Business Korean
Professional Korean for meetings, presentations, and workplace communication.
Korean business communication has specific conventions that differ significantly from casual Korean. The default register is formal 합쇼체 (-ㅂ니다/습니다), with subject honorifics -(으)시- liberally applied to anyone above you. Hierarchy matters intensely — 상사 (superior), 부장 (department head), 과장 (manager), 대리 (associate), 사원 (staff) are not abstract titles but operative levels that determine language choice.
Key business vocabulary: 회의 (meeting), 보고 (report, both noun and verb), 프로젝트 (project), 일정 (schedule), 마감 (deadline), 결재 (approval workflow). Common phrases at meetings: 안건이 무엇입니까? (what's the agenda?), 의견을 말씀해 주세요 (please share your opinion), 검토하겠습니다 (I'll review this). Korean business culture has been Westernising over the 2020s — strict hierarchy and after-hours drinking culture are declining — but the linguistic register remains formal. Speaking 반말 in a business setting is essentially never appropriate.
~(으)시겠습니까 — Would you (super formal question)
Verb stem + (으)시겠습니까 is the most formal way to ask someone to do something. Used in meetings, presentations, and formal settings. 시작하시겠습니까? (Shall we begin?) 검토해 주시겠습니까? (Would you review it?)
~(으)면 좋겠습니다 / ~았/었으면 합니다 — I wish / I would like
Polite way to express wishes in business. ~(으)면 좋겠습니다 = It would be good if ~. ~았/었으면 합니다 = I wish / I would like ~. Both are softer than direct requests.
How It Works
Business Korean sits at the top of the formality scale, and the forms in this lesson are genuinely more formal than anything you have used so far.
-(으)시겠습니까 stacks three politeness elements: the subject honorific -시-, the softening -겠-, and the formal 합쇼체 question ending -습니까. The result is the most deferential question form in ordinary use. 시작하시겠습니까? ('shall we begin?') is what you hear opening a meeting.
-(으)면 좋겠습니다 expresses a wish indirectly: 'it would be good if'. Rather than requesting, it describes a desirable state and leaves the listener to act. 검토해 주시면 좋겠습니다 asks for review without issuing an instruction.
-았/었으면 합니다 does the same thing with a past-form conditional, which increases the distance further. The past form here is not about time — it marks the wish as counterfactual and therefore more tentative.
The underlying principle is that Korean politeness increases with indirectness. A direct request is less polite than a stated wish, which is less polite than a hypothetical wish. Understanding this scale lets you calibrate rather than memorise.
습니다체 runs throughout business communication without exception, and dropping into 해요체 mid-meeting is a noticeable register break.
Where You'll Hear It
Korean workplaces are more hierarchical than many Western equivalents, and language is one of the main ways hierarchy is enacted. Titles plus 님 are used rather than names — 팀장님, 과장님, 부장님 — and this holds even among people who work together daily.
수고하셨습니다 closes meetings and workdays. It acknowledges effort and is said downward and laterally; to a senior, 고생 많으셨습니다 is often preferred as it carries more deference.
회식 — the after-work team dinner — remains a real institution, though less mandatory than a decade ago. Knowing how to decline politely using the hedged forms from Lesson 5-8 is practically useful.
Email follows the conventions from Lesson 6-5, and the register is consistent with spoken business Korean: 습니다체 throughout, 님 for the recipient, formal closings.
Meetings open with 시작하시겠습니까? or 시작하겠습니다 depending on who is leading, and proposals are typically framed as wishes rather than demands, which is exactly what this lesson's grammar provides.
Some companies have deliberately flattened hierarchy by adopting English names or universal 님, but these remain the exception rather than the norm.
Cultural & Language Note
Korean workplace language is stratified by title rather than name, and 님 attaches to roles: 팀장님, 부장님. Some companies have deliberately flattened this by adopting English names or universal 님 usage, but the traditional structure still dominates. Email and meeting language sits at the 습니다 level almost without exception.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
으시겠습니까 is a request, not a yes-or-no question about willingness, so answering it literally misses the point. Learners also mix 해요체 into written business communication, which reads as too casual. Within a workplace email, stay at 습니다 throughout rather than drifting between levels.
How to Practice This Lesson
Learn the formality scale as a scale rather than as separate forms. Write the same request at four levels — 해 주세요, 해 주시겠어요?, 해 주시면 좋겠습니다, 해 주셨으면 합니다 — and say them in order. Feeling the progression is what lets you pick the right one in the moment.
Drill 수고하셨습니다 and 고생 많으셨습니다 until both are automatic, and note which one goes in which direction. These are said daily and getting them wrong is conspicuous.
Practise the meeting-opening and meeting-closing formulas as fixed units. Meetings are highly ritualised at the edges even when the middle is free-form, so scripting the edges removes most of the pressure.
If you work in a Korean company, listen specifically for how your colleagues address each other and mirror the pattern one level more conservative. Observation beats instruction here because company cultures vary.
Do not mix registers. Choose 습니다체 for any work context and stay in it — consistency matters more than any individual form.