Lesson 1.1 – Greetings! How To Say “Nice to meet you” In Korean

Our first lesson on greetings started with Hello and today it will be on how to say “Nice to meet you”!

Greetings are an important part of any language especially when you meet someone for the first time. In a typical conversation one would introduce himself or herself and add ‘Nice to meet you’. So let us see the types of ways we can say it in both the formal and informal form.

This phrase is made up of two words – 만나다 – to meet and 반갑다 – to be happy or glad. When you join these words, you get the phrase Nice to meet you.

 

Let us first look at the informal way of saying ‘Nice to meet you’.

You can simple say 만나서 반가워 (Romanised pronunciation: man-na-seo ban-ga-wo). Just a quick reminder that informal Korean can be used with friends, peers, someone younger than you or anyone whom you are close with.

There are two ways of saying ‘Nice to meet you’  in a formal way –

STANDARD WAY – 만나서 반가워요 (Romanised pronunciation : man-na-seo ban-ga-wo-yo)

This is a formal or polite but most standard way of saying hello in Korean. You can use this to greet anyone who is older than you or someone you’re meeting for the first time.

MORE FORMAL WAY – 만나서 반갑습니다 (Romanised pronunciation : man-na-seo ban-gab-seum-ni-da)

This is another formal way of saying ‘Nice to meet you’ to someone you meet for the first time. It is the most formal and polite way of telling someone it is nice to meet them. Again, you can use this form while talking in a business setting, in speeches or just to show someone a high level of respect.

BONUS – 반가반가 (Romanised pronunciation : ban-ga-ban-ga)

This is literally the most informal form of this phrase, more like a slang. It’s used a lot by people in their 10s or 20s. Please do remember that this can be used only with someone you’re close to like a friend or maybe a younger person.

With this we wrap up our lesson for today! Another day, another Korean word. So far it’s quite simple right? Make sure to comment down if you have any doubts so far, I’ll make sure to address them in our next lesson. Till then, Happy Learning!