Older brother — said only by a man.
Men use 형 for older male friends, bandmates, teammates and real brothers. It carries real loyalty — in groups the 형 is expected to look after the younger ones. Dropping it and using someone’s bare name is a deliberate move.
Completes the set: 오빠/형 for older men, 누나/언니 for older women, split by the speaker’s gender.
Men only. A woman addressing an older man wants 오빠. Getting this backwards is the single most common kinship-term error learners make.
Reading a definition isn't the same as saying it to someone. Lingo Kaiava is a voice tutor set to Korean — it uses 형 the way locals do, corrects you in the moment, and never "fixes" the way real people actually talk into textbook Korean.
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