Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jizza]

First I will say that English reading is the most important language to be able to read in. This is due to the fact that the majority of the leading scientists, intellectuals, etc. write in English, even if the majority of the scientists aren't native English speakers themselves.

With that in mind,

I want to hear from someone KNOWLEDGEABLE, what the deep benefits of learning Korean reading are. To give my question some context, I'm worried specifically about the fact that Korean characters only came into heavy use somewhere around the 1950's. This means that I only have access to great minds who wrote with the 한국어 for a short period of time. Maybe there are a lot of Korean intellectuals out there producing a lot of great works worth reading in Korean right now. I'm not sure. I hope someone can inform me.

It would really suck to miss out on the wisdom of past Koreans, etc. but maybe those old 한자 -written texts have been translated into 한국어?

What do you think the ratio of Chinese texts to Korean texts? 10 documents to 1, 100 documents to 1?

I will definitely learn to read Chinese someday, but just wondering how much effort its worth putting into Korean.

[Css]

Well that rather depends on whether or not you live in Korea..If you live here its quite useful. If youre looking into the korean classics or what not, id imagine most have been translated into korean from the chinese.

[TeeRev]

[kinerry]

Just reading? Plenty.
A lot of words are just english in hanguel form, you won't regret it.

[UknowsI]

[jizza]

Hi, thanks all for the comments so far.
My original post was unclear and I apologize for that.

I can currently read 한글 and possess an average to below-average speaking ability and vocabulary.

I live in Korea.

I'm not Korean.

To give my question some context, one often hears of the benefits of learning Latin or Greek: you gain a better understanding of English as well as the roots of Western cultural and intellectual society, and can read great authors who have influenced Western thought in the original language in which they wrote.

I want to read Korean for the obvious cultural and intellectual benefits. I'm just wondering if someone can give me some deeper insight/perspective on what lies down the line. I'm curious and impatient to know what lies in store.. what great Korean classics exist.. what valuable insights are displayed in Korean poetry or literature, etc.

The example I gave in my OP was that of learning Chinese, with which I can study innumerable Chinese works of art, literature, and philosophy, each in it's original language.

One way to think about is, what would you say to a Korean student about the benefits of learning to read English?
Off the top of my head, besides the practical advantages due to English being the de facto lengua franca, there are brilliant essays from some of history's finest thinkers, numerous works of art all written/composed/sung in English, and thousands of books/terms/internet comment posts written in English. I believe I read somewhere that 90% of webpages is in English, while maybe 3% in Korean. (those figures may not be accurate, but you get the idea)

[seoulsucker]

I've been here six years, and I can say without hesitation that the benefits are IMMENSE, even if you only plan on being here a year. It's ridiculously easy, and you'll even begin to learn the spoken language passively by being able to read.

That being said, it's not a necessity. I have friends that have been here as long as I have that still haven't bothered to learn, and they get around okay.

Think of it as spending your first week at a ski resort. Yeah, you'll get to the bottom of each slope eventually, but if you use the first day to take beginner lessons you'll enjoy the ride down soooooooooo much more.

[jomiro]

well.. only reading wont get you far. you gotta learn the vocs too.
i would say to learn korean itll take you about a year, if you put in some effort and study every day for mulitple hours. thatll give you a good basic knowledge.
if you are referring to reading scientific texts or any other kind of specific texts, then you have to invest some more time, cuz obviously those vocabularies are going to be very difficult.

and as for learning chinese.. good luck.. i hope you are planning to invest years.
i studied chinese/ biz chinese for four years. know roughly 2500 characters (words) and have about 30000 left to go.. hahaha
the chinese and korean grammar are totally different tho. chinese work with sentence particles where as koreas have a more complex grammar. they use tenses as we do in english or german (might even be a better comparison).
however, some vocabularies are rather similar.

i would say in terms of reading webpages.. the english webpages dont really give you as much detail about korea and the korean life as webpages do that are written in korean.
newspages, too.
i had to find that out when i did some research on several topics that were related to korea.

so, all thats left to say is

화이팅！
or
as the chinese say...
加油！

[jizza]

thanks for the input seoulsucker.

May I ask what you read? Korean novels or books? Or is it more of a "getting around and functioning" kind of thing for you?

[supernaut]

Reading the language is healthy because u can understand which floor of the building ha the hagwon, which one has the bar, which one has the restaurant and which one has the prostitutes.