Korean Signs: Lessons and Practice

At a glance

• Level: A1 for 12 lessons and B1 for the news-headlines lesson.
• Lessons: 13, from street signs to news headlines.
• Prerequisite: you can read Hangul blocks.
• Outcome: read the common words on signs, menus and notices, and say what each one means.

Key Facts

• Public signs reuse a small set of fixed words, and menus list nouns and prices rather than sentences.
• Many signs also show English, but not all, so read the Hangul first.
• Hanja and English letters appear on some signs and are covered where useful.
• The section has 13 lessons: 12 at A1 and one at B1 (news headlines).
• Each lesson is based on typical layouts, not on photographs of private signs.

*Last updated: 2026-10-09. The Korean text, romanization and audio on this page are AI-assisted drafts.

What Is Reading Korean Signs?

Reading Korean signs is the skill of recognising the fixed words and layouts used on public text: street signs, menus, shelf labels, notices and chat messages. Most of this text is made of nouns, numbers and a few polite phrases, so a learner who can read Hangul can usually read it after learning a short word list for each setting.

The skill sits between reading Hangul and reading connected prose. The how to read Hangul section teaches the letters, and the Reading hub covers stories and passages. Real-world text is different from both. It is short, repeated and tied to a place, and the reader needs the words and the action more than the grammar.

Three facts hold across the section. Sign and menu words are often Sino-Korean or loanwords, so patterns repeat. Many signs show English, but not all, so the Hangul always comes first. And most text of this kind has an action attached, such as an exit to find, a price to pay or a warning to obey. The next section helps you pick a starting lesson.

Where Should I Start with Korean Signs and Menus?

Start with the lesson that matches the place you will be next. The table below maps common situations to lessons.

If you have no plan, begin with street signs, because they teach the repeating syllables 입, 출 and 금 that appear again in later lessons. The groups below show how the lessons fit together.

What Signs Will I See outside and on Transport?

Outside, you meet street signs, directional signs and station signs. Korean street signs teaches 40 words in six groups, from 입구 and 출구 to 주차장 and 금연, and shows how a sign is read in the order symbol, Korean noun, English.

Korean subway signs covers the signs at stations. The outcome is to read a subway sign and state the line, the direction and the exit number. The two lessons overlap on 출구 (exit), so doing them in order saves effort.

Transport signs use numbers for lines and exits. Next come menus and food labels.

How Do I Read Menus and Food Labels?

Menus and food labels follow the same logic: a name, a size or portion, a price and a few special words. The four lessons in this group go from restaurants to packaged food.

• How to read a Korean menu splits dish names into ingredient and cooking style, such as 김치 + 찌개, and explains 1인분 portions, 사리 and 곱빼기 extras and prices printed in thousands.
• Korean cafe menu reads loanword drink names and teaches a five-slot order: drink, temperature, size, add-on, and here or to go.
• Korean convenience store labels decodes 1+1 and 2+1 tags, reads dates in year-month-day order and answers three cashier questions.
• Korean food ingredient labels: ingredients, allergens, storage and calories on Korean packaging.

To say what you read, use the Korean restaurant phrases section. Notices in shops and buildings are next.

How Do I Read Shop and Building Notices?

Shop and building notices are short, formal and often tied to a rule or a time. Four lessons cover them:

• Korean store hours signs: read open, closed, break time, last order and holiday notices.
• Korean bathroom signs teaches 20 restroom, door and warning words, and a 15-sign quiz that does not rely on colour.
• Korean elevator buttons: floor numbers, basement levels, open and close buttons, and emergency call.
• Korean price tags and receipts: read the total, VAT, payment method and change on a Korean receipt, plus unit prices and refunds.

Safety words deserve extra care. The bathroom lesson separates polite requests (밀어 주세요) from bans (출입 금지) so that a warning is never read as a suggestion.

The last group moves from the street to the screen.

How Do I Read Messages, Addresses and News?

Messages, addresses and headlines are written text without a place to stand in, so they have their own shortcuts. See Korean Addresses and Maps. See Korean Kakaotalk Messages. See Korean News Headlines for headline grammar: noun endings, dropped particles and plain-style verbs.

Chat and headlines use shortened forms, so do them after the sign lessons. Compare all 13 lessons below.

How Do the Korean Signs Lessons Compare?

The table lists every lesson with what it fixes, its level and whether it has audio. The lessons include pronunciation audio, and the Korean examples are written as live text.

How Do You Practise Korean Signs and Menus?

Practise by reading the real thing first and checking it second. Pick one lesson, read its word list, then look for those words on a menu or a street. The Korean travel phrases section gives you the sentences to say, and the worksheets and flashcards hubs have printable and deck practice.

A simple weekly route is: one lesson, one list, one real-world test. The test might be reading five menu lines or finding three sign words on a walk. Use the reading strategies to speed up the reading itself.

What Is the Study Order?

Follow this order if you want one route through the whole section.

1. Street signs and subway signs for movement.
2. Menu, cafe menu and convenience store labels for food.
3. Price tags and receipts, store hours and ingredient labels for shopping.
4. Bathroom signs and elevator buttons for buildings.
5. Addresses, KakaoTalk messages and news headlines for text on screens.

You can reorder the steps to match your trip. The order above moves from the fixed words of signs to the free-form text of messages and news.

Audio, Review Status and Scope

The lessons in this section describe typical layouts, not photographs of private signs, so the exact wording on a given shop may differ.

This section does not teach conversation or grammar in depth. For those, see the Korean travel phrases section, and for the alphabet itself, see how to read Hangul.

Related Sections

• Reading: the parent hub for beginner reading, stories and strategies.
• Korean restaurant phrases: what to say after you read the menu.
• Korean vocabulary: word lists for food, travel and shops.
• Reading Strategies: chunking and guessing for faster reading.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I read Korean signs after learning Hangul? Mostly yes. Hangul lets you sound out every sign, but you also need the meaning, because the words are not English. The lessons here teach the fixed words for each setting, so reading and understanding come together. Loanword signs, such as cafe menus, are the easiest to read first.

Why do Korean menus look different from English menus? Korean menus list compressed nouns, such as 갈비탕 (short-rib soup), instead of describing ingredients in a phrase. They also state portions (1인분), show prices in won, sometimes in thousands, and name extras such as 사리. Learning the dish-name pattern, ingredient plus style word, opens up most of a menu.

Which signs should travellers learn first? Start with 출구 (exit), 입구 (entrance), 화장실 (restroom) and the warnings 주의 (caution), 위험 (danger) and 출입 금지 (no entry), because they affect safety and navigation. Then add 주차장 (parking lot), 약국 (pharmacy) and the numbers used for subway exits and prices.

Do Korean signs use Chinese characters? Modern Korean signs are written almost entirely in Hangul. Chinese characters, called hanja, appear occasionally on traditional shop signs, on monuments and in some headlines, and they usually accompany the Hangul. You do not need them to read the signs in this section, though they explain why some sign syllables repeat.