๐ผ How to Talk About Jobs in Korean: Essential Beginner Phrases – Beginner Level (TOPIK 1–2)

Do you know how to ask someone about their job in Korean?
This lesson introduces simple phrases to talk about occupations, ask about someone’s work, and answer politely—perfect for beginner learners traveling, studying, or living in Korea.
๐ Table of Contents
- Basic Job Vocabulary
- How to Ask About Jobs
- How to Answer Politely
- Example Sentences
- Practice Dialogue
- Did You Know?
- Final Thoughts
๐ Basic Job Vocabulary
- ํ์ (hak-saeng) – student
- ํ์ฌ์ (hoe-sa-won) – office worker
- ์ ์๋ (seon-saeng-nim) – teacher
- ์์ฌ (ui-sa) – doctor
- ๊ฐํธ์ฌ (gan-ho-sa) – nurse
- ์๋ฆฌ์ฌ (yo-ri-sa) – chef
- ๊ฒฝ์ฐฐ๊ด (gyeong-chal-gwan) – police officer
- ์ด์ ๊ธฐ์ฌ (un-jeon-gi-sa) – driver
- ์์์ ์ (ja-yeong-eop-ja) – self-employed
- ํ๋ฆฌ๋์ (peu-ri-raen-seo) – freelancer
Tip: Add “์ ๋๋ค” (am/is/are) for polite introductions: “์ ๋ ํ์์ ๋๋ค.” (I am a student.)
❓ How to Ask About Jobs
- ๋ฌด์จ ์ผ ํ์ธ์? (Museun il haseyo?) – What do you do?
- ์ง์ ์ด ๋ญ์์? (Jigeobi mwoyeyo?) – What is your job?
- ์ด๋์์ ์ผํด์? (Eodieseo ilhaeyo?) – Where do you work?
๐ก Note: Use polite endings like **-์ธ์** or **-์์** when asking about jobs, especially with someone you’ve just met.
๐ How to Answer Politely
- ์ ๋ ํ์ฌ์์ด์์. (Jeoneun hoesawon-ieyo) – I’m an office worker.
- ์ ๋ ํ์์ด์์. (Jeoneun haksaeng-ieyo) – I’m a student.
- ์ ๋ ๋ณ์์์ ์ผํด์. (Jeoneun byeongwon-eseo ilhaeyo) – I work at a hospital.
- ์ ๋ ์๋น์์ ์๋ฆฌ์ฌ์์. (Jeoneun sikdang-eseo yorisa-yeyo) – I’m a chef at a restaurant.
Tip: You can add “์ ๋ ~์์/์ด์์” to politely state your occupation.
๐ฌ Example Sentences
- ์ ๋ ํ๋ฆฌ๋์์์. – I’m a freelancer.
- ๋ฌด์จ ์ผ ํ์ธ์? – What do you do?
- ์ ๋ ๋ณ์์์ ๊ฐํธ์ฌ๋ก ์ผํด์. – I work as a nurse in a hospital.
- ์ ๋ ์์์ ์์์. – I’m self-employed.
๐งฉ Quick Check: Can you create your own sentence using “์ ๋ ___์ด์์/์์” to describe your job?
๐ฃ Practice Dialogue
A: ๋ฌด์จ ์ผ ํ์ธ์? What do you do?
B: ์ ๋ ํ์ฌ์์ด์์. ์์ธ์์ ์ผํด์. I’m an office worker. I work in Seoul.
A: ์, ๊ทธ๋ ๊ตฐ์. ํ์ฌ๋ ์ด๋์ ์์ด์? Oh, I see. Where is your company?
B: ๊ฐ๋จ์ ์์ด์. It’s in Gangnam.
๐งฉ Quick Check: Try rewriting this dialogue by changing the job to “teacher” and the location to “Busan.”
๐ Did You Know?
Did you know? In Korea, asking about someone’s job is common when first meeting. It’s not considered rude, as it helps understand social context and age hierarchy. However, younger Koreans now often ask about **hobbies or interests** instead to make conversations friendlier.
๐ฆ Final Thoughts
Talking about jobs in Korean is simple once you know key vocabulary and polite patterns. Use these phrases to introduce yourself and learn about others—this is a great way to start conversations and make friends in Korea.
Keep practicing by asking and answering about jobs in Korean, and soon it will feel natural in real-life interactions!
๐ Related Post
-
Introducing Yourself in Korean
Learn to say your name, nationality, and greeting phrases politely.
๐ Want to practice talking about your job in Korean?
Book a 1:1 Korean class on italki and learn how to introduce yourself naturally in real-life conversations.
๐ฌ Stay connected for new updates:
- ๐ Save this post: Bookmark or copy the link for later.
- ๐ค Share with a friend: Spread Korean learning together!
- ๐ฌ Leave a comment: What job vocabulary do you want to learn next?