8 Ways to Sound More Natural in Korean

This article is a compilation of all the things I wish someone had told me when I first started practicing speaking Korean. None of them are ‘hacks’ – I’m not going to give you a list of 10 Korean slangs that would ‘make you sound like a native’, or cool phrases that’ll help you impress your language exchange partner.

What I’d like to share with you, instead, is a collection of ‘patterns’ that I have picked up over the years, while I was studying Korean. Some of them are grammar structures, while others are quirks I find unique to the Korean language.

I will update this article when I think of more, but for now, here are 8 ways to sound more natural in Korean:

Common Contractions

Let’s start with something simple – contractions. Every language has them. They are basically shortened versions of words, which are often used in conversations.

Here are some of the most common ones:

것	것이 -> 게 것은 -> 건 것을 -> 걸
는	With pronouns: 저는 -> 전 나는 -> 난 너는 -> 넌	With particles: 에는 -> 엔 으로는-> 으론 ~지는 않다 -> ~진 않다	With nouns, adverbs: 때는 -> 땐 때로는 -> 때론
을/를	With pronouns: 나를 -> 날 너를 -> 널 저를 -> 절	With 뭐 (무엇): 뭐를 -> 뭘
에게	나에게 -> 내게 너에게 -> 네게 저에게 -> 제게
이/그/저 + 아이	Without 는: 이 아이 -> 얘 그 아이 -> 걔 저 아이 -> 쟤	With 는: 얘는 -> 얜 걔는 -> 걘 쟤는 -> 쟨

~아/어 가지고 vs. ~아/어서: The Difference

Most of us learn ~아/어서 first and don’t come across ~아/어 가지고 until much later in our studies, but it is actually quite common in casual speech. Functionally, the two are nearly identical, but there’s a slight difference in nuance.

Most native speakers whom I have asked about this describe ~아/어 가지고 as a little stronger, and more deliberate; while ~아/어서 is more generic in tone. One of them said that, depending on the context and the tone of voice, ~아/어 가지고 can sound a tad bit whiny, almost as if you’re complaining.

I generally see ~아/어 가지고 as the more ’emotional’ of the two, so when it comes to making more generic statements, I stick to ~아/어서. For example:

각도를 잘 잡아서 사진 이쁘게 나왔어요.
Translation: The picture came out looking pretty good because it was taken at a flattering angle.

And when I’m low-key whining:

가고 싶은데 너무 피곤해 가지고 못 갔어요.
Translation: I really wanted to go, but I couldn’t because I was really tired.

I went with ~아/어 가지고 because I wanted to emphasize how tired I was, and because I was essentially using it as an excuse to justify my absence, in a ‘It’s not that I didn’t want to go, but I was just SO tired, you know?’ sort of tone.

For the most part, however, they’re interchangeable. Since most native speakers use a mix of these two structures in daily conversations, doing this will most definitely help you sound more natural.

~는 것 같다: Expressing Your Opinions

I remember how happy I was to learn this grammar structure. To this day, it is still one of my favourite grammar structures in Korean. It’s incredibly versatile – you can use it for so many things:

1. Opinions
   
   그 게 좀 아닌 것 같아요.
   I don’t think it was right for him to do that.
   
   
2. Predictions
   
   이러다 고장날 것 같아요.
   I feel like if we keep this up, we’ll end up breaking it.
   
   
3. Observations
   
   화가 난 것 같아서 더 이상 묻지 않았어요.
   He seemed angry, so I backed off.
   
   
4. Feelings
   
   꿈만 같아요.
   It feels like a dream (surreal).

It’s great for expressing your thoughts, basically. Make sure you master it!  

Thinking Out Loud

Koreans have the habit of thinking out loud. It’s a bit like talking to yourself. Take this sentence, for example: watching him practice made me feel like I should work a little harder. If I were to translate it to Korean:

형이 연습하는 걸 보고 ‘아… 나도 좀 더 열심히 해야 겠다…’ 라는 생각이 들었어요.
Direct translation: I looked at him practicing and the thought “Ah, I need to practice a little harder…” popped into my head.  

Here, the thought/feeling of ‘having to work a little harder’ is turned into a direct quote, which the speaker actually vocalises, almost like they’re quoting themselves. They even slip into a more reflective tone when they do this.

