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Questions about Korean hanja | ||
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| solongsekhu Newbie United States Joined 4660 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 18 21 October 2011 at 5:01pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, I'm interested in studying Korean, and I was wondering a few things about hanja (the characters taken from Chinese). I understand they're not used as much nowadays, but I'm still interested in them.
1) Does each hanja have a single reading/pronunciation? Or is it more like Japanese, where each character usually has two or more readings? 2) Do vocabulary learning materials (dictionaries, vocab lists, books) often have hanja? 3) How similar are Korean hanja to Japanese kanji? i know some are different, but what's the overlap like? Thanks for any info! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DNB Bilingual Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4697 days ago 47 posts - 80 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, Estonian*, English | Message 2 of 18 21 October 2011 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
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1) Most of the Hanja have one single reading, but a considerable amount come
with two readings, but don't worry — They usually depend on whether they come syllable- initially or not. For example, 念 is 염 (yeom) when it begins a word and 념 (nyeom) when it doesn't, and most of the Hanja with double reading work like this. There are a few exceptions where the reading changes when the same Hanja is used to indicate a different meaning, such as 惡, where it is read as 악 (ak) when meaning 'evil/devil' et cetera, but read as 오 (o) when in words that have something to do with hatred. Even so you will rarely meet these second readings in common vocabulary (aside from 樂), so you shouldn't worry about it. 2) Depends — I would say any high-level Korean dictionary must have Hanja in them in order to clarify ambiguity. 3) While Japanese is a mixture of traditional and simplified (and partially some of their own) characters, Korean is full traditional. The Japanese 体 vs the traditional 體 et cetera. However, the jump from Kanji to Hanja isn't nearly as big as from simplified Hanzi to Hanja (or from full simplified to full traditional characters in general), so I'm fairly sure you will have no trouble with Hanja. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| w1n73rmu7e Newbie United States Joined 5751 days ago 31 posts - 46 votes | Message 3 of 18 21 October 2011 at 6:11pm | IP Logged |
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Another interesting thing is that the reading for hanja are all (I think?) one syllable. So you don't get several syllables representing one hanja, as opposed to Japanese, where there are some 4 morae words with one kanji (like 古/いにしえ). Normally when you do kana → kanji, the number of characters decreases, but not so with hangul → hanja. However, they do remove some spaces when making that transition. Edited by w1n73rmu7e on 21 October 2011 at 6:12pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| solongsekhu Newbie United States Joined 4660 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 18 22 October 2011 at 1:44am | IP Logged |
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Thanks both of you! That's all very helpful.
I'm studying Japanese and finding kanji extremely helpful in learning vocabulary. Even with the multiple readings, I'm starting to be able to guess how new words are pronounced and sometimes a sense of their meanings. Since I already know about 2,000 kanji (at least passively), I wanted to see if I could use this while studying Korean. Even if hanja aren't used as much now, I think it would be a huge shortcut (at least with my style of vocabulary learning). And now that I know most hanja have a single reading (and a one syllable one at that!), it seems too convenient to not use. I think I need a few resources for this. Any recommendations are very much appreciated! 1) Is there a list of the main 1,800 or so hanja available? It'd be nice if it had English meanings in addition to the Korean names. It seems like this would be useful for getting past all the kanji-hanja differences early on, plus I could become familiar with some readings. 2) What vocabulary resources with hanja would you recommend? For Japanese, I'm using a big vocab/sentence list on Anki (the Core 6000 list), and I really like that (especially with the audio it has), but I'm open to anything here. I'm thinking most vocabulary lists/books targeted at beginners probably don't have hanja though, eh? Maybe my best bet is getting a hangul vocabulary list and looking up everything in an online dictionary? Thanks again for the help! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 이희선 Groupie Australia Joined 4780 days ago 56 posts - 97 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 18 22 October 2011 at 2:45am | IP Logged |
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There are a number of Hanja Dictionaries online - just google "Hanja Dictionary".
Otherwise, if you're more into print material, you can buy the book "A Guide to Korean Characters" by Bruce K. Grant and published by Hollym. It is directly based on the 1,800 Hanja taught in Korean schools. There are some Korean Hanja learning books for absolute beginners too that I often see in the bookstores here in Korea, but if you have a background with Kanji already, these might seems a little juvenile. As for Hanja use in Korea, it is not common and most Korean language learners here that I know don't specifically study any Hanja. Even in the Korean Language Learning schools, Hanja isn't taught until the advanced levels. So yes, you don't need to know Hanja to understand and communicate in Korean at a general level. But it is nice to be able to know what it means when you see it in advertisments, etc. That being said, Hanja is also not used in many beginner and intermediate level Korean Language learning materials. Though you can find good dictionaries with both Hangeul and Hanja. You might also want to check out the "Handbook of Korean Vocabulary" by Miho Choo and William O'Grady, as that is based on word roots and thus has many entries based on Hanja roots. I own both books mentioned and find them to be good resources; unfortunately they also seem to be unique as I haven't found any other resources quite like them (at least in English). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| solongsekhu Newbie United States Joined 4660 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 18 22 October 2011 at 5:47am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for your response!
