Greetings & Basics

Level 2 — Greetings & Basics: Saying Useful Things Right Away

The first conversation in a new language is almost always the same: hello, my name is X, nice to meet you, what's your name, where are you from, thank you, goodbye. Level 2 gets you through all of that, with a deliberate emphasis on the politeness level you would actually use in real life. Korean has multiple speech levels — Level 2 sticks to 해요체 (the polite informal style) because that is the form you will use in 95% of everyday situations with strangers, shopkeepers, classmates, and colleagues you have just met.

Beyond greetings, this level covers self-introduction in real conversational form (not the stilted textbook version), the verb 이다 (to be), the negative 아니다 (to not be), the existence verbs 있다 / 없다, and the polite request and question patterns. By the end of Level 2 you can hold a one-minute introduction conversation, ask someone's name, ask where the bathroom is, and order one item at a café — which is a useful threshold to hit before moving into grammar-heavy territory.

If you are a Japanese speaker, this level will move faster than you expect. The greeting patterns map almost one-to-one with Japanese (안녕하세요 = こんにちは, 감사합니다 = ありがとうございます), and the polite request structure -주세요 follows the same sociolinguistic logic as Japanese -てください. English speakers should not skip ahead even if vocabulary feels easy — the politeness levels and the use of 해요체 endings are the cultural infrastructure of every later lesson.

By the end of this level you will:

• Introduce yourself fluently using 해요체 (polite informal speech)
• Greet, thank, apologise, and say goodbye in appropriate situations
• Use 이다 / 아니다 / 있다 / 없다 to make and negate basic statements
• Order food, ask questions, and make polite requests with -주세요