Korean Size Adjectives: Big, Small, Long, Short, Tall, Wide

What you will be able to do after this lesson

• Describe the size and shape of 12 objects and people with the right adjective.
• Choose between 키가 크다 and 높다 for "tall" without guessing.
• Build sentences such as 키가 커요 and 머리가 길어요 and explain why they have two subjects.
• Conjugate the ㅡ, ㄹ, ㅂ and ㅎ size adjectives correctly.

Before you start: read verbs vs adjectives, because Korean adjectives conjugate like verbs. Time: about 35 minutes. Level: A1 to A2.

How Do You Say Big, Small and Tall in Korean?

Say 크다 for big, 작다 for small, 길다 for long, 짧다 for short and 높다 for high. Use 키가 크다 when the thing that is tall is a person. English has two or three words ("big", "large", "tall") where Korean often has one, and Korean has separate words for "high" and "a tall person".

Revised Romanization (RR) is only a reading aid: keuda, jakda, gilda, jjalda, nopda. You learn the Hangul forms. Notice that 크다 changes its stem in the polite present (커요), a pattern explained below. The hardest choice for English speakers is "tall", so it comes first.

Which Word Means Tall: 키가 크다 or 높다?

Use 키가 크다 for the height of a person or an animal, and 높다 for things that rise from the ground or sit far above it, such as buildings, mountains, ceilings and shelves. The noun 키 means "body height", so 키가 크다 literally says "the height is big".

The decision rule is short. If a person or an animal stands there, ask 키가 크다 or 키가 작다. If the thing is an object that rises, ask 높다 or 낮다. If you mean "a lot of" something, use 많다, not 크다. English "a big crowd" is 사람이 많아요 in Korean ("people are many"), and 사람이 커요 would mean the people are physically large.

The word for "short" also splits. A short person is 키가 작다, because the height is small. A short skirt, short hair or a short time is 짧다. Saying 키가 짧아요 for a short person sounds wrong to Korean speakers.

Now the full lists, starting with size and length.

Which Korean Size Adjectives Do You Need First?

Eight adjectives cover most everyday size talk. They form four opposite pairs: 크다 and 작다, 길다 and 짧다, 높다 and 낮다, 넓다 and 좁다. All forms in the table below were generated with the site's conjugation engine and are in the polite present (해요체).

Three things in this table need attention.

1. 크다 is a ㅡ-drop word. The stem 크 loses its ㅡ before 어 and becomes 커: 크 + 어요 = 커요. The past is 컸어요 and the modifier is 큰. See the lesson on ㅡ irregular verbs.
2. 길다 is an ㄹ-stem. The ㄹ drops before ㄴ, so the modifier is 긴 (긴 머리), not 길은. Before 어요, the ㄹ stays: 길어요. See ㄹ irregular.
3. The others are regular. 작다, 짧다, 높다, 낮다, 넓다 and 좁다 follow the normal 아요/어요 rule. The vowel ㅏ or ㅗ in the stem gives 아요 (작아요, 짧아요, 높아요, 낮아요, 좁아요); other vowels give 어요 (넓어요).

Pronunciation note: 넓다 is pronounced [널따] and 짧다 is [짤따], because the final cluster loses one consonant and the next ㄷ turns tense. The dictionary form is spelled with both letters.

The modifier column matters for noun phrases. Put the form directly before the noun: 큰 집 (a big house), 작은 가방 (a small bag), 긴 머리 (long hair), 짧은 치마 (a short skirt), 높은 산 (a high mountain), 낮은 의자 (a low chair), 넓은 방 (a wide room), 좁은 길 (a narrow road).

These eight words describe how big something is. The next group describes thickness, weight and depth.

Which Adjectives Describe Thickness, Weight and Depth?

Use 두껍다 and 얇다 for flat things (books, coats, paper), 굵다 and 가늘다 for round or long things (legs, ropes, hair strands), 무겁다 and 가볍다 for weight, and 깊다 and 얕다 for depth. English uses "thick" and "thin" for all of these, so the shape of the object chooses the Korean word.

Three more class notes help here.

• 두껍다, 무겁다 and 가볍다 are ㅂ-irregular. The ㅂ turns into 우 before a vowel ending: 두껍 + 어요 = 두꺼워요, 무겁 + 어요 = 무거워요, 가볍 + 어요 = 가벼워요. The lesson on ㅂ irregular verbs explains why. Some ㅂ adjectives are regular, but these three are not.
• 가늘다 is an ㄹ-stem, so the modifier is 가는, not 가늘은.
• 얕다 is pronounced [얃따]. The letter ㅌ at the end is said as [ㄷ], and the next ㄷ is tense. 깊다 is [깁따] for the same reason, and 굵다 is [국따] because the cluster ㄺ keeps only ㄱ before a consonant.

For a thin or slim body, Korean uses 날씬하다 (slim) and 마르다 (to be thin, usually said as the modifier 마른 사람 or the past 말랐어요). Do not use 얇다 for a person's body.

Shape needs its own small set of words, which is the next topic.

Which Words Describe Shape?

Shape words come from several classes: two are 하다 adjectives, one is an ㄹ-stem, one is ㅎ-irregular and one is regular. Five are useful from the start: 둥글다 and 동그랗다 (round), 네모나다 (square or boxy), 뾰족하다 (pointed) and 평평하다 (flat). The nouns 동그라미 (circle), 세모 (triangle) and 네모 (square) name the shapes themselves.