Yeah, I understand that hanja isn't used much in everday life, and that you don't need it. I'm interested in using it as a shortcut to memorizing a bunch of vocabulary, more than learning it out of a particular interest in hanja (not to say it's not interesting). I probably don't need a book teaching hanja from scratch, like you said, since I'm comfortable with most of the daily use kanji. I was hoping there was some kind of list available (those 1,800 would be perfect), just so I could compare them and clarify the ones that are different from Japanese. Is there a list like that? A list with hangul readings and English meanings would be perfect. Any ideas? That "Handbook of Korean Vocabulary" sounds interesting. When you say it's based on 'word roots,' what exactly do you mean? Is that different from being based on common hanja roots? Sounds promising. I'd love to hear how that book is set up, if you have time to explain. Any other vocabulary resources for beginner to intermediate? I guess even a vocabulary list only in hangul could work, since I could look up the hanja in a dictionary, though I suppose that would slow me down a bit. Thanks again everyone! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 이희선 Groupie Australia Joined 4780 days ago 56 posts - 97 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 18 22 October 2011 at 7:00am | IP Logged |
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Yes, Hanja is extremely useful for understanding word roots, which is great for understanding vocabulary and improving acquisition. That is why I started studying Hanja, too. About half of Korean words are based on Chinese roots. Approx 70% of Korean nouns have a Chinese root.
Well, I don't know where one could find only a list (I've never looked though). There is an official Hanja test in Korea, so maybe if you could find info about that, they would have a list. But as mentioned before, the "Guide to Korean Characters" book by Bruce K Grant is the 1,800 characters taught at the schools so it is, in a sense, a list of those 1,800 characters. The Grant book is basically listed by number of strokes. It then shows the character, then the writing in stroke order is shown in steps (but only divided among 9 steps, maximum). Then, it has the Korean reading, and the Hanja Meaning, and the meaning in English. It then lists other words in Korean that use that Hanja character, and presents it in Hanja, Korean, and an English meaning. For example, 日 (then diagram here written out in 4 steps) 날 sun, day; daily; Japan 일 (Korean Reading (Sound) / English Definition/Hanja Reading (Formal Reading)) 日常 everyday, common 일상 日曜日 Sunday 일요일 日氣 a diary; a journal 일기 etc. (Hanja / English meaning / Korean word) So here, the character 日 is called 날일 because in Korean we say both the Sound and the Meaning together for every Hanja character. But in your head you can just know it means day, and can show up as a Chinese root as 일 (il) but also that day in Korean roots is called 날. (Such as words like, 옛날 - old days, 설날 - New Year's Day, 날씨 - weather (literally "Day Condition"). As for the "Handbook of Korean Vocabulary", it is set up in the order of Hangeul, so ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ, etc. It lists the Korean word, the Hanja writing of the word, and the meaning in English. Then it also has subentries using that word plus other Hanja or roots to form new words. For example, 가 (家)house; specialist. (sub-entry) 가출 running away from home [~come out] ~出 (new compound word/ English meaning/ literal reading of Hanja in English/ the actual hanja you would combine it with) Obviously, it doesn't cover every Korean word, but its a lot. It also has a section of Korean roots, too. Finally, for Beginning Korean vocab, you might like 2000 Essential Korean Words for Beginners, published by Darakwon. It isn't solely an official list of the most frequently used Korean words, but it is culled from an analysis of major Korean Language teaching textbooks, the official list of most frequent Korean words from the government, and TOPIK (Korean proficiency test) words. so you know they are all useful for a beginner. It is organized by topic, such as weather, time, leisure, family, etc. Then the words are in alphabetical order, with an entry listing the word in Korean, the meaning in English, Japanese, and Chinese*, and a sentence in Korean that uses the word. Unfortunately, the sentence is not translated into any other languages. It also lists the part of speech and the pronunciation in Korean. It comes with an accompanying CD where they read the word and the Korean sentence. I found it to be a useful book. Hope that helps. *(Darakwon publishes some of their Korean Language learning books as Tri-lingual) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| solongsekhu Newbie United States Joined 4660 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 18 22 October 2011 at 7:59am | IP Logged |
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Wow, thanks so much, those sound like good resources.
Just a couple follow-up questions about them... I think I'll go with the Guide to Korean Characters as my 'hanja list'. Sorry, I'm slightly confused about your example of 日. You mentioned the 'Korean reading' and a 'formal reading'. Is the Korean reading the actual pronunciation, and the 'formal reading' simply part of the name of that hanja? Or are both of them possible readings in Korean vocabulary? The 2000 Essential Korean Words sounds excellent, especially with the CD. Are the example sentences in English at least, or did you mean they're only in Korean? Sorry if that's obvious, just wasn't sure. Would it be worth having the Handbook to Korean Vocabulary and the 2000 Essential books? Do you think their uses overlap a lot? Thanks again! Edited by solongsekhu on 22 October 2011 at 12:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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