How to Say It Hurts in Korean: 아파요 + Body Parts

It's 2 a.m. in a Seoul guesthouse and your throat feels like sandpaper. You know the word for throat. What you don't know is the sentence that carries it. This beginner-friendly guide covers how to say it hurts in Korean — one pattern, a dozen body parts, and the questions a real doctor asks.

How do you say it hurts in Korean?

Say the body part, attach 이 or 가, then add 아파요 (apayo). 머리가 아파요 (meoriga apayo) means "my head hurts." No word for "my," no verb "to have," no article. Name the part, mark it, done.

Which marker you use depends on one thing: whether the body part ends in a consonant. Consonant ending takes 이, vowel ending takes 가. 목 ends in ㄱ, so 목이. 머리 ends in a vowel, so 머리가.

That last row is the one to memorize tonight. 여기가 아파요 plus a finger works in every clinic in the country, and it has rescued more travellers than the other eleven rows combined. And yes — the word for tooth is 이, the same shape as the marker, so 이가 아파요 doubles it up.

Hear a native speaker say the pain phrases

Fever, cough, cold: symptoms that are not pain

Not everything hurts. Some symptoms come out (나다), some you catch (걸리다), and some you simply have (있다). Each verb brings its own marker, so learn the phrase whole rather than assembling it from parts.

What the doctor will ask you

Korean clinic visits follow a script, and it is short. The doctor opens with 어디가 불편하세요? — literally "where is uncomfortable?" Then they ask when it started. Answer those two and you have cleared the hard part.

Notice 아팠어요 (apasseoyo) in the doctor's question — that is 아파요 in the past tense. Korean asks "since when did it hurt," where English asks "how long has it been hurting." The Korean tense system handles duration differently than you expect.

On the way out you get a 처방전 (cheobangjeon, prescription). That goes to the 약국 (yakguk, pharmacy), which in Korea is almost always about ten steps from the clinic door.

Common mistakes when you say it hurts in Korean

The particle contrast in the first two rows is the whole lesson in miniature. If it still feels slippery, our guide to Korean particles walks through 이/가 versus 을/를 from the ground up.

One aside, because it will save you a confused moment. 배가 아프다 has a second life as "to be jealous." There's an old saying — 사촌이 땅을 사면 배가 아프다, if your cousin buys land, your stomach hurts. So when a friend says 배 아파 after you announce good news, check their face before you offer medicine.

To recap how to say it hurts in Korean: name the body part, add 이 after a consonant or 가 after a vowel, finish with 아파요. Symptoms that are not pain use their own verbs — 나요 for things that come out, 걸렸어요 for what catches you, 있어요 for what you have.

Now try it. Say 여기가 아파요 out loud three times until it arrives without thinking, because that is the one you will need at 2 a.m. Then drill the rest of the clinic vocabulary with native audio for every word in this unit, and keep travel and emergency phrases in the same pocket.