the large city Daejeon.
Even in the past, in the Northern Chungcheong area, the differences with the standard dialect were not that pronounced. These days in the cities and the northern areas, you would be unlikely to hear any difference.
One very noteworthy change with this dialect is the use of ์ to replace ์:
๋ง์์ โ ๋ง์์ โ (Thatโs right)
One notable change with the Chungcheong-do dialect is that ์ธ์ is shorted to ์. This means that people in Chungcheong-do have a memorable way of saying hello on the phone:
์ฌ๋ณด์ธ์ โ ์ฌ๋ณด์? โ (Hello (when answering the phone))
The consonants ใฑ,ใท, and ใ are often pronounced closer to ใฒ, ใธ, and ใ . Truthfully though, non-native speakers of Korean often struggle to distinguish between these anyway, so you are unlikely to notice this.
One quirk that you would likely notice is the use of ๊ฒจ in when asking questions:
๋ญํ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ? โ ๋ญ ํ๋ ๊ฒจ? โ (What are you doing?)
Again this is another dialect that is unlikely to cause major issues for you as an learner when having simple conversations. Especially as the above changes also come with a slightly slower pace of speaking than the standard dialect.
#4 The Jeolla-do Dialect โ ์ ๋ผ๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
This area is again largely countryside, although it includes the city Gwangju. As we move further away from Seoul, so too do the dialects become a little more different.
The general impression among native speakers of Korean is that this dialect is marked by fast speech and distinct accents.
A big difference is seen when discussing the cause of events or actions.
The common verb ending ๋๊น is replaced with ์๊ฒ:
์ด๋ ํ์ผ๋๊น โ ์ด๋ ํ์น๊ฒ โ (because I did exercise)
A similar change happens when discussing speech. ๋ผ๊ณ /๋ค๊ณ are replaced with ๋น๊ฒ
์ธ๋๊ฐ ๋ญ๋ผ๊ณ ํ์ด? โ ์ธ๋๊ฐ ๋ญ๋ผ ํ๋น๊ฒ ? โ (What did my sister say?)
Similar to how the Chungcheong dialect repaces ์ธ์ with ์, this dialect makes a similar change, ์ธ์ โ ์ผ
์๋ ํ์ธ์ โ ์๋ ํ์ผ (hello)
Many of the vowel sounds in this area may sound strange, even to someone only somewhat familiar with Korean. One of the simpler changes is that vowel sounds formed from two vowels often omit the first of those sounds.
๊ด์ฃผ โ ๊ฐ์ฃผ โ (Gwangju)
The opposite also happens, and sounds are sometimes more complex than they are in the standard dialect:
๊ณ ๊ธฐ โ ๊ดด๊ธฐ โ (meat)
ํ ๋ผ โ ํด๋ผ โ (rabbit)
This dialect has a few distinct words. A very commonly heard word is ๊ฑฐ์๋ค, which is similar to โthingyโin English, to use when unable to remember a correct word.
Expressions of shock are different in the Jeolla dialect too:
์๋ง! โ ์๋ง! โ (oh!)
With the faster speech and accents, this one might be a little more difficult for a new learner of Korean to understand. But donโt be afraid to ask for people to repeat things and you should be fine!
#5 The Gyeongsang-do Dialect โ ๊ฒฝ์๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
The Gyeongsang-do dialect is perhaps one of the more well-known dialects of Korean, as it includes Busan. You may even have heard this described as the Busan dialect.
Truthfully, however, this area also includes Daegu and Ulsan. A native speaker could likely identify if someone was from Busan or Daegu.
It is marked by shorter sentences and harsher intonation. Native Koreans describe this dialect as sounding direct or rude. Like someone is arguing, even when they arenโt.
One notable example of this sense of shorter sentences is a common question:
๋ญ๋ผ๊ณ ํ์ด์? โ ๋ญ๋ผ์นด๋ ธ? โ (What did you say?)
The pronunciation can also be described as lazier. This can be seen in particular when ์ด vowels sometimes become ์ผ vowels:
์ด๋ โ ์ผ๋ โ (where)
Similar to the Jeolla dialect โ likely because of their proximity to each other โ double vowels are often shortened to a single vowel during speech:
์ฌ๊ณผ โ ์ฌ๊ฐ โ (apple)
๋ญ โ ๋จธ/๋ชจ โ (what)
This is another area of Korea in which the distinction between ใ and ใ is less pronounced, and so like the Gangwon-do dialect, ์ (rice) is pronounced more like ์ด.
One thing you might notice often is in casual speech. Instead of ์ผ you might hear ๊ฐ
This last example is the kind of thing that can really trip up Korean learners because ์์ด๊ฐ also sounds like โchildโand this sentence sounds really different from the standard dialect.
Youโll also see this confusing ์์ด๊ฐ ending used in place of ์์, which is used when discussing information already known by both parties.
Additionally, the polite ์ธ์ ending that weโve seen change in other dialects changes here once again.
์๋ ํ์ธ์ โ ์๋ ํ์ด์ (Hello).
This last one is more common among older people now.
Overall, this dialect is probably the most distinct on the Korean mainland and could cause some issues for Korean learners. With that said, when talking with younger speakers in Busan it is unlikely you would have any issues.
