๐Ÿง  What’s on Your Mind? Expressing Psychological States in Korean – Advanced Level (TOPIK 5–6)

ํ•œ๊ตญ์˜ ๋ฐค์˜ ๋„๋กœ ์ด๋ฏธ์ง€


Want to express subtle emotions like anxiety, hesitation, or relief in Korean? Let’s explore how native speakers describe psychological states with nuance and depth. ๐ŸŒŠ


  • ๐Ÿงฉ Why Psychological Expression Is Essential
  • ๐Ÿ—ฏ️ Key Vocabulary for Internal States
  • ๐Ÿ’ฌ Useful Sentence Patterns and Grammar
  • ๐Ÿ“š Advanced Example Sentences
  • ๐ŸŽญ Practice Dialogue
  • ๐Ÿ’ก Did You Know?
  • ๐Ÿ’ฌ Final Thoughts
  • ๐Ÿ”— Related Posts


๐Ÿงฉ Why Psychological Expression Is Essential

At the advanced level, it's no longer enough to describe what you see—you need to express what you feel and think. Korean has a rich set of verbs, adjectives, and structures to describe inner emotions, mental processes, and complex psychological states.



๐Ÿ—ฏ️ Key Vocabulary for Internal States

  • ๋ถˆ์•ˆํ•˜๋‹ค – buranhada – to be anxious
  • ํ˜ผ๋ž€์Šค๋Ÿฝ๋‹ค – honranseureopda – to feel confused or disoriented
  • ํ›„ํšŒ์Šค๋Ÿฝ๋‹ค – huhoeseureopda – to feel regretful
  • ๋‹ด๋‹ดํ•˜๋‹ค – damdamhada – to feel calm, unemotional
  • ๋ฒ…์ฐจ๋‹ค – beokchada – to feel emotionally overwhelmed
  • ๋ฌด๊ธฐ๋ ฅํ•˜๋‹ค – mugiryeokhada – to feel lethargic, powerless
  • ๋ฟŒ๋“ฏํ•˜๋‹ค – ppudeuthada – to feel proud/satisfied (positively full)


๐Ÿ’ฌ Useful Sentence Patterns and Grammar

  • –(์œผ)ใ„น ์ค„ ๋ชฐ๋ž๋‹ค: "I didn’t know it would…"
    ๊ทธ ๋ง์„ ๋“ฃ๊ณ  ์ด๋ ‡๊ฒŒ ๋ฒ…์ฐฐ ์ค„ ๋ชฐ๋ž์–ด์š”.
    geu mareul deutgo ireoke beokchal jul mollasseoyo
    I didn’t expect to feel so overwhelmed after hearing that.

  • –(์œผ)ใ„ด/๋Š” ๊ฐ์ด ์žˆ๋‹ค: "There is a sense/feeling that…"
    ๋ญ”๊ฐ€ ๋ถˆ์•ˆํ•œ ๊ฐ์ด ์žˆ์–ด์š”.
    mwonga buranhan gami isseoyo
    I have a sense of unease.

  • –๋Š” ๋“ฏํ•˜๋‹ค: "Seems like / appears to be..." (indirect & introspective)
    ์š”์ฆ˜ ๋ฌด๊ธฐ๋ ฅํ•œ ๋“ฏํ•ด์š”.
    yojeum mugiryeokhan deut-haeyo
    I seem to be feeling lethargic these days.


๐Ÿ“š Advanced Example Sentences

  • ๊ธฐ๋Œ€ํ–ˆ๋˜ ๋งŒํผ ๊ฒฐ๊ณผ๊ฐ€ ์ข‹์ง€ ์•Š์•„์„œ ํ›„ํšŒ์Šค๋Ÿฝ๊ณ  ๋ณต์žกํ•œ ๊ฐ์ •์ด ๋“ค์—ˆ์–ด์š”.
    gidaehaetdeon mankeum gyeolgwaga jotji anaseo huhoeseureopgo bokjaphan gamjeongi deureosseoyo
    Since the result wasn’t as good as I expected, I felt regretful and emotionally conflicted.

  • ๊ทธ ๋ง์„ ๋“ค์—ˆ์„ ๋•Œ, ๋งˆ์Œ์ด ์ฐจ๋ถ„ํ•˜๋ฉด์„œ๋„ ์ด์ƒํ•˜๊ฒŒ ๋‹ด๋‹ดํ–ˆ์–ด์š”.
    geu mareul deureosseul ttae, maeumi chabunhamyeonseodo isanghage damdamhaesseoyo
    When I heard those words, I felt calm yet strangely detached.

  • ์•„๋ฌด๊ฒƒ๋„ ํ•˜๊ธฐ ์‹ซ๊ณ , ๊ทธ๋ƒฅ ๋ฌด๊ธฐ๋ ฅํ•œ ๋‚˜๋‚ ์ด ๊ณ„์†๋˜๊ณ  ์žˆ์–ด์š”.
    amugeotdo hagi silko, geunyang mugiryeokhan nanari gyesokdoego isseoyo
    I don’t feel like doing anything, and the days just keep passing by in a state of apathy.


๐ŸŽญ Practice Dialogue

A: ์š”์ฆ˜ ์–ผ๊ตด์ด ๋งŽ์ด ์•ˆ ์ข‹์•„ ๋ณด์—ฌ์š”. ๊ดœ์ฐฎ์•„์š”?
yojeum eolguri mani an joa boyeoyo. gwaenchana-yo?
You don’t look well these days. Are you okay?

B: ๊ทธ๋ƒฅ… ๋งˆ์Œ์ด ๋ณต์žกํ•˜๊ณ  ๋ฌด๊ธฐ๋ ฅํ•ด์š”.
geunyang… maeumi bokjaphago mugiryeokhaeyo
I’m just… feeling emotionally tangled and low on energy.

A: ์ž ๊น์ด๋ผ๋„ ์‰ฌ๋Š” ๊ฒŒ ์ข‹์„ ๊ฒƒ ๊ฐ™์•„์š”.
jamganirado swineun ge joheul geot gatayo
You should take a break—even for a short while.

B: ๋„ค, ๋„ˆ๋ฌด ๋ฒ…์ฐจ์„œ ์‰ฌ์ง€ ์•Š์œผ๋ฉด ์•ˆ ๋  ๊ฒƒ ๊ฐ™์•„์š”.
ne, neomu beokchaseo swiji aneumyeon an doel geot gatayo
Yes, I’m feeling so overwhelmed I really need some rest.



๐Ÿ’ก Did You Know?

In Korean therapy and literature, emotional terms like ๋ฒ…์ฐจ๋‹ค, ๋‹ด๋‹ดํ•˜๋‹ค, and ํ•œ์ด ๋งบํžˆ๋‹ค are often used not just to describe current emotions, but to reveal personality or long-term struggles. Korean speakers are especially sensitive to subtle emotional states—learning these words helps you connect on a deeper level.



๐Ÿ’ฌ Final Thoughts

Describing psychological states isn’t just about vocabulary—it’s about cultural sensitivity, emotional awareness, and advanced fluency. Next time you write or speak in Korean, try expressing not just what happened, but how it made you feel inside.

I hope that while reading various posts on my blog, you’ll learn Korean and grow to love Korea. As a Korean, I sincerely wish for that. Please come back anytime to discover new expressions and cultural insights!


๐Ÿ”— Related Posts



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