How to say congratulations in Korean

In today’s “how to say” lesson we’ll teach you a handy phrase that can be used at any joyous occasion. Whether it be a birthday, wedding, a new baby or graduation, you can use the word “Congratulations” whenever there’s reason to celebrate!

If you wish to simply say congratulations in Korean, you can use the 존댓말 set phrase:

When saying “congratulations,” many people want to sound super polite, so although the following phrases come across as very formal, they are commonly used in everyday Korean.

Of course there will be times where you want to wish your close friends congratulations and there is a 반말 conjugation of the expression. For these occasions, the following phrase is acceptable to use.

You can use any of the phrase you’ve just learned on their own to generally congratulate someone. However, if you wish to specify what you’re congratulating the listener on, you can add any of the following nouns in front of the phrase.