There are many ways to say “excuse me” in Korean, depending on the situation you’re in:
실례합니다 is a very formal and polite expression (remember the ㅂ니다 ending we’ve discussed in previous lessons). You can pair it with 저기요 to be extra polite when approaching a stranger for a favor.
실례 means “bad manners”, so 실례합니다 literally means “I am being rude”, and can be used when you bump into someone, show up late to a meeting, ask someone to repeat themselves, etc.
저기 (over there) and 여기 (over here) are commonly used phrases. You can use these to talk about something that is close or far away, which we’ll cover in later lessons.
저기요 and 여기요 are very often used in restaurants to get a waiter’s attention. Don’t wait for a waiter to notice you! Hold up your hand and say:
* “요” is added for politeness.
잠시만요 literally means “just a moment”, and can also be used to ask someone to wait a moment for something.
죄송합니다 means “I’m sorry”, and it can pair with 잠시만요 if you want to be extra polite.
Before we end the lesson, I’ll give you two more ways to say “excuse me”, starting with:
which is used at the start of a sentence. It means “excuse me, but”. We’ll cover “지만” in a later lesson. Finally:
which literally means “I will be passing by”. We’ll cover the future tense of verbs later on.
That was a lot, right? Just try to focus on the different ways to “excuse me” at the top of this page. Eventually you’ll come back to this lesson with confidence. See you in the next one!