Soup Words: 국, 탕, 찌개 and What Goes in Front
A huge slice of Korean menus ends in 국, 탕 or 찌개. Learn those three endings and the ingredient names in front of them, and a whole page of a menu opens up.
Open any Korean menu and you will find a column of items ending in the same syllable. That is not a coincidence — it is the category.
Korean names its soups by putting the main ingredient in front and the type of dish at the end. Learn a handful of endings and you can guess a lot of what you are looking at.
Three endings that cover most of it
You will see these constantly. Do not worry too much about the fine distinctions between them at first — recognising the ending is the useful part.
Hear these pronounced in the Gallery
- •국 — soup. 미역국, 무국, 콩나물국.
- •탕 — usually a heartier, longer-simmered soup. 갈비탕, 삼계탕, 감자탕, 설렁탕.
- •찌개 — a thicker stew, usually shared from the pot. 김치찌개, 된장찌개, 순두부찌개.
The front half tells you what is in it
Once the ending is handled, the first part is just an ingredient, and those repeat too.
김치찌개 is kimchi stew. 된장찌개 is soybean paste stew, and 된장 on its own is that paste. 미역국 is seaweed soup, and 미역 is the seaweed.
So the moment you know 김치, 된장 and 미역 as words, three dish names come free.
Ingredient words that pay for themselves
A few ingredient names show up across dozens of dishes. These are the ones worth learning early.
- •김치 — appears in 김치찌개, 김치볶음밥, 백김치, 파김치
- •콩나물 — bean sprouts, in 콩나물국 and 콩나물국밥
- •갈비 — ribs, in 갈비탕 and 갈비찜
- •감자 — potato, in 감자탕 and 감자핫도그
- •해물 — seafood, in 해물파전
Two soups worth knowing for other reasons
미역국 is eaten on birthdays, which means the word turns up in conversation far more often than a seaweed soup otherwise would.
부대찌개 translates literally as army base stew, and the name carries its own history — it came out of the post-war period and the ingredients that were available then.
Food names are one of the easier doors into cultural context, because the story is attached to a word you already need.
Practising the pattern rather than the list
The goal is not to memorise thirty soup names. It is to reach the point where an unfamiliar name is half-readable.
Build these syllables yourself
- •Read the ending first. Is it 국, 탕, 찌개, or something else?
- •Then read the front half and see whether you recognise the ingredient.
- •If you know both parts, you have the dish. If you know one, you still know roughly what is coming.
- •Try this on a real menu photo. Getting half of an unfamiliar name is a real result.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the actual difference between 국 and 탕?
- In everyday use they overlap a lot, and plenty of dishes could reasonably be called either. As a learner it is enough to treat both as soup and let the distinction settle through exposure.
Is 찌개 always spicy?
- No. 김치찌개 is, but 된장찌개 and 순두부찌개 range from mild to hot depending on where you eat them.
Why do so many dish names look long?
- Because they are compounds. 콩나물국밥 is 콩나물 plus 국 plus 밥. Long names are usually several short words you may already know, stacked together.