Korean Job Discussion Forums

waggo · Joined: 18 May 2003 Location: pusan baby!

Can anybody who has reached a decent level of Korean explain to me why I must learn this Hanja stuff?....It seems like a lot of effort for little reward (as far as learning Korean goes)..is it possible to side step it?

casey's moon · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Location: Daejeon

With the exception of one or two, newspapers use it for the sake of brevity -- especially for headlines. One hanja can replace a very long word. Also, a particular Korean syllable can have many different meanings that correspond to hanja. Sometimes the meaning can't be discerned without the hanja (see the thread on subway station names).

I assume Shakuhachi or Mithrades (sp?) or someone else who is more advanced than me can offer more explanation, but this is a start!

Ilsanman · Joined: 15 Aug 2003 Location: Bucheon, Korea

One reason is for the large amounts of homonyms used in Korean. If they use a �� it is more clear, but it takes an adult mind.

The roots of their language are also from Chinese, for a large part. If you learn the �� it is easier to learn the meanings of some words, and start to see patterns.

For example
�� = water

�м� (I think) is fountain
�� = mineral water
�ļ� = drinking water

Seeing a pattern? There are many many more examples of this.

I expect Mithrades, the resident show-off, to post very soon.

Swiss James · Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Location: Shanghai

Bulsajo · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Stupid Koreans!!!

Why can't they just use words with Latin or Greek roots?

[Edit: damn you for beating me there, Swiss James!]

casey's moon · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Location: Daejeon

shakuhachi · Joined: 08 Feb 2003 Location: Sydney

casey's moon · Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Location: Daejeon

mithridates · Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 7:59 pm Post subject:

If you're leaning hanja just to improve your understanding of Korean vocab it isn't necessary to learn hundreds of them; learning what they are composed of and how to look them up might be good enough. ��s are pretty cheap in Korea and some of them are quite portable. When you look up a �� it will also feature a lot of words that the character features in.
And yes, they are like Latin and Greek root words. Just like one doesn't necessarily need to know either of the two languages to have a good understanding of English etymology, it certainly does help to have a good grounding in them.
I teach hanja to friends of mine sometimes, so feel free to ask any specific questions as well if you want.

Swiss James · Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Location: Shanghai

Is "��" to "��ο�" (new) a bit like "��" is to "��" (water) then?

Am I showing up my ignorance by not knowing the proper Korean word for "new"?

mithridates · Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:03 pm Post subject:

Yeah, that's right. The readings are always one syllable and more often than not don't act as a stand-alone word. It's kind of like the words we have for water, there's water which is a stand-alone word, and there's hydro and aqua which are only used in compound words like hydrofoil and aquamarine.
You should also note that the meanings that come with each hanja use old terminology most of the time so you should get a dictionary with English meanings in it. The hanja for mother for example, doesn't say �� , ��Ӵ� ��, but something else that they don't use anymore. What was it? �� or something like that; can't remember. But anyway you shoudl just know that it means mother and is pronounced ��, and look at some examples of how it makes words and leave it at that.

mithridates · Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:05 pm Post subject:

Also the �� you brought up also is only used that way in compound words, like �ż��, the new world, or something like that. You can put it in front of almost anything. If you just say �� by itself it means god (one of many, not the almighty).

Chillin' Villain · Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Location: Goo Row

I'd say yeah, but I'm still stuck intermediate-progressive territory, so I'm hardly an authority...

It has seemed so far that those mixey words with the hanja are like how we make so many mixey words with latin....

Like, I don't say "He's had an interesting bio[/]", but I would say he wrote an interesting [i]autobiography... Whereas I wouldn't say he wrote an interesting self-written life story....

Mostly the same with all those Sino-Korean words, sorta... And lots of us don't really have much of a sniff of what the latin roots mean or even that they're freakin' latin, but it doesn't really matter. Same with the hanja. You may also notice that the hanja word often sounds very similar in its equivalent form in Japanese or Chinese... Not always, but quite a bit. Same with latin and French, English, whatever...

Oh yeah, and this isn't a dissertation or something, and I'm not even a linguistics major, so restrain any impulses to throw academic darts at this... Just sayin' what I notice. Oh yeah, and hangovers suck.

mithridates · Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:06 pm Post subject:

And Ilsanman, where's the love??

Chillin' Villain · Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Location: Goo Row

Whoops... Guy totally responded to that "shin" question while I was typing at my gimped wpm rate... Oh well... Guess I'll just say...

"Yeah, what he said"