말씀하다 (malsseumhada) — Who Is Speaking Changes the Verb
말씀하다
말씀하다 (malsseumhada) is the honorific form of 말하다 (malhada) — the verb you use to raise up the act of speaking when the speaker is an elder or someone you owe respect to. For learners who have lived in Korea a while, the place this word first sinks in through the body is usually a hospital. The exam room door closes, and the family member who has been sitting in the waiting area asks: 선생님이 뭐라고 말씀하셨어요? (seonsaengnimi mworago malsseumhasyeosseoyo?) — “What did the doctor say?” The one who spoke is the doctor; the one asking is the caregiver. Throw the same question at a friend and it ends with 뭐라고 했어? (mworago haesseo?). The skeleton of the sentence is the same — only one slot, the verb, has been swapped out. And that single slot decides where Korean seats the other person.
This verb doesn’t change the meaning itself. The action it points to is identical to 말하다 (malhada) — opening your mouth and making sound. What changes is where you place the person performing it. 말씀하다 (malsseumhada) elevates the subject. So the moment it enters a sentence, the listener reads, before any of the content, “ah, this person treats that person as a senior.” It’s a word that delivers the relationship before it delivers the information.
There’s one thing worth flagging up front. The dictionary headword is 말씀하다 (malsseumhada), but in real sentences this base form rarely stands on its own. Almost always it shows up with the honorific pre-final ending -시- (-si-) attached, in the shape 말씀하시다 (malsseumhasida). 부장님이 그렇게 말씀했어요 (bujangnimi geureoke malsseumhaesseoyo) feels like a slot left unfilled, while 부장님이 그렇게 말씀하셨어요 (bujangnimi geureoke malsseumhasyeosseoyo) is the natural one. If you pick the honorific vocabulary and then leave out the honorific ending, you end up sounding only half-polite.
Checking the National Institute of Korean Language Dictionary
The National Institute of Korean Language’s Basic Korean Dictionary defines this verb very briefly. And brief here also means there is only one sense to it.
말씀하다 「Verb」 (높임말로) 말하다. — (as an honorific) to speak. [en] say; speak — (honorific) To speak. [ja] おっしゃる【仰る】 — 「言う」の尊敬語。 [es] decir — (TRATAMIENTO HONORÍFICO) Expresar con palabras. [zh] 说，说话 — (尊称)讲话。 — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)
The ‘(높임말로)’ — “(as an honorific)” — inside those parentheses is the whole of this word. The English gloss just tacks (honorific) onto say; speak, and Japanese simply hands over おっしゃる, its own matching honorific verb. Learners who know Japanese get the feel fastest here — the relationship between 言う and おっしゃる maps almost exactly onto the relationship between 말하다 (malhada) and 말씀하다 (malsseumhada). Spanish and Chinese have no such dedicated honorific verb, so the dictionary handles it by attaching a label — (TRATAMIENTO HONORÍFICO) and (尊称) — after decir and 说. For the record, this dictionary carries no Portuguese gloss. If we had to render one it would be something like falar/dizer (forma honorífica), but we should note that this is our own translation, not the dictionary’s.
The dictionary includes only one usage example.
수업에 대해 말씀하다. (sueobe daehae malsseumhada.) — To speak about the class. — National Institute of Korean Language, Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr)
수업에 대해 말씀하다 (sueobe daehae malsseumhada). Picture a teacher or a professor talking about the content or the flow of a class. Ending the example in the plain base form is a dictionary convention; to move it into actual conversation you absolutely have to fill in the endings. Only once you slip -시- (-si-) in — as in 교수님께서 수업에 대해 말씀하셨어요 (gyosunimkkeseo sueobe daehae malsseumhasyeosseoyo) — does the sentence stand up. The dictionary gives you the skeleton; we put the flesh on it ourselves.
A Real Conversation
Situation: The waiting area of a general hospital. Jun-kyung has come along for his mother’s appointment and has unexpectedly run into Emily, who is here for a routine checkup.
Emily: 어? 준경아. 어머님 모시고 왔어? Oh? Jun-kyung. Did you come with your mother?
