Is the difficulty of Korean overrated? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Is the difficulty of Korean overrated?
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

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Balliballi
Groupie
Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4721 days ago
70 posts - 115 votes

Studies: Korean

Message 33 of 58

07 February 2012 at 5:47am | IP Logged

이희선 wrote:

While I agree that knowledge of Hanja isn't fully necessary to be fluent in Korean, I disagree that it is only
something you need to read something "old". I see it in Korea in many more instances than the two of glove size
and restaurant menus. Not 100% necessary to know but adds interest and richness to a Korean language
experience and I find it helpful to know a few.

Examples of Hanja I see in Korean
-Individual Building names are sometimes written in Hanja, such as Hyundai owned buildings (of which they own
a lot - 現代) and on "commemoration stones" which i think indicate the company who made the building and the
date it was erected.
-美 - 미 - 2 meanings in Korea. 1) Beautiful, so seen on signs of Beauty related businesses as part of their name,
in cosmetic ads, and in regular advertisements. and 2) America (from 美国 ) used in the news to refer to the
country instead of writing it out. I happened to see an article today on the KBS website that utilised it in this
manner. Also, China and Japan are referred to with their corresponding Hanja as well. (中 and 日, respectively)
- 生 - 생 - I see it meaning "Fresh" attached to foods related things - signs for restaurants, on menus, in the
name of beer, on the box for dumplings (生손만두) that is sitting here in my kitchen etc.
-辛 - 신 - to mean Spicy, again attached to food related things - seen in restaurants, on menus and on products
such as the (in Korea at least) famous brand Shin Ramyeon (辛라면)
-水 - 수 - relating to water, such as on bottles of water, cosmetics, advertisements
-人參 - 인삼 - meaning Ginseng. I feel like so many stores/companies use that to mean ginseng instead of using
the Korean word.
-小 - 소 - small; 中 - 중 - medium; 大 - 대 - big - used in menus to mean small, medium or large size dish (does
not specifically mean for 1, 2 or 3 people per se, that would be 1人, 2人, 3人) Also used to show sizes of rubber
gloves and other various
things.
-酒 - 주/술 - meaning Alcohol - seen on, well, Alcohol, menus, restaurants, ads, etc.
-凸 or 凹 - meaning convex and concave - seen on instructions for objects such as the gas canister used to heat
a portable stove - in this instance referring to the Convex part of the canister with no other reference to a Korean
word meaning convex. (가스용기凸부분)
-In this month's TMON magazine (the Korean version of Groupon, and the magazine is available in many subway
stations) an article about Jjimjilbang (찜질방 - sauna places) and Spas used the Hanja 熱 to mean Hot in the title.
찜방熱전
-正 - not used quite as Hanja, but a Chinese character derived tallying system. Often employed by Korean
restaurant waitstaff to indicated how many of a dish you want to order. see
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A3
- Day, Month, Year - 日, 月, 年 used when referring to Day, Month, year
-A count on today's front page of the Chosun Ilbo newspaper online tallied to 20 uses of Hanja.

reason for edit: messed up the order of reference to small, medium and large. Geez,
how could I mess up that ^^

Quote:

I disagree that it is only
something you need to read something "old".

It seems that the front page of the Chosun online news site has a little Hanja especially in a few of the titles. But are you sure the articles themselves have Hanja?

Here is an article I opened at random:

• http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/02/07/2012020 700927.html?news_Head1

No Hanja in it.

Looking at this other online news website, there are a few Hanja words on the front page,

• http://member.heraldm.com/subscribe/Subscribe.jsp (front page)

but when you go to an article, there is not a word of Hanja in it.

• http://biz.heraldm.com/common/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=2012020700 0001 (article)

In this online news site, there is no Hanja on the front page and no Hanja in the articles.

• http://world.kbs.co.kr/korean/ (front page)

• http://world.kbs.co.kr/korean/event/nkorea_nuclear/news_01_d etail.htm?No=23838 (article)

So the Hanja in the front page of newspapers looks like it is a tradition type of thing, and these days that tradition is not followed much. You don't need to know Hanja to read the paper.

