A Korean menu on a wall looks like something you either can read or you cannot — a grid of short phrases and numbers, no photos, no English. That reaction is the wrong one. Korean dish names are not a wall of unrelated words to memorize one by one. They are built like small equations, and once you see the pattern, a menu you have never seen before in a restaurant nobody recommended stops being a mystery and starts being arithmetic.
Korean Dish Names Are Built, Not Named
Almost every dish on that wall follows one pattern: [ingredient] + [cooking method], occasionally with a portion or format word attached. Take 김치찌개: 김치 (kimchi) + 찌개 (jjigae, a thick stew). Kimchi stew. Take 오징어볶음: 오징어 (ojingeo, squid) + 볶음 (bokkeum, stir-fried). Stir-fried squid. Even long names usually break into the same two halves, sometimes with 고기 (gogi, meat) tucked in the middle — 돼지고기볶음 is pork + meat + stir-fried. Learn roughly fourteen cooking words and sixteen ingredient words, and you can parse dishes you have never encountered before. It is also why translation apps sometimes produce nonsense on menus: they translate the string of characters, not the underlying structure. If you want to know what one of these actually tastes like before committing to it, our sister recipe site walks through a home version of kimchi jjigae step by step.
The Words That Build Every Dish
Two vocabulary lists cover most of what you will see on an everyday menu: how the food was cooked, and what it is made of. Learn both and you can combine them on the spot.
Cooking Words: Fourteen Endings That Name the Dish
These usually sit at the end of a dish name. Learn to recognize the shape of each one and you will know how the food arrives — dry or soupy, raw or fried, one bowl or a shared pot.
| Hangul | Romanisation | What it means | What lands on the table |
|---|---|---|---|
| 구이 | gui | Grilled | Grilled meat or fish, often cooked at your table |
| 볶음 | bokkeum | Stir-fried | Cooked fast in a pan, usually saucy but not soupy |
| 찜 | jjim | Steamed or braised | Slow-cooked, tender, often a large shared dish |
| 조림 | jorim | Simmered in sauce | Reduced in soy or chilli sauce until glossy |
| 탕 / 국 | tang / guk | Soup | Broth-forward, usually a personal bowl with rice |
| 찌개 | jjigae | Thicker stew | Saltier and denser than 국, often shared, eaten with rice |
| 전골 | jeongol | Hot pot | Cooked at your table in a wide pan, made for sharing |
| 튀김 | twigim | Deep-fried | Battered and fried; think tempura-style |
| 무침 | muchim | Seasoned / dressed | Tossed cold or warm with seasoning, salad-adjacent |
| 전 | jeon | Pan-fried pancake | Flat, savoury, cut into pieces to share |
| 회 | hoe | Raw | Raw fish or seafood, sliced |
| 덮밥 | deopbap | Rice bowl | Rice with a topping poured over it, one person |
| 비빔 | bibim | Mixed | You stir it together yourself before eating |
| 말이 | mari | Rolled | Something rolled — egg, seaweed, meat |
Two distinctions change the shape of your meal. 국 and 탕 are soups in your own bowl. 찌개 is thicker and often placed in the middle for everyone to dip into. 전골 arrives raw or half-cooked and finishes on a burner in front of you, so budget time for it.
Ingredient Words: Sixteen That Cover Most Menus
The first half of the name. Sixteen words is enough to recognize most of what appears on an everyday restaurant menu.
| Hangul | Romanisation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 돼지 | dwaeji | Pork |
| 소 / 한우 | so / hanu | Beef / Korean-raised beef |
| 닭 | dak | Chicken |
| 오징어 | ojingeo | Squid |
| 새우 | saeu | Shrimp |
| 고등어 | godeungeo | Mackerel |
| 두부 | dubu | Tofu |
| 김치 | kimchi | Kimchi |
| 된장 | doenjang | Soybean paste |
| 고추장 | gochujang | Red chilli paste |
| 간장 | ganjang | Soy sauce |
| 계란 | gyeran | Egg |
| 버섯 | beoseot | Mushroom |
| 떡 | tteok | Rice cake |
| 면 / 국수 | myeon / guksu | Noodles |
| 밥 | bap | Rice |
The three pastes and sauces are the most useful of the sixteen, because they tell you the flavor direction before you taste anything: 된장 means earthy and savory, 고추장 means red and usually spicy, 간장 means soy-based and salty-sweet, almost never hot. Put the two halves together and try it — 두부조림 is tofu simmered in sauce, 계란말이 is rolled egg, 고등어구이 is grilled mackerel, 소고기전골 is a beef hot pot cooked at your table. Regional names and restaurant inventions will still stump you sometimes; that is the honest limit of vocabulary. It decodes structure fast, but a board with sixty lines still takes a while to work through while a queue forms behind you.
