Common Korean Adjectives: 50 Words for Beginners with Audio

What you'll learn

• Recognise 50 adjectives in eight groups.
• Say the polite present and the modifier of each: 커요, 큰; 추워요, 추운.
• Spot the irregular ones from the class column.
• Use at least 15 of them in a sentence of the pattern N이/가 + adjective.

Prerequisites: verbs vs adjectives. Time: about 40 minutes, or one group a day.

Key facts

• 50 adjectives, eight groups of five to eight words.
• Every row shows the polite present, the modifier and an example sentence with audio.
• 25 of the 50 change their stem (ㅡ, ㅂ, ㄹ or 르), so the list is also irregular practice.
• The words were chosen for learner need and level, not by corpus frequency.

The first section explains what the list contains and how it was chosen.

What Are the Most Common Korean Adjectives?

The most common Korean adjectives for beginners are words for size (크다, 작다), quality (좋다, 나쁘다), price (싸다, 비싸다), weather and taste (덥다, 춥다, 맵다, 맛있다), feelings (기쁘다, 슬프다) and people (착하다, 똑똑하다). This page lists 50 such words in eight groups, sorted by use and not alphabetically.

How this list was chosen. The 50 words were selected for learner need and difficulty level: words that appear in everyday situations such as shopping, weather, food, school and health. The ranking is editorial. It is not a corpus frequency count, and no frequency numbers are claimed. For context only, interest in the search "adjectives in korean" was about 100 searches a month in the United States in 2023; that figure is historical and not a current measurement.

Every row has the same four parts, so you can compare words quickly.

• Polite present. The form for everyday speech, such as 커요. It shows stem changes that the dictionary form hides.
• Modifier. The form before a noun, such as 큰 in 큰 집. It is -(으)ㄴ for most adjectives and -는 for 맛있다, 멋있다, 재미있다 and 재미없다. See the adjective -(으)ㄴ form.
• Class. "Regular", "ㅡ-drop", "ㅂ irregular", "ㄹ-drop", "르 irregular" or "하다 type". The class tells you how the stem behaves.
• Example. A short sentence in the pattern N이/가 + adjective, with audio.

The first two groups cover size, amount, speed and time.

Which Are the Size, Amount, Speed and Time Adjectives?

Size and amount words describe how big, long or plentiful a thing is. Speed and time words describe how quick, slow, early or late it is. Both groups are among the first ones learners need, and they contain several opposite pairs.

Group 1: Size and Amount

Note that 크다 and 작다 describe the size of objects. For a person's height Korean uses 키가 크다 (to be tall), a pattern taught in size, shape and color adjectives.

Group 2: Speed and Time

이르다 means "early" in this list and is 르 irregular: 일러요. A different verb 이르다 means "to reach" and conjugates as 이르러요 (러 irregular), so check the meaning in context. The next two groups cover quality and the senses.

Which Are the Difficulty, Quality, Temperature and Taste Adjectives?

Difficulty and quality words give a judgement; temperature and taste words describe what the senses report. Learners use them in almost every conversation about food, weather and shopping.

Group 3: Difficulty and Quality

Group 4: Temperature and Taste

덥다 and 춥다 describe weather and a person's feeling about it, while 뜨겁다 and 차갑다 describe things you touch or drink. The two sets are compared in hot and cold in Korean, and more taste words are in Korean taste adjectives. The last four groups describe people, places and how you feel.

Which Are the Appearance, Feeling, Character and Distance Adjectives?

These groups describe how things look, how you feel, what people are like and where things are. They contain the words that need extra care: 배고프다 is a compound, and 멋있다 takes -는.

Group 5: Appearance

Group 6: Feelings and States

배고프다 is one word in the dictionary, but speakers often split it back into its parts, 배가 고프다 (literally "the stomach is hungry"), so 배가 고파요 in the example is as common as 배고파요. Feeling adjectives state the speaker's own feeling when used in the plain present. Talking about another person needs a different form, which is explained in Korean emotion adjectives and Korean physical state adjectives.

Group 7: Character and Manner

Group 8: Distance and Place

The groups are done. The next section counts which of the 50 are irregular.

Which of the 50 Adjectives Are Irregular?

Of the 50 adjectives, 25 belong to an irregular or stem-changing class: ㅡ-drop, ㅂ-irregular, ㄹ-drop or 르-irregular. Five more are 하다 adjectives, which are regular but add 해. That leaves 20 plain regular stems, so a beginner meets a changing stem about as often as a plain one. The table counts each class in this list.

What each class does in the polite present:

• ㅡ-drop. The ㅡ of the stem drops before 아/어: 크다 becomes 커요, 바쁘다 becomes 바빠요.
• ㅂ irregular. The ㅂ becomes 우 before a vowel ending: 춥다 becomes 추워요, 가깝다 becomes 가까워요. Note that 좁다 is regular: 좁아요.
• ㄹ-drop. The polite present is regular (길어요, 멀어요), but the ㄹ of the stem drops before ㄴ, ㅂ and ㅅ: 길다 gives 긴, 멀다 gives 먼, and 달다 gives 단.
• 르 irregular. An extra ㄹ is added: 빠르다 becomes 빨라요 and 이르다 becomes 일러요.
• 하다 type. 하 becomes 해 before 요: 깨끗하다 becomes 깨끗해요.