On sites like Naver, Daum and shopping websites, I don't see any Hanja.

If I had studied Chinese characters, I would probably be more aware of the Hanja. I do recall seeing a few of the ones in the list like the Hanja written on the side of apartment buildings, Hanja on Shin ramyeon packets, Hanja on bottles of some alcohol drinks now that you mention them, 이희선, but because the Hanja looks more like decoration on the labels and on the side of the building than something I needed to read or understand, they escaped my memory. Once again, you don't need to read these Hanja characters.

You don't really need to understand the Hanja written for glove sizes and meal sizes either, as you can ask someone for that information.

The Hanja appears to be mainly used as part of a tradition or as decoration for advertisement purposes. These Hanja characters can be largely ignored. They are not included to clarify which homonym is being used. Once again, you could read the articles in the paper or online news or buy that ramyeon brand or alcohol drink without knowing a word of Hanja, which was the main point in my first post about this.

You might need Hanja to read a book written some decades ago though.

Edited by Balliballi on 07 February 2012 at 10:59pm
1 person has voted this message useful

IronFist
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6466 days ago
663 posts - 941 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

Message 34 of 58

07 February 2012 at 9:56pm | IP Logged

Balliballi wrote:

For example, you would not see that "Hanguk" sentence written in Hanja in normal writing.

In English, you have the same problem of homonyms at times.

"He made a bow of the bow at the bow and afterwards made a bow."

Reminds me of this sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo (note the capitalization)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo _buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

Quote:

So this is a real headache for people learning the language. Sometimes, when I am really frustrated, I think the fact that the language is so difficult to learn is all a ploy by Koreans to keep others out, and keep it a 'hermit kingdom'.

Ha, I'm sure that doesn't bother them. Koreans have the stereotype of being a pretty ethnocentric/homogenous people.

Maybe they just use the easy Hangeul writing system to troll people. Easiest writing system ever... HARDEST LANGUAGE EVER. After all, if Korean was written in Thai then I think even fewer people would try to learn it. Doesn't Korean have a 99 or 100% literacy rate?

Edited by IronFist on 08 February 2012 at 5:33pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

vientito
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6367 days ago
212 posts - 281 votes

Message 35 of 58

08 February 2012 at 1:12am | IP Logged

http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_koreanlan guagenotes_archive.html

Gerry is just amazing.
1 person has voted this message useful

Odysseus
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5020 days ago
19 posts - 28 votes
Speaks: English*, Korean
Studies: Mandarin

Message 36 of 58

08 February 2012 at 1:13am | IP Logged

Speaking of Hanja, there are still some things out there written in mixed script. Sure, you won't see it in a easy-reading novel, but in more academic or technical works you could. If you'd like to be able to read things like this:

前文
悠久한 歷史와 傳統에 빛나는 우리 大韓國民은 3·1 運動으로 建立된 大韓民國臨時政府의 法統과 不義에 抗拒한 4·19 民主理念을 繼承하고, 祖國의 民主改革과 平和的統一의 使命에 立脚하여 正義·人道와 同胞愛로써 民族의 團結을 鞏固히 하고, 모든 社會的弊習과 不義를 打破하며, 自律과 調和를 바탕으로 自由民主的基本秩序를 더욱 確固히 하여 政治·經濟·社會·文化의 모든 領域에 있어서 各人의 機會를 均等히 하고, 能力을 最高度로 發揮하게 하며, 自由와 權利에 따르는 責任과 義務를 完遂하게 하여, 안으로는 國民生活의 均等한 向上을 基하고 밖으로는 恒久的인 世界平和와 人類共榮에 이바지함으로써 우리들과 우리들의 子孫의 安全과 自由와 幸福을 永遠히 確保할 것을 다짐하면서 1948年 7月 12日에 制定되고 8次에 걸쳐 改正된 憲法을 이제 國會의 議決을 거쳐 國民投票에 依하여 改正한다.
1987年 10月 29日

then Hanja is definitely for you. Frankly, I think the entire language would be better if it were written like this. Looking at endless lines of Hangeul makes me a bit sleepy. Looking at Hanja lends an aesthetic experience that I really like.
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이희선
Groupie
Australia
Joined 4998 days ago
56 posts - 97 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

