부장님 (bujangnim) — The Title That Stays When the Name Disappears
부장님 (bujangnim) means an honorific way of addressing the manager who runs a department at a company. In English it comes out as department head, or general manager depending on the organization. But in a Korean company this word does much more than a job title normally does. In the elevator in the morning, in the first line of a messenger chat, in a toast at a company dinner — it goes back and forth several times a day. Listen to an office scene in a Korean drama without subtitles and the first word that lodges in your ear is this one: 부장님 (bujangnim).
The reason is simple: in Korean you don’t call someone above you by their name. At an English-speaking company you can just say “Mike” to your boss and that’s that, but in a Korean office the air freezes the moment your boss’s name leaves your mouth. What fills that empty space is the job title — and the title you hear most often is 부장님 (bujangnim).
부장님
부장 (bujang) is a Sino-Korean word. 부(部) means one block of an organization, and 장(長) means the head of it. Onto that goes the suffix -님 (-nim), which elevates a person: 선생 (seonsaeng) → 선생님 (seonsaengnim), 사장 (sajang) → 사장님 (sajangnim), 부장 (bujang) → 부장님 (bujangnim). The moment -님 (-nim) attaches, the word stops being the mere name of a position and becomes a name spoken with respect.
The key thing is that this word is a third-person reference and a second-person form of address at the same time. Where English would be finished with a single “you,” Korean fills that slot with a job title. It’s also the spot where Korean learners slip up most often — because you must never use 당신 (dangsin) with someone above you.
- 부장님, 이거 보셨어요? (bujangnim, igeo bosyeosseoyo?) — It means “Did you see this?”, but 당신 (dangsin) is off the table.
- 부장님께서 아직 안 오셨어요. (bujangnimkkeseo ajik an osyeosseoyo.) — Used when pointing to a 부장님 (bujangnim) who isn’t in the room.
And the moment 부장님 (bujangnim) appears, the whole sentence rises with it. Particles shift from 이/가 (i/ga) to 께서 (kkeseo) and from 에게 (ege) to 께 (kke), and the verb takes -시- (-si-): 오다 (oda) → 오시다 (osida), 말하다 (malhada) → 말씀하시다 (malsseumhasida). That one word drags the entire rest of the sentence up with it.
It carries weight, too. A 부장 (bujang) is usually in their 40s or 50s, holds the last desk an approval document has to cross, and sits at the center of the table at company dinners. So for a Korean office worker, just hearing 부장님 (bujangnim) comes with a small dose of tension.
Seeing it in a real conversation
Scene: Saturday morning, the meeting spot for the company hiking club. Jun-kyung and Emily got there first and are waiting with gimbap they picked up.
Jun-kyung: 야, 벌써 왔어? 난 네가 제일 늦을 줄 알았는데. Hey, you’re here already? I thought you’d be the last one.
Emily: 어제 일찍 잤거든. 근데 부장님 아직 안 오셨어? I went to bed early. By the way, hasn’t the department head arrived yet?
Jun-kyung: 방금 톡 왔어. 차 막힌대. 십 분만 기다리래. He just texted. Traffic. Says wait ten minutes.
Emily: 그럼 김밥 먼저 먹을까? …아니다, 부장님 오시면 같이 먹자. Then should we eat the gimbap first? …Actually no, let’s wait and eat together when he gets here.
Jun-kyung: 오, 눈치 빠르다. 너 진짜 한국 회사 십 년 다닌 티 난다. Wow, you read the room fast. You really seem like you’ve done ten years at a Korean company.
Emily: 그럼. 어, 저기 오신다. 부장님, 여기예요! Of course. Oh, there he is. Sir, over here!
Look at that last line. Emily has been using casual speech with Jun-kyung, and then the instant she calls out to the 부장님 (bujangnim) she switches to ‘여기예요 (yeogiyeyo)’. Change who you’re speaking to and the politeness level changes on the spot, mid-conversation — that’s the real temperature of Korean dialogue.
These sound off
✗ (Looking your boss in the face) 민수 씨, 이 서류 확인해 주세요. (Minsu ssi, i seoryu hwaginhae juseyo.) ✓ (Looking your boss in the face) 부장님, 이 서류 확인 부탁드립니다. (bujangnim, i seoryu hwagin butakdeurimnida.) → Name + 씨 (ssi) is how you address a peer or someone below you. Aimed at your boss, it goes past rude and lands somewhere near an accident. With a superior, the title replaces the name.
✗ (To his face) 부장, 회의 시작합니다. (bujang, hoeui sijakhamnida.) ✓ (To his face) 부장님, 회의 시작하겠습니다. (bujangnim, hoeui sijakhagetseumnida.) → 부장 (bujang) with the -님 (-nim) stripped off is the form used in personnel announcements, or by someone higher up referring downward. Say the bare title to a person’s face and you’re openly talking down to them.
Example sentences by situation
1. Taking an outside call on your boss’s behalf
죄송합니다, 부장님께서는 지금 회의 중이십니다. (joesonghamnida, bujangnimkkeseoneun jigeum hoeui jung-isimnida.)
