Korean email etiquette requires proper introductions and acknowledgement of the recipient’s position and title.
This guide will show you exactly how to write an email in Korean.
It covers both formal and casual levels of speech with a template at the end.

Quick Notes
- Writing a Korean email can be intimidating at first.
- There are many unwritten rules, including ways to write casual and business emails.
- Even though Korean business culture is a bit formal, you might encounter some interesting email addresses.
- It’s not uncommon to see ones like “skyblue23”, or “duckdream84”. Donโt read too much into them. They donโt usually mean what you think they do.
- Emoticons like ^^ or ๐ are sometimes used in emails.


Useful terms
- ๋ณด๋ด๋ ์ฌ๋ or ๋ฐ์ ์ – Sender
- ๋ฐ๋ ์ฌ๋ or ์์ ์ โ Receiver/Recipient
- ์ฐธ์กฐ – CC
- ์จ์ ์ฐธ์กฐ – BCC
- ์ ๋ชฉ – Subject
- ํ์ผ์ฒจ๋ถ – Email attachment
- ๋ฏธ๋ฆฌ๋ณด๊ธฐ – Preview
- ํ์ – Reply
- ์ ๋ฌ – Forward
- ๋ณด๋ด๊ธฐ – Send


Step 1. Relax
The recipient will know you arenโt Korean (your name will give it away), so youโll get a lot of leeway.
Weโll cover the entire email writing process, but donโt feel bad if you miss something. Theyโll understand.
Step 2. Who are they to you
Whatโs your relationship to the person?
A business, client, or work relationship requires more formality.
A friend, significant other or family member will allow for a more casual tone. (Koreans donโt really email each other unless itโs for work. They use KakaoTalk messenger for personal use.)
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This is important to figure out in the very beginning, because it will decide which level of speech to use in the entire email.
Step 3. Be upfront
Koreans tend to screen emails by subject.
So itโs important to state your company name and purpose in the subject.
Make sure to format it properly, so it looks important and gets read.
[Your Company Name] Purpose of Email์ ๊ฑด
Step 4. Titles matter
Addressing Korean names in an email must be done correctly. Find out the recipientโs title and write ์๋ ํ์ธ์ (annyeonghaseyo or hello) in the first line of email.
Recipientโs Name + Title๋ ์๋ ํ์ธ์,
If youโre not sure of the title, use ๋ด๋น์ instead.
๋ด๋น์ (damdangja) means person in charge, but is used to substitute a specific title in Korean.
Recipientโs Name ๋ด๋น์๋ ์๋ ํ์ธ์,
If you want to skip mentioning the recipientโs name, especially in the first email, you can simply say ์๋ ํ์ธ์, in the beginning.
์๋ ํ์ธ์,
Step 5. Start with the end
Unlike emails in English, Korean emails start out by introducing the sender.
This is true even if you know the person.
Your Company Name + Your Name์
๋๋ค.
Your Company Name + Your Team + Your Name์
๋๋ค.
Step 6. Whatโs the point?
Mention your intention for writing the email next.
Purpose of Email์ ์ํด ๋ฉ์ผ ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค. (Iโm emailing to ____.)
Purpose of Email ์์ฒญ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค. (Iโd like to request _____.)
Purpose of Email ํ์ธ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค. (Please check ___.)
Step 7. Attachments
Like in English, itโs important to mention if youโve attached a file.
์ฒจ๋ถํ์ผ ํ์ธ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค. (Please find the attached file.)
Step 8. Be polite
If you want to be extra courteous, you can add the following in your email.
๋ฌธ์์ฌํญ ์์ผ์๋ฉด ์ธ์ ๋ ์ง ์ฐ๋ฝ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค. (Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.)
Step 9. End on a positive note
Koreans are very concerned with health and weather, so itโs a good idea to mention them at the end.
For example,
์์ํ ๋ ์จ์ ๊ฐ๊ธฐ ์กฐ์ฌํ์ธ์. (Donโt catch a cold in the chilly weather.)
๋ฏธ์ธ๋จผ์ง ์กฐ์ฌํ์ธ์. (Watch out for fine dust.)
์ฆ๊ฑฐ์ด ์ฃผ๋ง ๋ณด๋ด์ธ์. (Have a nice weekend.)
์ค๋๋ ์ข์ ํ๋ฃจ ๋ณด๋ด์ธ์. (Have a nice day.)
์ฆ๊ฑฐ์ด ์ ์ฌ์๊ฐ ๋์ธ์. (Enjoy your lunch.)
Step 10. Be thankful
Make sure to thank the recipient.
A simple ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค. (Thank you. or Sincerely,) will do.
๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค.
Step 11. Sign off right
There are two ways to end your email: ๋๋ฆผ and ์ฌ๋ฆผ.
๋๋ฆผ means โgivingโ as in “from”.
Itโs a bit more casual, but suitable for most interactions.
์ฌ๋ฆผ means โpresentingโ as in “from”, but in a polite way.
Itโs more formal and is best used for addressing older people in a higher position.
๋๋ฆผ: For colleagues, clients, acquaintances
์ฌ๋ฆผ: For bosses, president, parents, grandparents, teachers
Your Name ๋๋ฆผ
Korean Email Template
Recipientโs Name + Title๋ ์๋
ํ์ธ์,
Your Company Name + Your Name์
๋๋ค.
Purpose of Email์ ์ํด ๋ฉ์ผ ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค.
์ฒจ๋ถํ์ผ ํ์ธ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค.
๋ฌธ์์ฌํญ ์์ผ์๋ฉด ์ธ์ ๋ ์ง ์ฐ๋ฝ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค.
์ค๋๋ ์ข์ ํ๋ฃจ ๋ณด๋ด์ธ์.
๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค.
Your Name ๋๋ฆผ
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FAQ
Which email host do Koreans use?
Naver, Daum, and Gmail are the most common for personal use in that order.
A few years ago, Gmail wasn’t an option on most government website forms.
Now it’s slowly gaining popularity.
Most companies use their own email host.
Which emoticons do Koreans use in emails?
Koreans use emoticons to make formal emails a bit softer.
^^ is a common smiley face symbol in Korea. But, it’s not used in business emails, because it looks unprofessional.
