Mary
당신 versus 본인 - Which word is more polite?

본인 (Is this a polite word? Is it okay to refer to an older person 본인)? May I please get sample sentences. Thank you.

 

당신 versus본인
Which word is more polite?

Oct 8, 2014 6:17 AM
Comments · 6

i know it's out of nowhere but do you have a difficulty pronouncing Korean words? I have many foreign friends studying Korean, but many of them don't seem to know this website. http://www.forvo.com/languages/ko/ if you add words you don't know how to pronounce, Korean native will pronounce them for you.

October 12, 2014

Oh my god!

There are So many people who knew about korean. I really surprised about this. I am korean student and I think 본인, 당신 are not have much difference. It just relate about a situation when you use.

 

I really hope you guys understand and change my grammatical mistake. Thanks for reading it.

October 11, 2014

I think it's very unusual to call a woman 선생님 unless she's really a teacher/doctor.

선생님 can be used to every man ( above middle age, not to young man) although he's not a real teacher.

 

당신 is not used well in conversation as you said. only to wife/husband or when you're mad like i mentioned above.

 

사모님 itself means literally a wife of a teacher, so it's not ok to calll an unmarried woman. But if she is in middle age, it can be used.

 

So to younger age like 20~30 almost same age with you, 본인 can be used if you don't have any relations like  학생/학생분/환자분/고객님/선배님.

I use 그쪽 also instead of 본인 when i don't even know his/her name. (If I knew I said ~~씨/~~님)

본인께서 알아서 하시죠 > 그쪽이 알아서 하시죠.

Since 그쪽께서 sounds a bit weird. this case 본인 + 께서 +~~시다(존경표현) is best if you don't know anything about the person.

October 11, 2014

Thanks you for the insight!  Can I call a woman 선생님 as well?   선생님 means teacher but I guess it's ok to call every 선생님.  

 

I tried using Google translate.  Google uses "당신" which sounds weird because I thought you only called your husband or wife that. 

 

Is it ok to call an unmarried woman 사모님?  

October 10, 2014

당신 can be used in polite way but i think it's mostly in written method..

like in letter we can say, 당신께 감사한 마음을 담아 보냅니다.

in church the lyrics of ccm is 당신은 사랑받기 위해 태어난 사람. //

 

당신 also can mean honey,(wife/husband) 당신 오늘 늦게 들어와? /honey, are you late tonight?

October 10, 2014
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