Message 37 of 58

08 February 2012 at 2:09am | IP Logged

Balliballi wrote:

It seems that the front page of the Chosun online news site has a little Hanja especially in a
few of the titles. But are you sure the articles themselves have Hanja?

Yes, I am sure that some of the articles with Hanja in the title have Hanja in the article. I just checked a number of
them on the Chosun Ilbo online site. Maybe you weren't able to recognize the Hanja in the articles you looked at.
Also, every single one of the links you posted above showed up as either errors (404s) or didn't load.
http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/02/08/2012020 800127.html?news_Head1
http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/02/08/2012020 800073.html?news_Head1

The point of my previous post is to show that while Hanja isn't fully necessary to achieve fluency, it adds a level
of understanding to the Korean language. As I wanted to point out in my examples, the use of Hanja is much
more widespread than the two examples that were previously shown, not to prove how necessary it is to know to
get stuff done. As a visual form of communication, Hanja isn't used in just old book, its used in a modern context
such as products, advertisement, academic/research papers, and articles. Also, a friend of mine recently
graduated from the Korean language school at Yonsei University KLI and I listened to a lot of his complaints
about the Hanja that was required for him to learn in his upper level course.

It is also not used merely to clarify homonyms - its use extends beyond that. As I pointed out in some of my
examples, there are instances where there is no reference to a Korean word and one would have to know the
Hanja to truly understand the meaning of the sentence. Granted, one could probably understand the general
meaning through context, but it doesn't mean the Hanja is useless. As for Hanja being just a decoration, if
someone don't know the meaning of the character, sure it looks like decoration to them but to people who know
the word, it does not equal just a decoration. When I see the character for Beautiful 美 I don't think "oooh, pretty
lines" I think - oh hey, that might be a salon. Or when I see the character for 生 I don't think "cool symbol", I think
maybe these noodles will be better - it says its fresh on the package. And the people who use those Hanja on
their sign/package/advertisement/news article are very aware of that meaning to the Korean public.

There is a cultural value in understanding the usage of Hanja - part of language is culture, and understanding the
semiotics of a language can also add to a learning and understanding experience instead of just tuning them out.
Sure, a person can get stuff done without knowing the Hanja but I am not learning Korean to just get the basics
done or to have to ask someone all the time what something means. I want to communicate and understand on a
number of different levels.

2 persons have voted this message useful

IronFist
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6466 days ago
663 posts - 941 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

Message 38 of 58

08 February 2012 at 5:37pm | IP Logged

vientito wrote:

http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_koreanlan guagenotes_archive.html

Gerry is just amazing.

That link doesn't seem to work.
1 person has voted this message useful

Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5795 days ago
2256 posts - 4046 votes

Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

Message 39 of 58

08 February 2012 at 6:53pm | IP Logged

IronFist wrote:

vientito wrote:

http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_koreanlan guagenotes_archive.html

Gerry is just amazing.

That link doesn't seem to work.

search for the break and remove it.
Fixed it
1 person has voted this message useful

이희선
Groupie
Australia
Joined 4998 days ago
56 posts - 97 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

Message 40 of 58

09 February 2012 at 1:29am | IP Logged

Bao wrote:

IronFist wrote:

vientito wrote:

http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_koreanlan guagenotes_archive.html

Gerry is just amazing.

That link doesn't seem to work.

search for the break and remove it.
Fixed it

vientito Cool site - thanks for sharing!

Thanks for finding the link problem, Bao ^^

1 person has voted this message useful

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