What is “wait” in Korean?

There are couple of ways to say “Wait” in Korean.

잠시만 [jam-si-man] or 기다려 [gi-da-ryeo]

잠시만 means ‘one moment’ and widely used as “wait” for a short period of time.

기다려 literally means ‘wait’ and it does not necessarily set time limit to how long the wait would be so it is used for more generalized situations, where you would ask someone to wait for more than a few minutes.

If you want to be polite, you could add ‘yo’ or ‘ju-se-yo’ at the end.

잠시만요 [jam-si-man-yo]

기다려주세요. [gi-da-ryeo-ju-se-yo]


Sample sentences using Wait in Korean:

잠시만요 제가 할말이 있어요. [jam-si-man-yo, jae-ga hal-mal-(r)ee it-sseo-yo]
Wait, I have something to say.

조금 기다려, 금방 돌아올께. [jo-ggeum gi-da-ryeo, geum-bang do-ra-ol-gge]
Wait for a bit, I will be back soon.