Meaning
파이팅 (paiting, commonly rendered 'fighting') is a Korean cheer of encouragement meaning roughly 'you can do it!', 'let's go!', 'good luck!', or 'keep it up!' rather than the ordinary English meaning of physical fighting.
How it is used
Korea.net identifies fighting as one of the Korean expressions built from English that entered the Oxford English Dictionary, while the National Institute of Korean Language learner dictionary uses 우리 반 파이팅! in an example explicitly about people encouraging one another. The Korean function therefore differs sharply from ordinary English 'fighting'.
Examples
- “시험 잘 봐! 파이팅!”
- “우리 팀 오늘도 파이팅!”
Pronunciation
/pʰaitʰiŋ/ · pai-ting
Tone and register
Positive, energetic, supportive, and casual. It appears in sports, school, work, performance, fandom, exams, challenges, and friendly encouragement.
Visitor guidance
Use it as encouragement, not as a literal translation of English fighting. Both 파이팅 and the common spelling 화이팅 may be encountered; learners should follow the spelling and style used by the people around them rather than treating one phrase as a marker of Seoul identity.
Cultural context
Fighting is one of the clearest Korean-English semantic shifts familiar to international visitors. Its inclusion in a Seoul guide is practical because it is heard constantly in the capital, but the expression is Korean-wide and belongs equally outside Seoul.
Places represented
Open the reviewed place guide for each regional sense carried by this canonical entry.