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Is the difficulty of Korean overrated? | ||
Tags: Korean | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5169 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 25 of 58 06 February 2012 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The thruth is, that I think I have never seen hanguk being used in other mening than 'Korea'.
I have just found the other ones in naver dictionary, Maybe people used to use words like this some years ago, where hanja was commonly used. I think about it, and maybe the fact that Korean is in FSI III, because the FSI is a little old? The time where they wrote those courses was when you had to know hanja to read in Korean. Actually the DLI course teaches hanja, and shows example articles from the old press, and the number of hanjas is comparable to that of Japanese. but I still think that hanja can help you learn the language - it helps in acquisition of words! It's easier to remember word for 'university', if you know it is composed of 'big + learning'. They are some words that are not so clear(like 'economy' - book + even ? ), but generally it helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6940 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 26 of 58 06 February 2012 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's called pitch accent, and it doesn't exist in the Korean spoken in Seoul (although it existed in Middle Korean and survives in at least one non-standard dialect.) Compared to Japanese, the lack of pitch accent is probably both a blessing and a curse, just like the disuse of hanja: a blessing because there's less to learn, and a curse because homophones are harder to distinguish. Edited by Lucky Charms on 06 February 2012 at 2:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5372 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 27 of 58 06 February 2012 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's much more of a blessing than a curse! First, not having to worry about stress or pitch makes the pronunciation hugely easier. Just like French, it may mean that words are harder to parse at first, but you never have to worry about learning stress, pitch or tones. Secondly, characters take an infinite amount of time to learn so getting rid of them also makes it hugely simpler, and homophones are not any harder to distinguish in writing then they are in the spoken language anyways. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 28 of 58 06 February 2012 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just slur everything together and don't worry about pitch :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5372 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 29 of 58 06 February 2012 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That would be a sacrilege! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Balliballi Groupie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4683 days ago 70 posts - 115 votes Studies: Korean | Message 30 of 58 06 February 2012 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hanja does clarify homonyms but there is little point in learning Hanja if Hanja is not used a lot, and these days, it's rare to see Hanja. (What I mean is, say you learned 1000 Hanja words, and you came across that "Hanguk" sentence, what would be the point of knowing Hanja? You would just have to know that Hanguk has multiple meanings, and you don't need Hanja to learn the different meanings. In fact, the time you spent learning Hanja for the different meanings of "Hanguk" could be better spent learning the different homonyms themselves. I don't need to study Hanja to learn the two different meanings of "sagwa". If I come across "sagwa", I can work out which meaning applies there, from the context. Rarely would you see sagwa written in Hanja these days to distinguish which homonym is used.) Hanja is useful mainly if you're reading something old.
As I said somewhere else, I only see Hanja written on restaurant menus showing that the price is for "one person", "two people" etc., and Hanja written on packets of rubber gloves to show the different sizes. Those are the only two instances I've seen Hanja in all my years of living in Korea. This is what the average person needs Hanja for. 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." "He made a bow (a bow that you tie) of the bow (violin bow string) at the bow (bow of the ship) and afterwards made a bow (salutation)." You can make as many of these sentences as you want just by picking homonyms and putting them together. The chances that you would ever say such a sentence like this are slim to non-existent. The likelihood that you would use "chrysanthemum", "cold country" and "Korea" in the same sentence is similarly negligible. There are other words for "cold", and you could always add the word "flower" to the sentence to indicate you mean "chrysanthemum", if your intention was to be as clear as possible. If you already know Chinese characters, I can understand that you would want to use that knowledge when learning Korean, but for all practical purposes, you don't need Hanja to be fluent in Korean. These days, it's becoming even less important to know Hanja even as a university student. On another subject, Korean for me is like learning several languages because of the many speech levels you have to know. French and German have two different politeness levels but you use these mainly in speech in the second person. With Korean, there is the "bnida/subnida" form, "yo" form, "da" form, and the casual form, without any ending. Then there is the written form as well, "ganda" for "gada" for instance. Then you also have to add honorifics as needed taking into account who you are talking to and whom you are talking about. Then there are a couple of other less common speech levels, such as the level used between two elderly gentlemen, with the endings "se", "ne" and "de" added to verbs. Then you have to know how to modify the endings depending on whether the verb is in the imperative, interrogative, declarative or propositive form for each of these levels. When it comes to indirect speech, it becomes even more complex. Putting all these together, and making some sort of mathematical calculation, there are some possible (by my rough estimate) 64 endings for one verb alone. And I am not even including the tenses in this calculation. 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'. Edited by Balliballi on 07 February 2012 at 9:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 이희선 Groupie Australia Joined 4960 days ago 56 posts - 97 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 31 of 58 07 February 2012 at 2:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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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 ^^ Edited by 이희선 on 07 February 2012 at 3:17am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5757 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 32 of 58 07 February 2012 at 4:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, Korean. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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