Fanchants 101: what the crowd is screaming and how to learn it
Published 2026-10-10 · 6 min read
The first time you hear a fanchant live it is genuinely startling: twenty thousand people shouting member names in perfect sync, in order, on beat. Fanchants are scripted crowd responses — part cheer, part ritual — and every group has its own for each title track.
They look intimidating from the outside, but they follow a small set of patterns. Learn the patterns and you can pick up any group's chant in an evening.
The three building blocks
Almost every fanchant is assembled from the same three pieces. Once you can hear them, the rest is memorization.
- The name roll — every member's name chanted in a fixed order (usually age order), ending with the group name. This opens most chants.
- Lyric echoes — the crowd repeats or answers the last words of a line. The official chant guide marks exactly which syllables.
- Slogans and shouts — short set phrases like 사랑해 (saranghae, "I love you") or the group's catchphrase at fixed points.
Where the official chants live
Agencies publish official fanchant guides — 응원법 (eungwonbeop) — before or on release day. They appear as lyric sheets with the chant parts marked, and as videos where the members themselves demonstrate the chant, usually on Weverse and YouTube.
Those videos are in Korean, obviously. The members explain the chant, joke about how hard it is, and correct each other's timing. Running Echo in Audio mode over the demonstration video captions the explanation while you learn the chant itself.
Learning one in an evening
- 1
Find the official 응원법 video
Search the group name plus the song title plus "fanchant" or 응원법 on YouTube or Weverse.
- 2
Learn the name roll first
It is the backbone of every chant and the same across all of the group's songs.
- 3
Play the song and chant over it
Three or four passes with the lyric sheet and the echoes start to stick.
- 4
Watch a live clip
Hearing twenty thousand people do it locks the timing in a way practice alone does not.
At the show
Nobody will grade you. International crowds are forgiving, and the name roll alone carries you through most songs. If you want the full experience, the fans around you will happily pull you into the fan projects too — the seat cards and banner events are usually printed in Korean, and Echo's Screen mode reads them in your language on the spot.
For the full vocabulary — 응원법, 멘트, 본방, 직캠 and the rest — our [fanchant and concert terms glossary](/kpop-glossary/fanchant-terms) covers the words you will meet at every show.
Answers, before you ask.
Do I need to know Korean to do a fanchant?
No. Chants are memorized sounds and names, not conversation. Most international fans learn them phonetically.
Are fanchants the same at overseas shows?
Yes — the official chant travels with the tour, and international crowds perform them in Korean just like Seoul crowds.
What does 응원법 mean?
Literally "cheering method" — the official fanchant guide published by the agency for each title track.