For business emails, you can use “:)” once. This is only in cases where you have some rapport with the recipient.
For example, a long term client or coworker who you’re on friendly terms with would be fine.
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However, it’s not advisable to use emoticons in emails to your boss or managers. Decorum is very important in the Korean business environment.
How to address Korean names in an email?
If you’re on friendly terms and use ๋ฐ๋ง in person, writing their name is fine.
For everyone else, use name + title + ๋.
How to sign an email in Korean?
- To your superior or boss: Your name + ์ฌ๋ฆผ or Your name + ๋๋ฆผ
- To your colleague: Your name + ๋๋ฆผ
- To your subordinates: Your name + ์ or Your name + ๊ฐ
- To a company or organization: Your company name + Title + Name + ์ฌ๋ฆผ or ๋๋ฆผ [For example, OO ์ฃผ์ํ์ฌ ์ฌ์ฅ OOO ์ฌ๋ฆผ]
How to address an email to a professor or teacher in Korean?
The best way to address a professor in Korean is to use name + ๊ต์๋.
If you’re writing in English, you can use Professor/Dr.+ last name.
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How to address an email to a Korean businessman/businesswoman?
The best way to address a businessman/businesswoman in Korean is to use name + title + ๋.
If you’re writing in English, you can use Mr./Mrs.+ last name.
How to say “you are expecting an email reply” in Korean?
The most polite way is to write, ์ด๋ฉ์ผ๋ก ํ์ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค.
How do you say “I will send you an email” in Korean?
The ideal way is to write, ์ด๋ฉ์ผ ๋ณด๋ด๋๋ฆฌ๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค.
How to say “attached in email” in Korean?
The most polite way is to write, ์ฒจ๋ถํ์ผ ํ์ธ ๋ถํ๋๋ฆฝ๋๋ค.
How long does it take for a Korean email to reach America?
Korean internet speed is fast, so it’ll take about the same amount of time as it does within the U.S.
How to email the North Korean leader?
While the dear leader may not have a personal email address, you can try to contact him through the official North Korean government website. This site is actually blocked in South Korea.
Did we miss anything?
Korean email etiquette is easy if you understand the formula.
Always stick to it for the best results, unless youโre very comfortable with Korean.
I spent a lot of time during my first job out of university learning email etiquette.
Itโs very important if you want to get ahead in Korea.
Feel free to ask questions below about anything we missed.
Thank you very much for this article. I found it very helpful when writing to a South Korean gallery from Australia!
My pleasure! So glad it was helpful. Let us know what other topics you’d like to see covered on our blog.
Do I say their full name preceding their title or just their surname?
Hi Hayley,
You can write the full name before the title in most cases. If you’re on very friendly terms, you can opt for just the surname or the first name plus title.
That was very helpful! But I have one more question. Can I use this formula when writing an email to a university faculty to inquire about some further information regarding their Master degree course? And is there a way to address the general faculty and staff when the given email address of the department doesnโt reveal any name in particular?
Hi Sina,
I’m glad to hear it!
If you’re directly emailing the professor, you can use “NAME ๊ต์๋”.
If you address a department staff member without a name, you can either omit that part and start with “์๋ ํ์ธ์,” or “๋ด๋น์๋ ์๋ ํ์ธ์,”.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
Please let me know how can I be connected
Minjung, hello
I am hoping that — as a fellow journalist and communicator — you will be able to help my grandson, who is a very good ex-Watford U19 footballer, who want to play in Asia.
Leo Lawless’s most favoured countries — because their style of football and commitment to technically good football — is South Korean and Japan.
He is unusual in being both a goal-scorer and and creator of goals of many goals (known in the profession as Assists).He is currently playing in France
He has learnt so much from what you have written about composing emails. But he has run into a brick wall: several clubs do not publish their email addresses on their websites.
He doesn’t need personal emails of coaches. Just those that go into the clubs management.
Without them, all the well-crafted emails in the world are wasted, and potentially both clubs and the likes of Leo are losing out on great opportunities.
Did you know where such club-by-club email lists are available? You help would be gratefully received.
With kind regards (and please don’t get aught out in the rain)
John Lawless
Hello John,
Thank you for asking!
I couldnโt find club-by-club email lists, but K League website seems to be a good place to start.
I think your grandson can contact K League 1 clubs first (the aforementioned website has links to each club at the top). Most of them publish their phone numbers or social media accounts at the bottom, not email addresses.
Ones with emails I found are: Ulsan Hyundai Football Club (uhfc@uhfc.co.kr), Incheon United (incheonutd@incheonutd.com) and Gangwon FC (gangwonfc@gangwon-fc.com).
Best of luck to you and your grandson Leo!
thank you a lot
Minh
Hi Minh,
My pleasure! ^^
Thank you Mingjung for your comprehensive explanation. I have just started to look for staff in South Korea and have to actively find staff, so your guide is helpful in my outreach emails.
Hi Emma, I’m so glad to hear that. Let me know if you have any other questions!