Jun-kyung: 어, 방금 진료 끝났어. 약만 바꾸면 된다고 말씀하시더라고. Yeah, we just finished. He said we only need to switch the medication.
Emily: 다행이다. 나 저번에 왔을 때는 선생님이 뭐라고 말씀하셨는데 반은 못 알아들었어. What a relief. Last time I came, the doctor said something but I only caught half of it.
Jun-kyung: 여기 선생님 말씀 진짜 빠르시지. 나도 어머니 옆에서 두 번 여쭤봤어. The doctor here really does talk fast. I asked twice myself, standing next to my mom.
Emily: 근데 어머님은 뭐라고 하셔? 아, 아니다 — 뭐라고 말씀하셔? By the way, what does your mom say? Oh wait — what does she say? (with the higher honorific)
Jun-kyung: ㅋㅋ 둘 다 맞는데, 어머니 앞에서는 방금 고친 쪽이 더 예뻐. Haha, both work, but in front of my mom the one you just fixed sounds nicer.
The moment Emily corrects herself is the heart of this conversation. 하시다 (hasida) isn’t wrong. It’s just that 말씀하시다 (malsseumhasida) swaps the vocabulary itself for an honorific word and stacks -시- (-si-) on top — a double layer of respect — so it sounds one notch more courteous when the elder in question is right there. The same principle is at work when Jun-kyung describes asking the doctor with 여쭤봤어 (yeojjwobwasseo).
This Sounds Off
✗ (부장님께) 제가 어제 그 건은 처리했다고 말씀했습니다. (jega eoje geu geoneun cheorihaetdago malsseumhaetseumnida.) ✓ (부장님께) 제가 어제 그 건은 처리했다고 말씀드렸습니다. (jega eoje geu geoneun cheorihaetdago malsseumdeuryeotseumnida.) → 말씀하다 (malsseumhada) is a word that elevates the subject. If the subject is 제가 (jega, “I”) and you use 말씀하다, you end up elevating your own mouth. Trying to be polite, you give exactly the opposite impression. My own speech has to be lowered with 말씀드리다 (malsseumdeurida).
✗ (친구에게) 야, 너 아까 나한테 뭐라고 말씀했어? (ya, neo akka nahante mworago malsseumhaesseo?) ✓ (친구에게) 야, 너 아까 나한테 뭐라고 했어? (ya, neo akka nahante mworago haesseo?) → The grammar is perfectly fine, but the temperature is off. Laying honorific vocabulary on a peer doesn’t make you polite — it makes you sound sarcastic. In Korean, a sudden burst of excessive honorifics is usually a signal that you’re angry or teasing.
Example Sentences by Situation
1. A follow-up email to your team leader after a meeting
팀장님이 말씀하신 대로 자료를 다시 정리했습니다. (timjangnimi malsseumhasin daero jaryoreul dasi jeongnihaetseumnida.) I reorganized the materials the way you said.
The modifier form 말씀하신 (malsseumhasin) is the shape you’ll see most often in workplace email. Because the structure uses your superior’s remark as the grounds for explaining your own action, a single sentence carries both the fact that you followed instructions and an attitude of respect toward the other person.
2. A wedding MC’s announcement
이어서 신부 아버님께서 한 말씀 하시겠습니다. (ieoseo sinbu abeonimkkeseo han malsseum hasigetseumnida.) Next, the bride’s father will say a few words.
한 말씀 하시다 (han malsseum hasida) is a nearly fixed phrase at formal events. It means “please say a brief word,” but in practice the mic is only ever passed to the most senior person present. You’ll hear it without fail whenever the microphone moves at a wedding, a first-birthday party, a company year-end ceremony, or a press conference.
3. To a friend who missed the lecture
교수님께서 시험 범위를 말씀해 주셨어요. (gyosunimkkeseo siheom beomwireul malsseumhae jusyeosseoyo.) The professor told us what the exam covers.
말씀해 주시다 (malsseumhae jusida) is used when what the other person said was helpful to you. It doesn’t stop at elevating them — it layers gratitude on top, which is why it comes up especially often in places where you’re on the receiving end of an explanation: schools, government offices, hospitals.
