Korean Greeting: Hello, did you eat?
This is what Korean speakers would ask you when they see you:
(Polite) 안녕하세요? 식사하셨어요?
(Casual) 안녕? 밥 먹었어?
I. Hello
The polite way to say “Hello” in Korean is 안녕하세요 /an-nyeong-ha-se-yo/?
안녕(安寧) literally means “peace” with no difficulty and problems, and 안녕하다 is the adjective which means “to be peaceful, healthy, calm”. 안녕하세요 is a polite way to ask a question “Are you at peace(well)?”, so “hello” in Korean is literally asking “Are you well?”.
To friends or siblings, people you are close to, you can just say 안녕(/an-nyeong/) without 하세요(/ha-se-yo/).
When you are saying 안녕 to friends, you wave your hands. When you say the polite from of hello 안녕하세요, you slightly exchange nods to the other person. Do not wave your hands at someone you need to greet with the polite form! NO, NO!
II. Did you eat?
Once you say hello, they will ask “did you eat?”. This is the Korean equivalent of “How are you?” in English. Don’t worry, they are not really eager to know what you ate, when you ate, etc. This is the Korean way to show they care, asking if you are doing well enough to eat your meals on time.
Politely, it is 식사(食事: /shik-sa/)하셨어요(/ha-syeo-sseo-yo/)? : “Did you have a meal?”
Non-polite and casual way is 밥 먹었어 (/bam-meo-geo-sseo/)? : “Did you eat rice/meal?”
밥(/bap/) is cooked rice, which also means meals. The sino-word that means ‘meal’ is 식사. 먹었어(/meo-geo-sseo/) is the past tense of the verb ‘to eat’: 먹다. To be polite, you use the verb form with 식사(meal): 식사하다. The polite way to ask “did you eat” is 식사하셨어요?
So when you meet Koreans, say “are you well?” and “did you eat?”. You will sound like a native speaker of Korean!