#6 The Jeju-do Dialect โ ์ ์ฃผ๋ ๋ฐฉ์ธ
The Jeju dialect is really quite different from the standard dialect. It has been influenced by both Japanese and Mongolian, and even has its own vowel! Some people feel that itโs more like its own language.
These days, much like with some of the more difficult parts of the Gyeongsang-do dialect we already looked at, itโs mostly older people who use the more distinct parts of this dialect.
If you were speaking with younger Jeju inhabitants you might not encounter all of the elements weโll discuss here.
Politeness is less important in the Jeju-do dialect, and so older speakers on Jeju might seem a little gruff or unfriendly.
Often, things will sound completely different in the Jeju dialect:
๋ญ๋ผ๊ณ ๋งํ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ? โ ๋ญ๋ผ ๊ณ ๋์? โ (What are you talking about?)
Jeju Dialect Words
Actually, as I mentioned earlier, this is more like its own language with its own words. I'll list a few of the most notable ones, but there are too many to list them all.
์ด๋ ๊ฒ โ ์ โ (this way)
๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒ โ ๊ฒฝ โ (that way)
์ โ ๋ฌด์ฌ โ (why)
๋ฌด์ โ ๋ฌด์ ๊ฑฐ โ (what)
์๋ง โ ์ด๋ฉ โ (mother)
์๋น โ ์๋ฐฉ โ (father)
์์ฃผ โ ์๋ โ (very)
Truthfully though, only the oldest people on Jeju Island will know these words, and they likely wouldnโt even use them when speaking with younger Koreans who wouldnโt know them anyway.
These are just something to listen out for if youโre around older Jeju residents.
Jeju Grammar
You may hear some slightly different grammar more often though. For example, the ending ๋ง์ after a verb or noun:
I mentioned the Japanese influence on Jeju dialect earlier, and itโs possible that this is one of those instances, coming from the Japanese -masu.
You might also hear the ending ๋ฉ in questions.
๋ญํด์? โ ๋ญํ๋ฉ? โ (What are you doing?)
There are plenty of smaller differences too. For example, you can use ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ต๋๋ค (nice to meet you) as a way of saying hello on Jeju Island. You might also ask a friend where theyโre going instead of saying hello!
Overall, this is the most distinct Korean dialect weโve looked at so far. But in practice, youโre unlikely to see that much of it. You donโt need to learn any of this if you visit Jeju Island and wish to speak Korean.
#7 The North Korean Dialect โ ๋ฌธํ์ด
The North Korean and South Korean dialects are still very similar, having only diverged at the end of combat operations in the Korean war in 1953.
A North Korean and a South Korean could easily communicate even today. Thatโs because the standard north and south Korean dialects both originate largely from a 1936 document from the Korean Language society.
However, over time theyโve changed. The biggest and most notable difference is probably Konglish. You no doubt know about Konglish already.
South Korea has thousands of words that are simply the English word written using hangul. South Korean even sometimes makes up new words using English words, that we donโt have in English!
๋กฑ๋ is a great example of this. Itโs a contraction of long + distance and means a long-distance relationship.
Word Formation And Loan Words
This doesnโt happen in the North Korean dialect, and they create a new word in situations during which South Korea uses Konglish.
Interestingly, while North Korean doesnโt use Konglish words, they do use loan words from Russian. This means that for a word such as โtractorโ, North Korea has chosen a Russian loan word, and South Korea has chosen an English loan word.
Itโs interesting because the loan words are similar but not identical:
There are also phrases that have evolved to have different meanings over time in the two different dialects. One example is how to say โitโs okayโ.
๊ด์ฐฎ์ โ ์ผ ์๋ค (itโs okay)
This example is interesting because ์ผ ์๋ค has become somewhat of an idiom in South Korean for โnone of your businessโ. Definitely some potential for a misunderstanding here!
Pronunciation Differences
There are also some differences in pronunciation, most often related to how the different dialects now interpret Korean-Chinese symbols:
์ โ ์ธ (why)
์ฐ์ต โ ๋ จ์ต (practice)
์ฌ์ โ ๋ ์ (girl)
๋์ โ ๋ญ์ (cold water)
There are also a number of differences in how the two dialects are written, although we wonโt cover those here as they donโt have much relevance to spoken Korean.
There are also some differences in vocabulary that may stem from dialectal differences between Pyeongyang and Seoul from before the Korean War.
Overall, at this point, the North Korean dialect is probably less distinct from the standard dialect than the Jeju dialect, but more distinct from the dialects on the mainland.
Korean Dialects And You
Thatโs everything you need to know about the main Korean dialects!
Reading through everything above, you might be feeling a little worried. But you shouldnโt be.
As a Korean learner, you donโt need to stress too much about learning this information off by heart. Memorizing all of this would likely benefit you in a pub quiz before it would benefit your ability to communicate in Korean day-to-day!
Your textbooks and Korean apps are likely already in the standard dialect, and thatโs the only one you need to focus on. The standard dialect can be understood everywhere in Korea.
In any case, I really hope you enjoyed this insight into Korean dialects!
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Olly Richards
Creator of the StoryLearningยฎ Method
Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearningยฎ method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.
Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.
When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preachesโhe speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.
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