Describing Taste in Korean

Describing food and taste in Korean
Whether you want to understand basic words in K-pop or K-dramas, impress your Korean friends, or simply deepen your connection to the Korean culture, the Korean Language Starter Pack ensures that you quickly learn and retain the most commonly used Korean words and phrases today. Click here to learn more.

Eating is a big part of Korean culture. They love food here so and Koreans really love to express how whatever they are eating tastes. So it is important to know how to describe the food you are eating.

First off for “delicious”. In the graphic above, we showed you the standard/low formal way to say it. If you want to be more formal, you can use “맛있습니다” (ma-shi-sseum-ni-da). You can also apply the same ending for not delicious and say “맛없읍니다” (mat-eop-sseum-ni-da), but it would probably be rude considering you are using a very formal tone which is used with people older than you.

For casual use among your friends, you can just say “맛있어” (ma-shi-sseo).

If you were a guest at someone’s house, and you want to say you ate well, you could say “잘 먹었읍니다.” (jal meo-geo-sseum-ni-da)

Now for taste. You can easily use these to describe how a food tastes. However, we have just shown you the basic ways to tell how a food tastes to you. For example, there are actually a few other ways to say spicy in Korean (which we will cover in another graphic in the future). Happy eating!

If you want to study even more and improve your Korean, check out our ebooks over at the Dom & Hyo Store. We also have posters, t-shirts, and postcards related to Korea.

Words in this graphic:

달아요 (dal-a-yo) = It’s sweet

셔요 (shyeo-yo) = It’s sour

짜요 (jja-yo) = It’s salty

써요 (sseo-yo) = It’s bitter

매워요 (mae-weo-yo) = It’s spicy

맛있어요 (ma-si-sseo-yo) = It’s delicious

맛없어요 (mat-eop-seo-yo) = It’s not delicious

Whether you want to understand basic words in K-pop or K-dramas, impress your Korean friends, or simply deepen your connection to the Korean culture, the Korean Language Starter Pack ensures that you quickly learn and retain the most commonly used Korean words and phrases today. Click here to learn more.