How to Say Food Tastes Sweet, Salty, Sour, Bitter, or Spicy in Korean
Learn to describe a food's built-in taste in Korean with 이거 ___ and ___ 맛이에요, covering sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and spicy.
By MarcusFood & cafés · Yapr Learn
In Korean, describing how a food tastes is different from saying you like it. To state a food's inherent quality, use the pattern 이거 ___ (igeo ___), meaning 'This is ___', or attach 맛이에요 (masieyo), meaning 'It tastes ___'. The five basic taste words are 달아요 (darayo, sweet), 짜요 (jjayo, salty), 시어요 (sieoyo, sour), 써요 (sseoyo, bitter), and 매워요 (maewoyo, spicy). This lesson teaches you to name a taste directly, without confusing it with personal preference.
By the end, you can…
- name the five basic tastes in Korean.
- say 'This is sweet/salty/sour/bitter/spicy' about food.
- use the pattern ___ 맛이에요 to describe how something tastes.
- tell a taste description apart from a personal preference.
Listen once. Try it slowly. Then say it without looking.
Checking available voices…
이거 달아요.
This is sweet.
igeo darayo
Use for foods like honey, ripe fruit, or candy. 달아요 is a plain, polite descriptive form.
이거 짜요.
This is salty.
igeo jjayo
Use for soup, soy sauce, or snacks with too much salt. The double ㅉ is tense, not aspirated.
이거 시어요.
This is sour.
igeo sieoyo
Use for lemon, vinegar, or fermented kimchi. 시어요 often describes a sharp, tangy taste.
이거 써요.
This is bitter.
igeo sseoyo
Use for black coffee, dark chocolate, or some medicinal herbs. The tense ㅆ sound is important here.
이거 매워요.
This is spicy.
igeo maewoyo
Use for gochujang, tteokbokki, or hot peppers. 매워요 is the standard polite form.
Pronunciation guides are approximate. Slow playback keeps the original pitch.
Make it make sense
Useful pattern
The core pattern is 이거 + taste word. 이거 (igeo) means 'this thing', and the taste word comes at the end as a polite descriptive verb: 이거 달아요 (This is sweet), 이거 짜요 (This is salty). You can also use the noun 맛 (mat, taste) with 이에요/예요: 이거 단 맛이에요 (This is a sweet taste) or 이거 매운 맛이에요 (This is a spicy taste). For a softer question, say 이거 달아요? (Is this sweet?). The taste word changes form before 맛: 달다 becomes 단, 짜다 becomes 짠, 시다 becomes 신, 쓰다 becomes 쓴, and 맵다 becomes 매운.
When to use it
Use these sentences when you are describing the food itself, not your personal liking. If you say 이거 달아요, you are stating that the food is sweet, and anyone tasting it would likely agree. If you want to say you like it, use 좋아해요 (joahaeyo, I like it) or 맛있어요 (masisseoyo, it is delicious). For example, 이거 매워요 means 'This is spicy', while 이거 매운 거 좋아해요 means 'I like spicy food'. Keep the two separate: taste words describe the food; 좋아해요 describes you.
Listen to each line, then take one part and reply out loud.
이거 뭐예요?
What is this?igeo mwoyeyo?김치예요. 이거 매워요.
It is kimchi. This is spicy.gimchi-yeyo. igeo maewoyo.아, 그래요? 이거 짜요?
Oh, really? Is this salty?a, geuraeyo? igeo jjayo?조금 짜요. 그리고 시어요.
It is a little salty. And it is sour.jogeum jjayo. geurigo sieoyo.A little context goes a long way
Korean meals often balance several tastes at once, so it is normal to describe one dish as 짜요 and another as 매워요 in the same meal. When speaking to someone older or to a server, the polite -요 ending is safe and natural. Among close friends, you may hear plain forms like 이거 달아 or 이거 매워, but learners should keep the -요 form until the relationship is clearly casual.
One thing to watch for
Using 좋아해요 to mean 'it tastes good' or 'it is sweet'.
Try this instead: 좋아해요 means 'I like it', not 'it tastes good'. To describe taste, use the taste word: 이거 달아요 (This is sweet). To say it is delicious, use 이거 맛있어요 (This is delicious). Keep taste descriptions and personal preferences separate.
Your turn
Try answering out loud before checking a possible answer.
1How do you say 'This is sour' in Korean?
Show a sample answer
이거 시어요.
이거 means 'this' and 시어요 is the polite descriptive form of 'to be sour'. You could also say 이거 신 맛이에요 with the noun 맛.
2Which word means 'bitter', and how is it pronounced?
Show a sample answer
써요, pronounced sseoyo.
써요 is the polite form of 쓰다 (to be bitter). The initial ㅆ is a tense sound, so it is not the same as 서요 (seoyo).
3If a friend says 이거 매워요, are they saying they like spicy food?
Show a sample answer
No. They are saying 'This is spicy', describing the food itself.
매워요 describes the food's taste. To say they like spicy food, they would say 매운 거 좋아해요. Both are correct, but they mean different things.
Use 이거 + 달아요/짜요/시어요/써요/매워요 to describe what a food tastes like, and save 좋아해요 for what you personally like.
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