my-korean1-2nd-ed

UNIT 1 안녕하세요?
Addressing Unknown People at the Shops
Although shop assistants wear name tags, they will never use their given
name to introduce themselves. (You will never have someone say “Hi,
Please call me Sam” to you in Korea, even though this might be appropriate
in Australia.)
Depending on the shop, the shop assistant will use ‘sonnim (customer)’ or
‘gogaek-nim (distinguished customer)’ for you, or sometimes a kinship term.
For example, a young clerk at the bank may address a customer with the
polite and neutral term ‘seonsaeng-nim (Mr/Ms/Teacher)’ or ‘gogaek-nim
(Dear customer)’.
In the market, for young girls, they might use ‘eonni’, for middle aged
women ‘ajumma’, and for middle aged men (and maybe younger men too)
‘ajeossi'. Elderly customers are referred to as ‘harabeoji’ for men and
‘halmeoni’ for women.
If you need to call out to a staff member to attract their attention, the term
you use depends on the type of business. If you are at a café or restaurant,
you can use a kinship term, for example to a young female waitress using
"eonni" (literally older sister) if you are a female, but usually people don't
use any term but simple say "yeogiyo" (literally over here!) to catch their
attention. If you are in a shop, you can use kinship terms as described above
(i.e. eonni, ajumma, ajeossi, harabeoji, halmeoni, etc.).
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