Jk, lmao, lol, omg. English has tons of text talk, and so does Korean. If you’ve been chatting with native Korean speakers via Hellotalk, Italki, or KakaoTalk (if you want to find a language partner, read this post), you may have seen many abbreviations already – but do you know what they mean? Over time, you’ll start to accumulate more and more text-talk acronyms in Korean, but here’s a quick and easy list to get you started on the basics!

• ㅇㅋ 오케이 – Okay

• ㅇㅇ응/웅 – Yeah, uh-huh (응 is informal whereas 네 and 예 are formal)

• ㄴㄴ 노노 – “No” doubled for extra effect. Using just one ‘no’? That’s ㄴㄴ!

• ㄳㄳ 감사감사/감사합니다 – Thanks

• ㅈㅅ 죄송/죄송합니다 – Sorry

• ㅇㅈ인정 – Acknowledged (This can be like saying “Yeah, agreed”)

• ㅂㅂ바이바이 – Bye-bye

• ㄷㄷㄷ 덜덜 떨다 – Verb phrase for “to tremble all over”. Use when shaking from amazement, fear, the frigid wintry winds…

• ㅋㅋ크크/쿡쿡 – Keke (basic text-talk for laughter)

• ㅎㅎ흐흐/하하 – Hehe/haha (basic text-talk for laughter)

• ㅇㄱㄹㅇ이거 레알 – “This is real.” While it originated as a twist on the Korean spelling of “real” as 리얼, Real Madrid fans took this 신조어 further and now many Koreans use this in place of a sentence like “이거 진짜야!” ㅇㄱㄹㅇ. Don’t believe me?
• • “사용 권장 하는 말은 아니지만요…” Not sure why a show host cautioned usage. If you know why, please leave a comment so I can update this list!

If you’d like to see more list posts, let me know. 오늘도 방문해 주셔서 감사합니다!

지금 재생 중:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am6gg6C5xFk