Lesson 3
3. 수고하세요. Keep up the good work. (formal) / 수고하셨습니다. Thank you for your hard work. (formal)
수고 literally means “effort” or “hard work” but, it’s rarely used on its own, Instead, some expressions including the word 수고 are used very often in everyday conversations. 수고하세요 literally means “Please make an effort” or “Keep working hard.”, but it does not actually have this meaning in conversation.
When showing appreciation or support for someone who is working hard or is putting in a lot of effort to accomplish something, you can say 수고하세요 to that person as you are leaving. It is almost like saying “goodbye” or “see you” and “keep up the good work” at the same time.
You will easily see people saying this when they’re leaving a restaurant or a cafe to the staff there to mean just “Bye.” or when they’re about to leave and their coworker has to stay to work, they say 수고하세요 as they leave.
Sample Conversation
A: 감사합니다. 안녕히 가세요. = Thank you. Bye.
B: 수고하세요. = Bye. (Keep up the good work.)
수고하셨습니다 is in the past tense, so it’s often used when some work has been done. Usually, you can say this to your coworkers or business partners to mean “Thank you for your hard work.”, “Good job.”, or “Good work.”
Sample Conversation
A: 수고하셨습니다. = Thank you for your hard work.
B: 수고하셨습니다. = Thank you for your hard work.