my-korean1-2nd-ed

18
UNIT 1 안녕하세요?
Addressing Peers at School: ‘seonbae’ and
‘hubae’
In Korea, age is very important in establishing the relationship between
speakers. Therefore, when you are at university, you will address people in
the years above or below you with special titles.
The title for someone in a year above you is ‘선배 (seonbae)’ and ‘후배
(hubae)’ is used for someone in a lower year level. For example, if you are
a 2 nd year student, you are the ‘seonbae’ of a 1 st year student and ‘hubae’ of
a 3 rd year student.
If you are not very close to a person in an older year level, you would add
the respectful ‘님 (nim)’ to the title, so that they are called ‘seonbae-nim’.
However, if you are very close to someone in an older year, you may also
one of the kinship terms (hyeong, nuna, eonni, oppa ).