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Is learning Hanja recommended for Korean? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5839 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 33 30 December 2008 at 10:31am | IP Logged |
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I know Hanja has been largely phased out in South Korea, but is it still used at all
in any normal publication and signage? For example, how things like magazines written entirely in Hangul or are there some elements where Hanja is used? I've heard mixed things, some people tell me it still is used a little bit and Koreans still do have a fair knowledge of Hanja, while others have told me Koreans very rarely come into contact with Hanja and it's considered a primitive writing system which is worthless when you have the likes of Hangul available, and the only people who still use Hanja today are the academic elite who think showing off their knowledge of Hanja makes them look intelligent. So, what is the deal with Hanja today? Is it worth learning or is 99% of Korean conducted in the Hangul script? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hollow Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States luelinks.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6547 days ago 179 posts - 186 votes Speaks: French*, English*, SpanishB2 Studies: Korean | Message 2 of 33 30 December 2008 at 11:52am | IP Logged |
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In a lot of instances a hanja or two will come out ina newspaper headline, or to clarify the meaning of a word if context is not enough (simple example: 'which 화장 do you mean?').
So it's a good idea, though nothing of a priority I'd say, to get to know passively some 200 or so really basic and commonly used ones. I've been in Seoul for 6 months now, I've been around, and hanja has taken up maybe half of a percent of all the writing, newspapers, media, etc, I have been exposed to. So take that whichever way you want. But you know, I think Korean being the hard and complex language that it is, Hanja should not be anywhere near your priority list until quite a while has passed. What IS super useful though is to look at some 'tricks' of the language (접두사, 접미사, understanding what 력, 심, 성, etc mean...those sorts of things), some of which employ lots of hanja-based characters. If you already know those particular hanja it would be easier to learn those things, I suppose, but if you don't, no need to go out of your way. cheerio, happy learning 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| solidsnake Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7049 days ago 469 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 3 of 33 31 December 2008 at 12:10pm | IP Logged |
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From what I understand, having an intimate knowledge of Chinese characters will help you immensely with vocabulary acquisition in Korean, as something like 65% of Korean vocabulary is derived from the Chinese.
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 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6444 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 33 01 January 2009 at 4:36am | IP Logged |
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There have been so many Hanja debates on this forum that I hope this thread won't mutate into anymore of that.
Hollow has basically summarized what I've been trying to get across on the forum for more than a year now. You don't NEED Hanja, although the knowledge will be undeniably useful. As I said, learning Hanja is like learning Latin and Greek to learn English, while learning Hanja-based prefixes and suffixes in Korean would be like learning Latin and Greek roots specific to Korean. I personally would recommend the latter, but do bear in mind that what I say is just an opinion. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kman1 Groupie United States Joined 6762 days ago 57 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 33 12 January 2009 at 5:24pm | IP Logged |
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It helps to know Hanja but yeah you don't have to know it all if you don't want to. In fact, some Koreans are against learning Hanja. You can read the opinion of one such Korean here:
http://blog.naver.com/dabin1804?Redirect=Log&logNo=900147756 95 When I first started learning Korean about seven years ago my teachers avoided Hanja. Also, did you know that only "pure" korean is used in N. Korea? Pretty cool, huh. Final verdict: Unless you want to learn Japanese/Chinese on the side, I wouldn't bother learning Hanja. Edited by kman1 on 12 January 2009 at 5:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6324 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 7 of 33 20 April 2009 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
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There's a question about hanja that I just haven't been able to figure out, despite having posted it on various forums.
What exactly does learning hanja consist of? I'm doing a Heisig approach for traditional Chinese characters which means I'm only learning the meanings for now. Does this suffice for learning hanja, or is it absolutely crucial to commit to memory all the Korean pronunciations as well? Surely many hanja have identical pronunciations in Korean, so how does knowing to pronounce in Korean 1800 odd hanja help when you're faced with newspaper that's 100% hangul? I just don't get it. Can anyone please clarify this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6194 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 33 21 April 2009 at 2:39am | IP Logged |
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Study hanja in order to better understand what words mean and to be able to make an educated guess on a word's meaning before looking it up or asking for an explanation. It helps when looking words up in most dictionaries as well. I haven't studied them yet but I know around 600+ characters from my Japanese studies and found that it has helped me quite a bit passively. Now just imagine actively...
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