Portion, Price, and Spice Words to Know
Beyond naming the dish, a handful of words control quantity, price, and heat — and these are where most first-timers get tripped up, not the dish names themselves. Grilled-meat restaurants in particular price per portion, not per dish, and many set a two-portion minimum.
| Hangul | Romanisation | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| 1인분 | il-inbun | One portion. The listed price is for one person, not the whole dish |
| 인분 | inbun | The counter for portions — 2인분 is two portions |
| 2인 이상 | i-in isang | Two people or more; you cannot order this alone |
| 정식 | jeongsik | Set meal — a main plus rice, soup and side dishes |
| 세트 | se-teu | Set / combo, usually on chain and fast-food menus |
| 사리 | sari | An add-on, most often extra noodles, dropped into your stew or hot pot |
| 곱빼기 | gopbaegi | Extra-large serving of the same dish |
| 포장 | pojang | Takeaway |
| 소 / 중 / 대 | so / jung / dae | Small / medium / large — common on chicken, jjigae and hot pot |
If a barbecue menu looks unusually cheap, check for 1인분 — that number is one person’s share of raw meat, and a table of two will order at least two of them. Prices are in Korean won, written 원. Many handwritten menus drop the last three zeros, so a column reading 9 / 12 / 15 means 9,000 / 12,000 / 15,000 won; the rule of thumb is that a small number with no comma needs three zeros added mentally. Prices are inclusive — no tipping, no service charge on top.
Spice and allergen words matter just as much as portion words. 매운 (maeun) means spicy and shows up inside dish names as well as on its own; 아주 매운맛 is very spicy and 순한맛 is mild, a choice many chicken and tteokbokki shops offer outright. 청양 (cheongyang) chilli is genuinely hot and worth taking seriously even if you enjoy spice. For allergies, watch for 젓갈 / 액젓 / 새우젓 — fermented seafood, fish sauce and salted shrimp that turn up in kimchi, stews and dipping sauces — plus 땅콩 (peanut), 우유 (milk) and 밀 (wheat). Photographing these words on your phone before you travel and showing the Hangul to staff is far more reliable than explaining an allergy in English.
Menu Questions Worth Knowing Before You Order
What is the difference between guk, jjigae and jeongol?
국 (guk) is a soup served in your own bowl alongside rice. 찌개 (jjigae) is thicker and saltier, usually placed in the centre of the table for everyone to eat from. 전골 (jeongol) is a hot pot brought out raw or partly cooked and finished on a burner at your table, and is made for sharing.
Does 1인분 mean I have to order two portions?
Not always, but often. 1인분 means the price shown is for one person’s portion, and grilled-meat restaurants in particular commonly require a minimum of two portions per table. If you are dining alone, look for 2인 이상 — that phrase means the dish cannot be ordered for one.
How do I know if a Korean dish is spicy before ordering?
Look for 매운 (spicy) in the dish name, 아주 매운맛 (very spicy) or 순한맛 (mild) on menus that offer levels, and 청양 (cheongyang chilli), which is properly hot. 고추장 in the name usually means a red, chilli-based sauce. Korean food covers the whole range from mild to fiery, so these words are the reliable signal rather than the cuisine’s reputation.
What should vegetarians watch for on a Korean menu?
Beyond the meat and seafood words, watch for 젓갈, 액젓 and 새우젓 — fermented seafood, fish sauce and salted shrimp, which appear in many kimchi dishes, stews and dipping sauces even when no fish is listed in the name. Showing those three words written in Hangul to staff is the clearest way to ask.
Where to Go Once You Can Read the Menu
Reading is most of the battle; ordering out loud takes four phrases. 저기요 (jeo-gi-yo) calls staff over — in many restaurants nobody comes to your table until you do this or press the call button on the edge of the table. 이거 주세요 (i-geo ju-se-yo), “this one, please,” while pointing at the menu, is the single most useful sentence in a Korean restaurant. 계산이요 (gye-san-i-yo) means “I’d like to pay” — in most casual places you pay at the counter on the way out, not at the table. 포장이요 (po-jang-i-yo) means takeaway. Pronunciation does not need to be good; pointing plus one of these four is a complete order.
There is a measurement behind the sense that language is the friction point of a Korea trip: in the Seoul Tourism Organization’s 2019 Seoul Foreign Visitor Survey (n=6,000), “language communication” scored 4.09 out of 5 — the lowest-rated item of every category measured, below wayfinding at 4.24, while food itself scored 4.36. Visitors like the food; it is the reading and the asking that get in the way. A 2024 survey by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization found that 48.3% of visitors used the translation app Papago during their trip — worth setting up before you fly.
For somewhere forgiving to test this vocabulary against a real handwritten sign, Jongno 5(o)-ga Station Exit 8 puts you about a minute’s walk from the food alley at Gwangjang Market (checked September 2026) — point at a stall, read what you can, and let the rest sort itself out — most vendors there have been doing this with confused visitors for decades and will happily meet you halfway. If your trip runs south, Jagalchi Fish Market in Busan runs on the same cooking-word logic with seafood vocabulary layered on top. And for the mechanics of the meal itself — the table bell, the kiosk screen, the paying-at-the-counter routine — pair this guide with our companion piece on how to order food in Korea.