On a call from outside the company, you still elevate your own boss. Not ‘부장님이 회의해요 (bujangnimi hoeuihaeyo)’ but ‘부장님께서 회의 중이십니다 (bujangnimkkeseo hoeui jung-isimnida)’ — 께서 (kkeseo) and -시- (-si-) travel together.
2. Opening a messenger chat while sending a file
부장님, 안녕하세요. 요청하신 자료 보내 드립니다. (bujangnim, annyeonghaseyo. yocheonghasin jaryo bonae deurimnida.)
Korean workplace chats begin with “title + 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)” almost without exception. Leading straight into business reads as cold.
3. Hearing about a promotion
부장님, 승진 축하드립니다! 늘 배우고 있습니다. (bujangnim, seungjin chukhadeurimnida! neul baeugo itseumnida.)
Not ‘축하해요 (chukhahaeyo)’ but ‘축하드립니다 (chukhadeurimnida)’. With someone above you, even congratulations are something you offer.
Polite and casual speech, plus similar expressions
| Expression | Tone / strength | Where it’s used |
|---|---|---|
| 부장님 (bujangnim) | Polite, the default | Addressing him face to face, or referring to him with others. The safest choice |
| 김 부장님 (Kim bujangnim) | Polite, but distinguishing | When there’s more than one 부장 (bujang). Attach the family name only, never the full name |
| 부장 (bujang) | Neutral to lowering | Personnel notices, company regulations. Rude if you say it to his face |
| 팀장님 (timjangnim) | Polite, a bit closer | Widely used instead of 부장님 (bujangnim) at companies these days |
| 선배님 (seonbaenim) | Warm, personal | For someone who joined before you, not for a rank. Used outside work too |
You might be wondering about a casual-speech version, but title + 님 (-nim) has no casual counterpart. Going the other direction, the form of address itself changes: a boss calls someone below him ‘김 대리 (Kim daeri)’ or ‘민수 씨 (Minsu ssi)’.
Cultural background — the place where names disappear
The rank ladder at a Korean company generally runs 사원 (sawon) → 대리 (daeri) → 과장 (gwajang) → 차장 (chajang) → 부장 (bujang) → 이사 (isa). 부장 (bujang) is the top of the working ranks and sits just below the executives — in other words, the position that actually makes the most decisions in the organization. Going from new hire to 부장 (bujang) usually takes 15 to 20 years. That time is what loads the word with weight.
This is also why the drama 미생 (Misaeng) (tvN, 2014) got talked about all over the world. Almost to the very end, the show calls its characters by their titles rather than their names. The word the main character uses for his boss is the distance between the two of them, and watching that distance shift a little from episode to episode is part of the pleasure. In a Korean office, forms of address aren’t greetings — they’re a relationship map.
There’s one old rule tangled up in all this, too. There used to be 압존법 (apjonbeop, 壓尊法), the practice of lowering a middle-ranking person in front of someone even higher, so people were taught to say ‘부장이 그렇게 말했습니다 (bujangi geureoke malhaetseumnida)’ in front of the 사장님 (sajangnim). But today’s workplace language etiquette treats not using 압존법 (apjonbeop) at work as the standard. Whether the 사장님 (sajangnim) is present or not, 부장님께서 말씀하셨습니다 (bujangnimkkeseo malsseumhasyeotseumnida) is the natural choice. Older colleagues sometimes still point to the old rule, but the current default is “elevate, always.”
Recent trends are worth knowing as well. IT companies like Kakao and Naver have scrapped rank-based address entirely, calling everyone by an English name or simply with -님 (-nim). At many startups the rank 부장 (bujang) doesn’t even exist. So for younger Koreans today, 부장님 (bujangnim) is a rank and a character type — the man in his 40s or 50s who loves company dinners and lobs dad jokes. In fact, an unfunny joke is widely called ‘부장님 개그 (bujangnim gaegeu)’. A single word started out as a rank and spread into a portrait of a generation.
Today’s quiz
You want to relay to the 사장님 (sajangnim) what the 부장님 (bujangnim) reported. Which is the most natural thing to say?
- 사장님, 부장이 그렇게 말했습니다. (sajangnim, bujangi geureoke malhaetseumnida.)
- 사장님, 부장님께서 그렇게 말씀하셨습니다. (sajangnim, bujangnimkkeseo geureoke malsseumhasyeotseumnida.)
- 사장님, 민수 씨가 그렇게 말했습니다. (sajangnim, Minsu ssiga geureoke malhaetseumnida.)
Answer: 2. Even though the 사장님 (sajangnim) outranks him, workplaces today don’t lower the person in the middle. Keep 께서 (kkeseo) and 말씀하시다 (malsseumhasida) intact and say 부장님께서 그렇게 말씀하셨습니다 (bujangnimkkeseo geureoke malsseumhasyeotseumnida). Option 1 is the old 압존법 (apjonbeop) and now sounds rude, and option 3 — calling your boss by his name — is the most dangerous of all.
Definitions and example sentences are from the National Institute of Korean Language’s Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr); that portion of this post, including our translations, is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 KR.