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Halloween in Korea
The Korean words and phrases for Halloween in Korea: costumes, parties, asking for a photo, and the crowd-safety signs in busy districts.
Halloween in Korea is a young, urban night out rather than a children's door-to-door evening: costume parties in bars and clubs, events at theme parks, and English kindergartens dressing up. It changed after 29 October 2022, when 159 people died in a crowd crush in a narrow alley in Itaewon, Seoul, on the Saturday night before Halloween. Since then many shops and venues have toned the occasion down, and each year the police and local authorities run crowd-safety operations in the busiest districts. This guide keeps to costumes, photos and the safety signs, and the last section is the one worth knowing by heart.
The story behind it is on the blog: Halloween in Korea: costumes, crowds and what changed in 2022.
Halloween words you will see
On posters, menus and party invitations:
Most Halloween words are borrowed from English: 핼러윈, 코스튬, 좀비. 핼러윈 is the spelling the National Institute of Korean Language recommends, but 할로윈 is just as common on posters and menus, so read both. 분장 is the make-up and transformation side of dressing up, the word a theatre uses, while 코스튬 is the outfit itself. 귀신 is the Korean ghost, usually pictured as a woman in white with long black hair, and it is what a Korean haunted house is full of.
At a party
With people you have just met, polite 해요체 is the safe level:
무슨 'what kind of' makes the natural 'what are you dressed as?': 'what costume is it?'. The answer is the character or creature plus 이에요 or 예요, chosen by whether the word ends in a consonant, as in day 3's 저는 영국 사람이에요. 마녀 'witch' ends in a vowel, so 예요. 진짜 is the casual 'really', fine at a party. 무서워요 comes from 무섭다, whose ㅂ turns into 우 before a vowel, like 매워요 from 맵다.
Asking for a photo
Ask before you photograph anyone, and again before you post it:
-아/어도 돼요? 'is it all right if...?' is the polite way to ask permission, and 찍어 주실 수 있어요? is 'could you take it for me?', with the respectful 시 because you are asking a stranger a favour. People in Korea mind about their faces appearing online, so asking first matters. 장 is the counter for flat things, photos included, and the photographer counts in native numbers: 하나, 둘, 셋.
Crowd-safety signs and announcements
In busy districts at the end of October you will see staff, police and signs managing the crowd:
Signs stack nouns again: 일방 'one direction' plus 통행 'passing through' is 일방통행, the word on a one-way street sign, and 우측 통행 is 'right-hand passage'. -지 마세요 is the polite 'please don't' of day 65, and it is what you will hear over loudspeakers: 멈추지 마세요, 밀지 마세요. 혼잡 is congestion, on a train or a road as well as a street. In 2025 the police named 33 crowded areas across the country, from Itaewon and Hongdae in Seoul to Gwangalli Beach in Busan, and managed them from 24 October to 2 November. If a street feels too full, leave it early by the way the staff point. 112 is the police and 119 the fire and ambulance service.
These phrases get built into real conversation in the daily lessons. The first seven days are open to everyone, and the Hangul course will have you reading every sign in the guide.
For why it is this way, and what to expect if you are there, read Halloween in Korea: costumes, crowds and what changed in 2022 on the blog.