Korean Job Discussion Forums

[chaz47]

Is Hangeul just glorified toneless Pinyin?

Why are Korean people so hellbent on not studying Hanja these days. The more I study Hanja I realize how much of Korean is based on it. I've read that 70% of the vocabulary is Chinese compounds... but wow... when I actually see it... I just can't fathom how these people get by.

It's more than just roots, it seems to me like Hangeul is just a form of shorthand... a faster way of jotting down the characters.

In terms of most modern Koreans that I meet I think perhaps Sejong's detractors were correct... it's all "banmal"... or Konglish.

[gang ah jee]

You know, this would make a great thesis topic for your MA in Chinese Characters. First though, try writing a grammatically correct sentence in modern Korean using only hanja. It may shed some more light on your query.

[chaz47]

I know the grammar is different. I think you were one of the posters that cleared that up for me awhile back.

I just wish Korea would use more Hanja again. It would make it a lot easier to sight read... it would also be more aesthetically interesting.

[gang ah jee]

[Saxiif]

Go through an English dictionary and look at what percentage of the words are based on Latin or other Romance Languages. Quite a few.

But just like most of the words we actually speak in a regular conversation have Germanic roots, most of the words that Koreans actually use in a regular conversation are non-Chinese.

[Lizara]

[Guri Guy]

Korean university students show little knowledge of Chinese characters

A group of 384 freshmen at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea were tested on their knowledge of hanja (Chinese characters, as are sometimes used in writing words in Korean). Although this sample isn�t particularly large, I haven�t seen any indication that anyone believes it is not representative of Korean university freshmen as a whole. The results � at least for those who believe that Chinese characters still play a major role in literacy in Korean � are fairly dramatic:

* 20 percent couldn�t write their own names in Chinese characters
* 77 percent couldn�t write their mother�s name in Chinese characters
* 83 percent couldn�t write their father�s name in Chinese characters
* 71 percent couldn�t write �new student� in Chinese characters
* 96 percent couldn�t write �economy� in Chinese characters
* 98 percent couldn�t write �encyclopedia� in Chinese characters

And as for reading Chinese characters?

* 93 percent couldn�t read the word for �ambition� as written in Chinese characters
* 96 percent couldn�t read the word for �honor� as written in Chinese characters
* 99 percent couldn�t read the word for �compromise� as written in Chinese characters

Remember, this refers to students at a prominent university.

http://pinyin.info/news/2007/korean-university-students-show-little-knowledge-of-chinese-characters/

[Guri Guy]

[Guri Guy]

'Phags-pa alphabet


At least superficially, it looks quite simular to Hangul.

Excellent website here if you are interesting in writing systems.

http://www.omniglot.com

[Zoidberg]

[SPINOZA]

Sorry to be rude, Chaz, but your recent enquiries on Hanja (an MA??) seem odd, considering you posted this thread about beginner-level Korean less than four months ago: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?p=987910&highlight=#987910

Knowledge of characters is completely unnecessary unless one�s ability in Korean is advanced. Obviously, if you desperately want to study hanja, go for it, but really time spent on Hanja is time not spent on learning great new Korean vocabulary or phrases which are (a) much easier than those difficult characters and (b) way more useful, but hey, what ever.

I do not even understand the last paragraph, but the claim about a shorthand way of writing down the characters has no justification given the complete lack of similarity between Hanja and Hangeul other than the superficial feature of the square shape (see 시청 vs 市廳, 장래 vs 將來) and also, as Zoidberg said, it begs the question why the characters for �city� and �time� are both written in Korean as 시. The answer is obvious: hanguel is a phonetic script whereas Hanja are morphemo-syllabic and independent of phonetic change. Were there any such relationship as you claim, similarities between hangeul and hanja ought to be more striking. However, I could have completely misunderstood you.

[out of context]

I think that studying hanja certainly helps in recognizing new words, and in some cases I have read texts where listing the hanja helps/would help distinguish between two words that have the same reading in Hangul. That kind of sparing usage is helpful, as even Koreans talking to each other sometimes have to specify which hanja are involved when dealing with homonyms.

However, I don't think it's necessary to learn the shapes, stroke order, etc., for every character. It is a lot of time and energy. If you're approaching it from a perspective of learning vocabulary, it may be enough for you to know that the Hangul 시 means "time", "city", "poetry", "test", and whatever else, without actually memorizing the characters 時, 市, 詩, 試, and so on. Then, when you see a new word, like 시차, you can think "OK, 시 means 'time' and 차 means 'difference', so 시차 is 'time difference,'" without having to remember what 時 and 差 look like.

Obviously recognizing the characters is a bonus and can speed up the process, but you can live without it depending on your priorities. Also, just because you know the hanja characters, it doesn't mean that you can read Japanese or Chinese, because those languages use simplified characters that are often unrecognizable. So a person who learns hanja would have to relearn the simplified characters if s/he were to try to learn Japanese or Chinese.

As far as Hangul being just a vehicle for communicating Chinese words, if that's the case it doesn't do a very good job, since there are a number of sounds in Chinese that have no equivalent in Hangul (one obvious example being "f"). Even taking historical changes into account, the Chinese words were effectively mangled to fit the specifications of Korean phonology, as every language does when taking in loanwords. Hangul was designed specifically for pure Korean, and accounts for phenomena that are almost completely restricted to pure Korean words, namely double consonants (absent from Chinese loanwords except for 끽 (喫), 쌍 (雙) and 씨 (氏)) and complex codas (e.g. 값, 짧다, 많다).

[pkang0202]

Time in school to learn Hanja is time taken away from learning English.

I think the Korean government and the Korean people think English is a higher priority than hanja. Its evident in older generation who can read hanja fluently but don't know a bit of English.

I would have to agree, since knowing and not knowing hanja isn't going to matter much. However, knowing or not knowing English is going to make or break this country down the road.

[Lizara]

[Zoidberg]