How to Introduce Yourself in Korean (The 60-Second Script)

A Korean self-introduction has five lines: 안녕하세요 (hello), 저는 [name]이에요/예요 (I'm [name]), [country]에서 왔어요 (I'm from [country]), a line about what you do, and 잘 부탁드립니다 to close — literally 'please treat me well,' Korea's all-purpose 'nice to be working/meeting with you.' Use 예요 after names ending in a vowel, 이에요 after a consonant.

Every language has a self-introduction script you're expected to know cold, and in Korean it's five lines long, always said in the same order, and closes with a phrase that doesn't translate into English at all. Learn the shape once and you can drop any name, country, or job into it for the rest of your life.

Here's the script, why each line exists, and — because Koreans will absolutely ask — how to field the two questions that come next: your age and, increasingly, your MBTI.

The 5-line template

This is the order native speakers actually use, from a first meeting at a language exchange to a first day at a new job. Skip a line and it still works; reorder them and it sounds foreign.

That fourth line is the one people freeze on. It doesn't have to be a job title. "저는 학생이에요" (jeo-neun hak-saeng-i-e-yo, "I'm a student") works fine, and so does naming a hobby if you're at something casual like a hiking meetup. The point of the line is giving the other person a hook to ask a follow-up question, not delivering a resume.

저는 [name]이에요 or 예요? The one rule that decides it

This trips up almost everyone in week one, and it's genuinely a two-second check: does your name's last syllable end in a vowel sound or a consonant sound? Vowel ending, use 예요. Consonant ending (including names that end in ㄴ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅇ), use 이에요. Nothing else matters — not gender, not how long the name is, not which country it's from.

If your name has no clean Korean transliteration yet, our guide to writing your name in Hangul walks through the rules before you even get to this step. And if 이에요/예요 still feels shaky beyond names, the full breakdown covers every edge case, including what happens with numbers.

Casual, polite, and job-interview versions of the same script

The five-line shape doesn't change. The verb endings do, and picking the wrong register is the single most common mistake foreigners make here — Korean self-intros are almost never casual, even between people close in age, because you're strangers until about thirty seconds ago.

What Koreans will ask you next

Finish the script and the conversation doesn't stop — it starts. Two questions come up so often they're basically part of the ritual: your age, because Korean grammar and social hierarchy both run on it, and lately, your MBTI, which Korea has adopted as a national icebreaker with startling enthusiasm.

Age isn't small talk here the way it is in English — it decides speech levels and who calls whom what, which is why Korean age culture is worth understanding even if you never plan on stating a number. You're allowed to dodge it, and Koreans dodge it too, especially with new acquaintances.

"나이는 비밀이에요" (my age is a secret) said with a smile is a completely normal, low-stakes way out — Koreans use versions of it on each other constantly. If you'd rather just answer, give your birth year ("95년생이에요," "I was born in '95") rather than a raw number; it sidesteps the international-vs-Korean age math entirely.

The two mistakes that give away a beginner

The second mistake is treating 잘 부탁드립니다 as a farewell. It isn't — it's forward-looking, closer to "let's get along" or "I'm counting on you," said at the start of a relationship, not the end. Koreans say it when starting a job, joining a group chat, or meeting a study partner for the first time, never when leaving. If you want an actual goodbye, that's a completely different phrase, and confusing the two is the kind of slip that gets a knowing smile rather than confusion — everyone's made it once.

One more layer worth knowing: 반갑습니다 ("nice to meet you") often gets said right before 잘 부탁드립니다, not instead of it — "만나서 반갑습니다, 잘 부탁드립니다" stacks both and is the single warmest, safest way to end any first introduction in Korean.