걔

Contraction of 그 애 (geu ae, “that kid”). Cognate with Jeju 가이 (gai).

• (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA^(key): [kjɛ] ~ [kje̞]
• Phonetic hangul: [걔/계]

걔 • (gyae)

1. (colloquial) that kid; he or she

   걔는 학교에서 늘 우등생이었어.

   gyaeneun hakgyoeseo neul udeungsaeng'ieosseo.

   That kid was always on the honor roll in school.

In colloquial Korean, 걔 (along with deictic variants 얘 (yae), 쟤 (jae)) is the word that most closely resembles the English third-person pronoun. Despite the etymology, it can be used for all human referents with the restrictions given below, and is value-neutral.

Like 너 (neo, “you”), the use of 걔 implies that the person being referred to by the pronoun is of equal or lower social rank compared to the speaker. When referring to a social superior, speakers use either a title, a word referring to the relationship between the speaker and the addressee, or circumlocutional phrases like 그분 (geubun, “that [honored] person”). Thus a college student may use the pronoun 걔 to refer to a classmate, but their professor must be referred to as 교수님 (gyosunim, “honorable professor”).

The use of 걔 in socially impermissible contexts, such as when referring to a superior, should be understood as the speaker showing contempt for the referent.