The language spoken in South Korea is Korean — known in Korean as hangugeo (한국어) — the country's official language and the mother tongue of essentially all of its roughly 52 million people. Worldwide, about 80 million people speak Korean once you count North Korea and the global diaspora.
Korean is not just the main language of South Korea; it is very nearly the only one. The country is strikingly uniform this way — one language, spoken natively from Seoul to Busan to the beaches of Jeju. For a visitor, that means a single language unlocks the entire country.
One language, two names
The two Koreas do not even call their shared language by the same name. South Koreans say hangugeo; North Koreans say chosonmal (조선말).
After decades apart, the two vocabularies have drifted. South Korea absorbed English loanwords freely, while North Korea coined home-grown replacements — so the same language now carries noticeably different words on each side of the border.
Dialects, from Busan to Jeju
Standard South Korean, pyojuneo (표준어), is based on the speech of Seoul. Travel outside the capital and you meet regional accents and dialects, known broadly as satoori (사투리).
The Gyeongsang dialect around Busan is famous for its blunt, punchy rhythm — the accent K-dramas reach for when a character is tough, funny, or warmhearted. The Jeolla and Chungcheong regions have their own flavors too.
Then there is Jeju Island. Jejueo (제주어), the island's traditional speech, is so different from mainland Korean that linguists often classify it as a separate language rather than a dialect. It is now critically endangered — UNESCO lists it among the world's most at-risk languages — and Jeju is working hard to keep it alive.
Korean has no proven relatives. Linguists usually place it in its own tiny family, Koreanic, with no confirmed link to any other language — a mystery that is part of the language's fascination.
The alphabet with a birthday
Korean's writing system, hangul (한글), has something almost no other script can claim: a known birthday. It was created under King Sejong the Great, completed in 1443 and formally introduced in 1446 in a document, Hunminjeongeum (훈민정음), that explained exactly how it worked.
And the design is remarkable. The consonant letters are shaped after the position of the tongue, teeth, and lips as they make each sound — the script is, in effect, a little diagram of how to pronounce it. Its vowels, meanwhile, are built from just three strokes representing heaven, earth, and a person. You can learn to read hangul in a weekend.
South Korea is proud enough of the achievement to give it a national holiday: Hangul Day, celebrated every October 9. Very few alphabets get their own birthday party.
Do people speak English in Korea?
English is taught in schools across the country, so many Koreans — especially younger people in the big cities — can manage at least some. Signs on the Seoul subway and at major stations and sights are usually bilingual, too. Everyday Korean is also sprinkled with Konglish, English words folded straight into daily speech.
But outside tourist areas, hotels, and airports, English thins out quickly. That is exactly why a few Korean phrases pay off — they are the difference between pointing and connecting.
안녕하세요
annyeonghaseyo
Hello (polite)
감사합니다
gamsahamnida
Thank you (formal)
Even those two, plus a little essential Korean, earn warm smiles almost anywhere you go.
Keep learning Korean
So the answer is simple — South Korea speaks Korean — but the language behind that answer is anything but ordinary, from its designed-on-purpose alphabet to its one-of-a-kind family tree. Pick up a few Korean greetings and practice them with audio and spaced repetition in the Pretalk app, and you will hear the country open up around you.