Look for the pattern in the table: the five ㅂ temperature and taste words (덥다, 춥다, 뜨겁다, 차갑다, 맵다) all end in 워요 in the polite present, so learning one teaches five. Korean school grammar counts the ㅡ and ㄹ drops as regular; this site teaches them with the irregulars because the stem still changes. Colour adjectives belong to a different class (ㅎ) and are not in this list. The rule for ㅂ stems is in ㅂ irregular. Next, use the words in sentences.

How Do You Use Adjectives in a Sentence?

Use an adjective as the predicate after the thing it describes, with 이/가 marking that thing: 집이 커요. This pattern, N이/가 + adjective, is how nearly all example sentences on this page are built. Four more patterns cover most beginner needs.

The word 너무 means "too" or "very" and is often used in the positive sense in speech; see Korean adverbs. When you want a pair of opposites in one sentence, the next section lists them.

Which of the 50 Are Opposites?

Thirty-four of the 50 adjectives form 17 opposite pairs inside this list, 맛있다 pairs with 맛없다 from outside it, and more pairs are on the Korean opposite adjectives page. Learn pairs together: remembering 크다 makes 작다 easy.

Two pairs need care. 이르다 / 늦다 is the pair for "early / late", and 이르다 is 르 irregular while 늦다 is regular. 맛있다 has the opposite 맛없다 (polite present 맛없어요), which is not one of the 50 but takes -는 in the same way: 맛없는 음식.

Practice: Can You Finish the Contrast?

Fill in each blank with the opposite adjective in the polite present. Write your answer before you read the answer column.

Score 10 or more and you can move on to the modifier form. For other word sets, see the vocabulary flashcards, and to see every form of a single word, open the Korean verb dictionary.

How Should You Study the 50 Adjectives?

Study one group a day and use a fixed routine; the eight groups then take eight days, with a ninth for review. The routine below keeps each session under 15 minutes.

1. Listen first. Play each example sentence and repeat it aloud twice.
2. Cover and recall. Hide the meaning column and say the English, then hide the Korean and say the polite present.
3. Say the pair. For each word that has an opposite on this page, say both in one breath: 크다, 작다.
4. Change the noun. Replace the subject: 집이 커요 becomes 방이 커요, 가방이 커요. This builds the pattern N이/가 + adjective.
5. Mark the irregulars. Write the class column for the words you missed and review only those the next day.

A common trap is learning the dictionary form only. If you can say 춥다 but hesitate on 추워요, the word is not yet usable in speech, so test the polite present, not the dictionary form.

What Should You Learn after These Common Korean Adjectives?

After these common Korean adjectives, learn the adjective -(으)ㄴ form in full, then the 100 Korean verbs. This list covers 50 words and the polite present; it does not cover colour words, the plain present, or the -아/어하다 verbs for other people's feelings.

About this page. Last updated 2026-10-09. The Korean text on this page was machine-generated and reviewed and signed off by Min-ji Park on 15 October 2026. Forms were cross-checked with the site's rule-based conjugation engine. Romanization follows the Revised Romanization of Korean and is shown only as a learning aid.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Korean adjectives should a beginner learn? Fifty is a practical first target, and this list is built for it. With these 50 and the verb patterns you already know, you can describe size, weather, taste, feelings and people. Learn five or six a day from one group, and say each in a full sentence rather than alone.

Which of the 50 adjectives are irregular? Exactly half, 25 of the 50, are not plain regular stems. The ㅂ group (춥다, 어렵다), the ㅡ group (크다, 바쁘다), the 르 group (빠르다, 이르다) and the ㄹ group (길다, 멀다) all differ from the plain pattern. The table in the irregular section flags each word, so the list doubles as irregular practice.

Is there a flashcard deck for these 50 adjectives? Yes. The deck below the practice section turns the list into flashcards with the dictionary form, meaning, polite present and audio. For other word sets, see the vocabulary flashcard decks. Use recognition mode first, then switch to active recall once you can read the polite present of every card.

Why does the list use polite present forms like 커요? The polite present is the form you use most in conversation, and it shows the stem change that dictionary forms hide. 크다 looks regular but gives 커요, and 춥다 gives 추워요. Learning the dictionary form and the polite present together prevents the common error of adding 어요 to the unchanged stem.

Does the list include colour words? No. The basic colours are a separate class, the ㅎ irregular adjectives 빨갛다, 파랗다, 노랗다, 하얗다 and 까맣다, with colour nouns that need 색. They have their own lesson in the size, shape and color subhub, which also explains why a red apple is 빨간 사과.

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