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Replacing Sino-Korean words... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Dixon Groupie Canada Joined 6051 days ago 54 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 25 of 32 28 April 2010 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
If I were to guess, I'd say most of my college educated friends can write like 100 (possibly less than that) and maybe recall 300. Most are multilingual and speak European languages, but are not interested in Japanese or Chinese. My girlfriend is fluent in French and English yet had a hard time writing out 1-10 in Hanja perfectly. Haha. I guess if you sampled people who studied history, religion, or philosophy more you would get different results. My friend's university textbooks have English words written in the Roman alphabet interspersed between the Hangul, not Hanja. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5535 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 26 of 32 29 April 2010 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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On a related note: I have noticed that on Korean TV shows (especially documentaries) they always seem to accompany any on-screen Hanja (from older books, engravings, etc.) with Hangul subtitles, so it appears there is at least an assumption there that the Hanja may not be understood by many of the viewers.
So far, I know a grand total of 6 myself (i.e., the ones that have caught my attention enough, for whatever reason, to actually add them to my SRS), but I'm not really *actively* studying Hanja yet. Once I do, I plan to learn at least the 1800 school-taught Hanja. Edited by Warp3 on 29 April 2010 at 5:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5649 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 27 of 32 29 April 2010 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have read that Koreans are taught 1800, but I've also read that Koreans only need to know 200.
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| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 28 of 32 29 April 2010 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
If these friends of yours were studying at a Canadian university, it's no surprise that they favoured European languages and didn't have much knowledge of Hanja, Japanese, or Chinese. Selection bias. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7077 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 29 of 32 30 April 2010 at 2:32am | IP Logged | |||||
It does seem like selection bias and also an extreme example of active skills. It's not that far from my own experiences however. The majority of my Korean friends can identify some hanja, nowhere near 1800 though; I would guess closer to the 200 mark than 1800 (I know some that can't even identify the character for '100' for example). Their active skills in writing hanja is often limited to their own name and not much else. These friends don't differ all that much whether they are monolingual Korean having never travelled outside Korea or multilingual and living overseas. The only differences have laid in education (specifically university major), although the education department in Korea tends to change policies quite often. So the generation that is aged between 20-35 can vary quite a lot in their hanja skills. I have as good a (if not better) understanding of hanja as my wife since I've studied it to help with roots and stems in vocabulary. Something that L1 Korean speakers don't really need to do. I have mentioned numerous times to my wife about the reported 1800 school hanja... she has always maintained that she never really learned 1800 hanja at school. Her hanja class was called '한문(漢文)' (Chinese writing), they studied poetry, verse, etc. written by Koreans in hanja. They were probably exposed to 1800 hanja throughout their schooling and were actually tested on them, yet the exposure was all but forgotten after school unless they wanted to continue with hanja study. Edited by andee on 30 April 2010 at 2:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 30 of 32 30 April 2010 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You are right - there are 1800 hanjas. I didn't know that only 200 were necessary though.
Anyways, why clutter the education system with the hanjas when we can replace these hanja words with words made with native Korean roots? Any arguments of nationalism aside, native Korean words are usually easier to grasp and less homophonic. Leave the difficult learning of Chinese characters Korean historians and students of Chinese and Japanese. I think a good thing to do is to reduce the loanwords to the level of Mongolian, which has Chinese loanwords due to the contact but not so much that Mongolian students need to learn Chinese characters to "fully" know the language. Edited by chucknorrisman on 30 April 2010 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 31 of 32 30 April 2010 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's not difficult to imagine that in 20-30 years practically all Korean students will be students of Chinese. In which case the Hanja "burden" appears more like a Hanja aid and advantage. Despite the differences due to simplification that you have mentioned, knowing Hanja is still a great boon to learning Chinese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 32 of 32 30 April 2010 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
You are right, but the Koreans' language is Korean, and I don't think Korean itself should remain difficult and cluttered with hanjas just so it can accommodate learners of Chinese. We have plenty of other educational areas to worry about besides learning hanjas, and replacing them will enable us to contribute that time to other areas, like science, English, or learning actual Chinese, for example. If the number of the Sino-Korean words are reduced and if some words that already exist in both native Korean and Sino-Korean are just singled out into one form (like the numerals), hopefully into native Korean forms, it would be much easier. Edited by chucknorrisman on 30 April 2010 at 11:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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