In this video, Suga and Jimin of BTS discuss the stress that comes with performing on stage. At 1:34, Jimin recalls how his vocal instructor’s words helped put him at ease. He told him to take it slow, and that he’d already improved a lot. And Jimin, upon hearing that, thought to himself, “Ah, well. If singing was something you could become good at overnight, everyone would be doing it.” His exact words are:

 ‘아 그래, 뭐. 한번을 해서 잘 할거면 다 하지’라는 생각이 들어서…
Direct translation: The thought, ‘Ah, well. If you could do it well after just one try, then everyone would be doing it, right?’ popped into my head, so…

You can hear that there’s a slight change in his tone at 1:34, which is where the ‘thought’ starts. He sounds as if he’s talking to himself, like he’s just sitting there, wondering aloud, “Oh well, if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it, right?” And then when he’s done narrating this thought, he switches right back to his normal tone as he proceeds to wrap the sentence up with “라는 생각이 들어서…”

This act of alternating between a ‘normal talking tone’ and a ‘thinking out loud tone’ is extremely common in casual conversations, and I suggest using this structure alongside ~는 것 같다 for a bit of variety, to keep yourself from constantly defaulting to one grammar structure.

I have also explained in this article several different ways to ‘self-narrate’ in Korean – feel free to check it out if you’re interested!

~더: Sharing Your Experience

There are several grammar structures that contain the word ‘더’, such as ~더니, ~더라 and ~더라고(요). The word ‘더’ denotes experience, implying direct involvement or participation on the speaker’s part. As such, it is very useful for describing something that you’ve witnessed or experienced directly. Here’s an example:

아침에는 춥더니 지금은 따뜻하네요.
아침에는 추웠는데 지금은 따뜻하네요.

Translation: The weather was cold in the morning, but now it’s warm.

Both of these sentences mean the same thing, technically, but the first one implies that the speaker experienced first-hand that the weather was cold in the morning. The second one is more generic in comparison – it’s just a statement about the weather.

Similarly:

예쁜만큼 가격이 비싸더라고요.
예쁜만큼 가격이 비싸요.

Translation: It’s as expensive as it is pretty.

In the second sentence, the speaker is merely stating that the object is expensive. The first sentence, however, suggests that the information was something the speaker found out through personal experience, from a specific incident. Perhaps they actually went to the shop and attempted to buy it, only to find out that it was too expensive.

The takeaway: grammar structures containing ‘더’ are great for sharing past experiences. They can help spice up everyday storytelling and make descriptions of events more vibrant and personal.

Filler Words

It’s the um’s and uh’s – every language has them. On their own, they don’t seem to mean a whole lot, although some of them do serve to convey a certain mood. In any case, they’re great for buying time when you can’t think of what to say. Here are a couple of examples:

어…

The Korean equivalent of ‘um…’ – the ‘thinking’ sound, for when you’re trying to come up with things to say, or recall a certain piece of information.

뭐랄까?

It translates loosely to ‘How should I put it?’ It’s for moments where you’re searching for the right words to express your thoughts.

아~

It’s somewhere in between “Oh, I see” and “Aha!” – the ‘realisation’ sound, mostly used in reaction to a new piece of information.

있잖아(요)

It’s often translated to ‘You know…’ and ‘Guess what?’ and is often used to start a conversation, particularly when the speaker is about to share a new piece of information. It’s kind of like saying, “You know… I was in the neighbourhood last week and…”

그 뭐지?/그 뭐더라?

Literally meaning ‘What is it?’, it’s for when you can’t remember what it was that you wanted to say, or the name of something.

The Adverbs

Koreans like to use adverbs – a lot. Personally, I find their usage of adverbs really fascinating, and it’s one of my favourite things about the Korean language. A lot of these adverbs don’t really mean anything on their own, and may appear redundant at first glance, but they can really spice up a sentence. Here’s an example:

싹 다 치웠어요.
Translation: I cleared them all away.

The word ‘싹’, in this context, means ‘all’, which seems to overlap with the meaning of ‘다’. Even if you remove ‘싹’, the meaning of the sentence would remain exactly the same.  So what exactly is the function of ‘싹’ here? To put it simply: it strengthens the meaning of ‘all’.

It’s kind of like how in comics they would add tiny sparkles to indicate that something is ‘sparkling clean’. I mean, what’s the point of those sparkles? A clean, empty table is clean and empty with or without them, right? But somehow, the table feels a lot cleaner with the sparkles added in. The same can be said for ‘싹’.

Here’s another example:

치마가 땅에 질질 끌리다.
The skirt drags on the ground.

질질 emphasises the feeling as well as the motion of ‘dragging’. Without it, the description is a little flat – I picture a really long skirt that drags on the ground when the person walks, and that’s it. With 질질 thrown in, however, my attention gets drawn to the motion of ‘dragging’ itself.

