๐Ÿ“ง How to Write a Korean Email or Formal Letter

 

ํƒ€์ž๊ธฐ ์ด๋ฏธ์ง€

Need to send a polite email to your Korean professor, coworker, or landlord? ๐Ÿง
Korean formal emails and letters have a unique structure and tone. In this post, you'll learn how to write a professional and respectful message in Korean, whether it’s a short request or a detailed inquiry.



✉️ Korean Email Structure Overview


A formal Korean email or letter usually follows this order:

  1. Subject line
  2. Greeting (์ธ์‚ฌ๋ง)
  3. Self-introduction (if needed)
  4. Main content (์š”์ฒญ, ์งˆ๋ฌธ, ์„ค๋ช… ๋“ฑ)
  5. Closing statement (๋งˆ๋ฌด๋ฆฌ ์ธ์‚ฌ)
  6. Signature (์ด๋ฆ„, ์†Œ์† ๋“ฑ)


1. Modern Email Greetings (์ธ์‚ฌ๋ง)

  • ์•ˆ๋…•ํ•˜์„ธ์š”. OOํŒ€ ํ™๊ธธ๋™์ž…๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    An-nyeong-ha-se-yo. OO-tim Hong Gil-dong-im-ni-da.
    Hello, this is Hong Gil-dong from the OO team.
  • ๋ฐ”์˜์‹  ์™€์ค‘์— ๋ฉ”์ผ ๋“œ๋ฆฌ๊ฒŒ ๋˜์–ด ์ฃ„์†กํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    Ba-ppeu-sin wa-jung-e mail deu-ri-ge doe-eo joe-song-ham-ni-da
    Sorry to bother you during your busy schedule.
  • ํ™•์ธ ๋ถ€ํƒ๋“œ๋ฆฝ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    Hwa-gin bu-tak-deu-rip-ni-da
    Please take a look. (commonly used after the opening)


2. Making a Polite Request (์š”์ฒญ)

  • ์ž๋ฃŒ๋ฅผ ๊ณต์œ ํ•ด ์ฃผ์‹œ๋ฉด ๊ฐ์‚ฌํ•˜๊ฒ ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    Ja-ryo-reul gong-yu-hae ju-si-myeon gam-sa-ha-get-seum-ni-da
    I would appreciate it if you could share the materials.
  • ์ผ์ • ํ™•์ธ ํ›„ ํšŒ์‹  ๋ถ€ํƒ๋“œ๋ฆฝ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    Il-jeong hwa-gin hu hoe-sin bu-tak-deu-rip-ni-da
    Please reply after checking your schedule.


3. Common Closings (๋งˆ๋ฌด๋ฆฌ ์ธ์‚ฌ)

  • ์ฝ์–ด ์ฃผ์…”์„œ ๊ฐ์‚ฌํ•ฉ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    Il-geo ju-syeo-seo gam-sa-ham-ni-da
    Thank you for reading.
  • ์ข‹์€ ํ•˜๋ฃจ ๋ณด๋‚ด์‹œ๊ธธ ๋ฐ”๋ž๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    Jo-eun ha-ru bo-nae-si-gil ba-ram-ni-da
    I hope you have a great day.
  • ๋‹ต๋ณ€ ๊ธฐ๋‹ค๋ฆฌ๊ฒ ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค.
    Dap-byeon gi-da-ri-ge-sseum-ni-da
    I look forward to your reply.


4. Signature

  • ํ™๊ธธ๋™ ๋“œ๋ฆผ
    Hong Gil-dong deu-rim
    Respectfully, Hong Gil-dong (formal and humble closing)
  • ํ™๊ธธ๋™ (OOํŒ€)
    Hong Gil-dong (OO-tim)
    Modern style with team name in parentheses


๐Ÿ’ก Did You Know?

In Korean culture, placeholder names like ํ™๊ธธ๋™์ฒ ์ˆ˜, and ์˜ํฌ are commonly used in textbooks and examples—similar to how English uses "John Doe" or "Jane Smith." The name ํ™๊ธธ๋™ originates from the 17th-century novel 『ํ™๊ธธ๋™์ „』, where he was portrayed as a heroic figure advocating for justice. Interestingly, after the release of Squid Game on Netflix, international viewers began recognizing the name '์ฒ ์ˆ˜' due to its use in the "Red Light, Green Light" game, highlighting how Korean naming patterns also reflect pop culture.




๐Ÿ’ฌ Practice with Me on italki!

Want to practice writing formal Korean messages with feedback?
You can book a personalized lesson with me on italki.
We’ll cover email writing, honorifics, and how to sound confident yet polite in different situations! ๐Ÿ˜Š


๐Ÿ’Œ Final Thoughts

Writing formal emails in Korean may feel overwhelming at first—but with practice, you'll get the hang of the structure and respectful tone.
Keep learning, and soon you'll be writing like a native office worker! ๐Ÿ˜Š

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