얼마예요?

After you grab your bags at Incheon Airport and head into the city, the moment travelers first find themselves at a loss for words tends to be pretty much the same. At the convenience store register, in the back seat of a taxi, in front of a market stall. You’ve managed to point at something, but the next words just won’t come. Knowing just one phrase at that moment can get things moving.

At big-box marts or franchise cafés, you honestly don’t need this phrase — everything already has a price tag. But most of the memorable scenes from a trip to Korea happen in places without price tags: a bindaetteok stall at Gwangjang Market, a fabric shop in Dongdaemun, a basket of wild greens at a countryside five-day market. In places like that, this expression isn’t just a sentence for asking a price — it’s a sentence that opens a conversation.

얼마예요? (eolmayeyo?) — In English, this is How much is it?

‘얼마’ is a placeholder word used when you don’t know a price, quantity, or degree — standing in for the unknown number. Attach the haeyo-체 (polite informal) conjugation of ‘이다’ (“to be”) to it, and you get 얼마예요 (eolmayeyo). Thanks to Korean’s habit of letting you drop the subject, you can point at an item with your eyes and say just these four syllables, and the sentence is already complete.

There’s one spelling trap here. It sounds close to [얼마에요], but the correct spelling is 얼마예요. That’s because ‘-예요’ attaches after a word ending in a vowel (no final consonant). Even native Korean speakers get this wrong often, so writing it correctly makes you look like someone who learned Korean properly.

The nuance sits in “polite but not stiff” territory. You can use it with a vendor you’re meeting for the first time, a taxi driver, or a hair salon staff member without sounding rude. If you’re in a more formal setting — asking for a quote over paperwork, say — 얼마입니까? (eolmaimnikka?) fits better.

Seeing It in an Actual Conversation

Situation: Saturday afternoon at Gwangjang Market. You’re out buying ingredients for a housewarming spread, but not a single stall has a price tag on anything.

Jun-kyung: 저기 딸기 좋아 보인다. 네가 물어봐, 나보다 네가 잘하잖아. Those strawberries look good. You ask — you’re better at this than me.

Emily: (상인 쪽으로) 사장님, 이거 한 바구니에 얼마예요? (to the vendor) Excuse me, how much for one basket of these?

Jun-kyung: 야, 억양 진짜 자연스럽다. 나보다 낫네. Whoa, your intonation is so natural. Better than mine.

Emily: 15년 살았는데 이 정도는 해야지. 근데 아까 네가 사 온 전은 얼마야? I’ve been here 15 years, I should manage this much. By the way, how much were those jeon you bought earlier?

Jun-kyung: 한 접시에 만 원. 좀 비싸지? Ten thousand won a plate. Kind of pricey, right?

Emily: 비싸긴. 여기선 그거 물어보는 순간 이미 사겠다는 뜻이야. Pricey nothing. Around here, the moment you ask that, it means you’re buying.

Trying It Out in Different Situations

1. In a taxi — checking a rough fare before you set off

기사님, 여기서 명동까지 얼마예요? gisanim, yeogieseo Myeongdongkkaji eolmayeyo?

Adding ‘~까지’ (“up to / as far as”) in front turns it into a question about the fare for a specific route. Even in a metered taxi, people often ask this just to get a rough sense of the cost.

2. At the hair salon — asking about prices for each service separately

커트만 하면 얼마예요? 염색까지 하면요? keoteuman hamyeon eolmayeyo? yeomsaekkkaji hamyeonyo?

Tacking on a short ‘~하면요?’ (“what if…?”) like in the second sentence lets you continue naturally without repeating the whole question.

3. At the register — checking the total

다 해서 얼마예요? da haeseo eolmayeyo?

‘다 해서’ means “all together, adding it all up.” It’s the line you toss out once, at the end, after you’ve piled several items together.

Formal/Casual Speech and Similar Expressions

얼마야? (eolmaya?) — Casual speech (banmal). Used with friends or people younger/junior to you. This is the form Emily used with Jun-kyung in the dialogue above.
얼마죠? (eolmajyo?) — Has the feel of confirming something you already sort of knew. Fits well at a shop you’re a regular at.
가격이 어떻게 되나요? (gagyeogi eotteoke doenayo?) — One notch softer and more polite. Especially natural when asking about service prices, like at a hair salon, hospital, or repair shop.
얼마짜리예요? (eolmajjarieyo?) — Asks less about the price itself and more about “what tier of item is this” — i.e., how much it’s worth.

One more thing: you’ll sometimes hear a clerk answer with “삼만 원이세요” (“It’s 30,000 won,” using an honorific ending on the price itself). Grammatically, that’s not correct, since the honorific is being applied to an object rather than a person — but in practice you’ll hear it constantly. Good to know it’s technically wrong, but it won’t give you any trouble understanding it.

Cultural Background — Asking Itself Is a Signal

In Korea, this question lands in two very different kinds of places. Department stores and franchises run on fixed pricing, so once you ask the price, all that’s left is deciding whether to buy. Traditional markets are the opposite — the moment you ask the price, a bit of haggling kicks off. Following up with 조금만 깎아 주세요 (jogeumman kkakka juseyo) (“please knock a little off”) isn’t rude at all, and this is also where the ‘덤’ (a little extra thrown in for free) culture comes from — the vendor tossing in a bit more instead of lowering the price.

That’s why the last line in the dialogue above has some bite to it. Asking the price at a market already means you’re about halfway to buying. Korean dramas often show a scene where the lead asks a vendor the price and gets a little extra slipped in — and what that scene captures is really the same warmth. Asking the price is, in itself, the line that opens a relationship.

Today’s Quiz

You’re at a market stall, asking a vendor you’ve never met the price of a bag of potatoes. What’s the most natural thing to say?

감자 얼마야?
감자 얼마예요?
감자는 그것의 가격이 얼마입니까?

Answer: 2. Option 1 is casual speech (banmal), which is impolite toward a vendor you’re meeting for the first time. Option 3 isn’t grammatically wrong, but it’s far too stiff and awkward for a market. A short 얼마예요? — that one phrase is exactly the right temperature for the moment.

The definitions, example sentences, and dialogue in this post are all original work.