The two words for "round" differ in feel. 둥글다 is the general word and an ㄹ-stem (둥근 달, a round moon). 동그랗다 sounds smaller and neater, like a coin or a drawn circle, and is a ㅎ-irregular adjective: 동그라 + 아요 becomes 동그래요 and the modifier is 동그란. See ㅎ irregular. The color adjectives follow the same ㅎ pattern, which the lesson on Korean color adjectives covers.

Shape words describe what you see, so they pair naturally with nouns for body parts and objects. That pairing leads to the structure that confuses most learners: two subject markers in one sentence.

Why Do You Say 키가 크다 with Two Subjects?

Korean puts the whole and the described part in one sentence, so 동생은 키가 커요 means "As for my sibling, the height is big." The whole (동생) takes the topic marker 은/는, the part (키) takes the subject marker 이/가, and the adjective describes the part. This is called the double subject construction (이중 주어).

Read the pattern in three slots:

1. Whole + 은/는: 동생은 ("as for my sibling")
2. Attribute or part + 이/가: 키가 ("the height")
3. Adjective: 커요 ("is big")

You can drop the first slot when the context is clear. 키가 커요 alone means "(he or she) is tall". With 저 (I), 저는 키가 커요 means "I am tall". Body-part nouns are in the lesson on Korean body parts. Compare these two sentences: 머리가 길어요 describes long hair, and 머리가 커요 describes a big head. The adjective always belongs to the noun with 이/가, never to the whole.

When the whole is the thing you describe, drop the part: 방이 커요 ("the room is big"), not 방은 방이 커요. The two-subject version is only for describing a feature of something.

Once you can describe one thing, the natural next step is to compare two things.

How Do You Compare Sizes?

Add 더 (more) before the adjective to compare, 가장 (most) to pick the top, and 보다 after the thing you compare against. The details are in the lesson on Korean comparison particles, but three frames are enough to start.

Opposite pairs are a fast way to double what you learn. The lesson on Korean opposite adjectives collects all of them, and the four pairs on this page are a good start.

Which Mistakes Do Learners Make with Size Adjectives?

Most errors come from carrying English word choice into Korean. The table shows the wrong sentence, the fix and the reason.

Note that 큰 키 ("a tall stature") is also a normal noun phrase. The 이/가 pattern in the table is for full sentences with the adjective at the end.

These errors are easiest to catch by listening, so the next section is a listening task.

Listening Practice: Match the Sentence to the Picture

Listen to each sentence and pick the matching picture description.

Answer key: 1 D, 2 B, 3 H, 4 G, 5 C, 6 E, 7 F, 8 A.

Practice, answers hidden until you try:

1. Say "The room is wide" and "The room is narrow".
2. Say "My mother has long hair" with a double subject.
3. Give the polite present of 가볍다 and 무겁다.
4. Say "a short skirt" and "a long skirt" with modifiers.

Answers to the Practice

1. 방이 넓어요. 방이 좁아요.
2. 어머니는 머리가 길어요.
3. 가벼워요, 무거워요 (both ㅂ-irregular).
4. 짧은 치마, 긴 치마.

What to Learn Next

Korean size adjectives come down to a few rules: 키가 크다 for people and 높다 for things that rise, 짧다 for length, 많다 for amounts, and the object's shape decides between 두껍다 and 굵다. Next, pair the words you now know in Korean opposite adjectives, then widen the set with common Korean adjectives. Colour words are in the sister lesson on Korean color adjectives.

This page does not list every dimension word. It leaves out rarer words such as 거대하다 (huge) and measurement words such as 센티미터, and it does not teach how to ask "how tall are you?". The forms follow the standard written language described by the National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원), and the bracketed pronunciations are standard Seoul approximations.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I say tall in Korean? For a person, say 키가 크다 (키가 커요). For a building, mountain or tree, say 높다 (높아요). The word 키 means body height, so 키가 크다 literally means "the height is big". Never say 키가 높아요 for a person. For the opposite, a short person is 키가 작다, not 짧다.

What is the difference between 크다 and 높다? 크다 means big in overall size, and for people it also means tall. 높다 means high above the ground or far up a scale, so it fits mountains, buildings, shelves, prices and levels. A building can be 커요 (it is large) or 높아요 (it is tall), and the two sentences say different things.

How do I say long in Korean? Say 길다 (길어요) for long hair, a long road, a long river or a long time. The modifier before a noun is 긴, as in 긴 머리. The opposite is 짧다 (짧아요). The ㄹ in 길 drops before the ㄴ of the modifier ending, which is why 길은 is wrong.

Are size adjectives irregular? Some are. 크다 drops ㅡ (커요), 길다 and 가늘다 drop ㄹ before ㄴ (긴, 가는), and 두껍다, 무겁다 and 가볍다 are ㅂ-irregular (두꺼워요, 무거워요, 가벼워요). 동그랗다 is ㅎ-irregular (동그래요). Most other size words, such as 작다, 높다 and 넓다, are regular.

Can I use 크다 for a big amount? Not for countable or mass amounts. Use 많다 (many, much) for a big crowd, a lot of money or a lot of food: 사람이 많아요, 돈이 많아요. Use 크다 for size, and also for abstract things that grow, such as 문제가 커요 ("the problem is big") or 목소리가 커요 ("the voice is loud").