If this sentence were a scene in a movie, 질질 would be equivalent to a close-up shot. It makes you think about the weight of the skirt, and the way the fabric flows as it drags on the ground – you might even hear the sound of it brushing against the ground in your head. The scene comes alive because of it, because the mental image it triggers is much more vivid. 

Most of these adverbs are extremely varied in usage, and can take on wildly different meanings depending on the context they are used in, so they can be a bit hard to organise and memorise. I used to keep a notebook for this. I dedicated one full page to each of these adverbs, and wrote down sentence examples as I came across them in my studies. Memorising and internalising them was a slow, gradual process – I tried to use them as often as I could in both writing and speech, and grew used to them that way, over time.

Leaving Your Sentences Unfinished, or Letting Them Drag On… Forever

First of all, this isn’t really something that’s unique to Korean. We all do it. We think as we speak, and sometimes our thoughts wander astray and we digress. We leave our sentences unfinished, or ramble through our stories. It’s a sign that we are comfortable thinking and expressing ourselves in that language.

So as learners who have not yet attained fluency, we tend to stick to shorter sentences and try to wrap up our sentences with all the right endings. That’s not a bad thing at all, but it can make your speech sound a bit rehearsed or stiff, even if you aren’t reciting from a script.

For the purpose of illustration, I’ll be using sentences from this video by SpongeMind TV, where the host, Jonson, interviews the founder of Talk to Me in Korean, Hyunwoo Sun.

At 10:00, Jonson expresses his agreement regarding what Hyunwoo said about the benefits of learning a foreign language. He said:

‘맞습니다. 역시 마찬가지…폭이 넓어지는 거. 사고의 폭이 넓어지고, 더 깊이 생각할 수 있고, 더 재미있게 생각할 수 있고…’

You can see that he ended his sentences quite abruptly at  ‘폭이 넓어지는 거’ and ‘생각할 수 있고’. He didn’t finish them, because the endings of those sentences would have been obvious enough for the listener to deduce without him saying them out loud.

And as for long sentences that drag on and on:

“중국어 같은 경우에는 중국에 갔을 때 사실은 전혀 관심이 없었고 중국어는 누가 돈을 준다고 해도 배우고 싶지 않다고 생각하는 언어였는데 일 때문에 한 12 년 전에 간 적이 있었어요.

그때 기본적인 회화를 모르면 자꾸 택시기사 아저씨들이 바가지를 씌우고 그래서 ‘피해를 보겠구나’ 해서 기본적인 것 배우고 그랬었고 그리고 그 뒤로도 인공어인 에스페란토어에도 관심을 많이 가지고 계속 공부했고 뭐 누구랑 대화를 해볼 일은 없었지만… 그리고 독일어 같은 경우에도 독일에 가기 전에, 여행 가기 전에 한 3 시간 정도 공부를 해 봤어요.”

Here (at 2:58), Hyunwoo is talking about his experience with studying languages. There are three sentences in total, with the second one being the longest. This is because he kept joining sentences with the ~고 structure, which roughly translates to ‘and’.

Let’s take a look at the English translation:

“In the case of Mandarin Chinese, when I first went to China, I actually had zero interest in the language, and it was a language I wouldn’t have learned even if someone paid me to do it, but anyway, I went to China for work once, around 12 years ago. At that time, the taxi drivers were set on ripping off everyone who couldn’t speak basic Mandarin, and so I realised that there’s this real downside to not being able to speak the language, so I went and learned the basics, and later on on, I grew interested in Esperanto and studied that too, and, well, there was no one I could speak the language with, but still… As for German, I studied it briefly, for around 3 hours, before my trip to Germany.”  

Obviously, you shouldn’t speak like this in situations where you have to sound professional, but in everyday speech, this is actually very common. It can make your overall story feel more fluid, giving off the impression that you’re comfortable in the language.

Conclusion

Every language has its own quirks, and I personally think that identifying and internalising them are the keys to sounding natural, because they are essentially the defining characteristics of the language. One might even argue that the mastery of a language depends on it.

It is these ‘quirks’ that make the language different from all the other ones in the world, including the one(s) you already speak. They occupy the space where the difference between your native language and your target language becomes the most pronounced. It’s a difference we must overcome, in order to sound natural and at home in our target language(s).

I hope you found this article useful, and if there’s anything you think I ought to include, feel free to leave it in the comments below.

Happy learning!