Related Expressions in Polite and Casual Speech
| Expression | Temperature / Strength | Where it’s used |
|---|---|---|
| 말씀하다 (malsseumhada) | Clearly elevates the other person | Scenes where a senior is speaking. In practice, almost always in the 말씀하시다 (malsseumhasida) shape |
| 말하다 (malhada) | Neutral | Anywhere. But avoided when the subject is a senior |
| 말씀드리다 (malsseumdeurida) | Lowers me to elevate the other person | When I speak to a senior |
| 여쭈다 (yeojjuda) | Lowers me (on the asking side) | When I ask a senior a question |
| 이야기하다 (iyagihada) | Soft and relaxed | Peers and family. Can also be elevated as 이야기하시다 (iyagihasida) |
What’s worth noticing in the table is the direction of the arrows. 말씀하다 (malsseumhada) lifts the other person’s mouth upward, while 말씀드리다 (malsseumdeurida) and 여쭈다 (yeojjuda) lower mine. Korean honorifics work like this — raising and lowering deployed from both ends at once.
Also, 말씀하다 (malsseumhada) has no casual-speech counterpart. In casual register it just comes back down to 했어 (haesseo), 그러더라 (geureodeora), or 그랬어 (geuraesseo). This verb is a word that exists only on the polite-speech layer. That’s why, if 말씀하다 pops out in the middle of a casual conversation, that one sentence suddenly jumps a level in formality — and, like the second misuse we saw above, it lands as sarcasm.
Cultural Background — It Originally Just Meant “Words”
말씀 (malsseum) wasn’t an honorific word from the start. In the very first line of the 15th-century Hunminjeongeum Eonhae — 나랏말ᄊᆞ미 中國에 달아 (narat malssami Junggug-e dara) — 말ᄊᆞᆷ simply meant “speech,” “language.” The weight of deference attached over the centuries. Because of that history, the noun 말씀 (malsseum) today runs in two directions at once. 사장님 말씀 (sajangnim malsseum — someone else’s words, elevated) and 제가 한 말씀 드리겠습니다 (jega han malsseum deurigetseumnida — my own words, humbled) use the very same noun. One word moves both up and down depending on the situation — but once you cross over into the verbs, those two directions split into entirely different words: 말씀하다 (malsseumhada) for the other person, 말씀드리다 (malsseumdeurida) for me.
Watch a Korean drama without subtitles and you’ll quickly spot where this verb clusters most densely: the relay scenes in office shows. When a subordinate passes a superior’s instructions on to someone else, the sentence always hardens into the shape 과장님이 ~하라고 말씀하셨습니다 (gwajangnimi ~harago malsseumhasyeotseumnida). Think of an office drama like Misaeng (tvN, 2014), where a new hire’s shoulders stiffen as he relays a decision from upstairs to a senior colleague. Here 말씀하셨습니다 (malsseumhasyeotseumnida) transmits information and doubles as a shield: “this is not my judgment.”
The news and press conferences are the same. When a host passes the mic, 한 말씀 부탁드립니다 (han malsseum butakdeurimnida) is practically a formula, and at a holiday dinner table, when kids relay what an adult said, 할아버지가 뭐라고 말씀하셨어 (harabeojiga mworago malsseumhasyeosseo) comes out automatically. In other words, this word is less a piece of grammar you learn in a classroom and more the very mechanism by which Korean society inscribes the relative standing of people into every sentence, moment by moment.
Today’s Quiz
You’re writing a follow-up email to your team leader after a meeting. What goes in the blanks?
팀장님, 어제 회의에서 팀장님께서 ( ① ) 내용을 정리해 보냅니다. 빠진 부분은 제가 내일 다시 ( ② ).
A. ① 말씀하신 / ② 말씀드리겠습니다 B. ① 말씀드린 / ② 말씀하시겠습니다 C. ① 말한 / ② 말씀하겠습니다
The answer is A. ① refers to what the team leader said, so you use 말씀하시다 (malsseumhasida), which elevates the subject; ② is me speaking to the team leader, so you use 말씀드리다 (malsseumdeurida), which lowers me. Once you can split these two opposite-facing words apart within a single sentence, you’ve learned everything this expression has to teach.
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.