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Is learning Hanja recommended for Korean?

  Tags: Hanja | Korean
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
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icing_death
Senior Member
United States
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296 posts - 302 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 9 of 33
21 April 2009 at 8:27am | IP Logged 
Jiwon wrote:
You don't NEED Hanja, although the knowledge will be undeniably useful.

1) What if one's reading goals in the language are newspapers, menus, ads, signs and any text they might see on
TV(subtitles, ticker tapes, etc)? Will not having hanja be sufficient?
2) Given the above goals in reading, and wanting to be able to understand TV and movies, will learning hanja save
enough time in vocabulary acquisition to make it worth it, even if the answer in 1) is yes?
3) If the answer to 1) is no, or the answer of 2) is yes, how many characters?
1 person has voted this message useful



LuckyNomad
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Korea, South
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 10 of 33
21 April 2009 at 8:53am | IP Logged 
ChristopherB wrote:
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?


I know where you're coming from on this so I'll try to explain as best as I can.

Open up your Korean dictionary to the page where the 진's start.
Now look at the 진 with the character 眞. Perhaps you already know that this character means real, true, or genuine.
Now look through the 진 words that have 眞 next to them. You'll see that all these words revolve around the theme of something being real or true or genuine.
Another 진 is 進 meaning advance or progression.
Knowing what the character looks isn't exactly necessary but it is helpful, especially when looking through the dictionary.
You could just look at all the Hanja that have the 진 pronunciation and make a long list of all the different meanings behind them like,
진 = Genuine, true, real, advance, progression, quake, sign of the dragon, etc. and just memorize them like that. That's what I did when I first started realizing the connection between the characters and the hanguel.

Knowing this, even though you won't see them in an all hangeul book, you will have transparency when seeing a word that contains 진 and you'll have a very good chance of guessing what the meaning is if you know enough characters. So while not knowing what the Hanja look like is okay, knowing the meaning and how to say them is what you definitely need. As you progress, you may find that you do want to know how to read and write the Hanja all on their own. But that's up to you, I'm just trying to help you get the connection.

If anyone disagrees, I'm just trying to help him understand.
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ChristopherB
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New Zealand
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 Message 11 of 33
21 April 2009 at 10:28am | IP Logged 
LuckyNomad wrote:
ChristopherB wrote:
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?


I know where you're coming from on this so I'll try to explain as best as I can.

Open up your Korean dictionary to the page where the 진's start.
Now look at the 진 with the character 眞. Perhaps you already know that this character means real, true, or genuine.
Now look through the 진 words that have 眞 next to them. You'll see that all these words revolve around the theme of something being real or true or genuine.
Another 진 is 進 meaning advance or progression.
Knowing what the character looks isn't exactly necessary but it is helpful, especially when looking through the dictionary.
You could just look at all the Hanja that have the 진 pronunciation and make a long list of all the different meanings behind them like,
진 = Genuine, true, real, advance, progression, quake, sign of the dragon, etc. and just memorize them like that. That's what I did when I first started realizing the connection between the characters and the hanguel.

Knowing this, even though you won't see them in an all hangeul book, you will have transparency when seeing a word that contains 진 and you'll have a very good chance of guessing what the meaning is if you know enough characters. So while not knowing what the Hanja look like is okay, knowing the meaning and how to say them is what you definitely need. As you progress, you may find that you do want to know how to read and write the Hanja all on their own. But that's up to you, I'm just trying to help you get the connection.

If anyone disagrees, I'm just trying to help him understand.


Thanks very much! Can't understand why it was such a mission for me to find the answer to that!

In fact, although I'm learning the characters for Chinese, it seems like a book such as How to Master Korean Vocabulary would be particularly good for learning the meanings of the hangul syllables. An example from the product description:

Quote:
* 권 This document(券) gives you the authority(權) to encourage(勸) by fist(拳).
* 매 Each(每) and every(每) store tries to attract(魅) buyers(買) and sellers(賣).
* 술 Drinking liquor(술) is a form of art(術) that requires skill(術).
* 심 It takes a deep(深) mind(心) to examine(審) the heart(心) of a judge(審).
* 태 A big(泰) lazy(怠) pregnant(胎) woman with an attitude(態) is not the greatest(太) situation(態).


Edited by ChristopherB on 21 April 2009 at 10:44am

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Deecab
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United States
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 Message 12 of 33
21 April 2009 at 5:17pm | IP Logged 
Memorize about the most common 100 characters and you'll have no problem reading.

Personally I am against complete abolishment of it because it makes the meaning clearer for me.
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Louis
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Italy
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 Message 13 of 33
24 April 2009 at 7:45pm | IP Logged 
Quote:
* 술 Drinking liquor(술) is a form of art(術) that requires skill(術).

Please don't tell me I'm the only one that cracked up at this!
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ennime
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Senior Member
South Africa
universityofbrokengl
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Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu

 
 Message 14 of 33
24 April 2009 at 8:11pm | IP Logged 
Louis wrote:
Quote:
* 술 Drinking liquor(술) is a form of art(術) that requires
skill(術).

Please don't tell me I'm the only one that cracked up at this!


No you're not the only one... but in Korean cultural context: drinking, well it is
something of an "art" and does require "skill" ^_^
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Jiwon
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 Message 15 of 33
26 April 2009 at 3:39pm | IP Logged 
icing_death wrote:
Jiwon wrote:
You don't NEED Hanja, although the knowledge will be undeniably useful.

1) What if one's reading goals in the language are newspapers, menus, ads, signs and any text they might see on
TV(subtitles, ticker tapes, etc)? Will not having hanja be sufficient?
2) Given the above goals in reading, and wanting to be able to understand TV and movies, will learning hanja save
enough time in vocabulary acquisition to make it worth it, even if the answer in 1) is yes?
3) If the answer to 1) is no, or the answer of 2) is yes, how many characters?


I'm sorry. I must have skipped this thread everytime I log on to the forum.

1) Nowadays, newspapers, menus, ads, signs and TV make nearly exclusive use of Hangul, although you MIGHT come across a few that try to make themselves stand out. Having said that, you'll find many more English signs than Hanja signs.

2) Despite this, I think it IS worth investing a BIT of time studying Hanja. But I do not really advocate learning to recognise characters unless you want to study classical literature and Korean history. What I do recommend, is to be able to recognise Hanja meanings when you see the Korean version of it, the method of which I have posted several times on this forum. Hollow and LuckyNomad have also outlined this approach on this thread, so it shouldn't be too difficult ot understand how it should work.

3) I think this depends entirely on your aims. But even if your aim is basic understanding, you will learn to retain passive knowledge of Hanja sounds and meanings without having to learn them separately. It's like how English learners figure out "anti-" means opposite without having to find it out by tracking word origins.
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Z.J.J
Senior Member
China
Joined 5417 days ago

243 posts - 305 votes 
Speaks: Mandarin*

 
 Message 16 of 33
31 July 2009 at 12:17pm | IP Logged 
『삶과 죽음』

우리가 現在 살고 있는 이 世界를 이승이라 하고 죽어서 가는 世界를 저승이라고 한다. 卽 저승은 죽은 사람이 가서 사는 또 다른 世界이다. 韓國사람들은 삶과 죽음을 따로 떼어서 보지 않고 全體가 하나로 連結되어 있는 것으로 生覺했다. 따라서 죽음은 삶의 마지막이 아니라 새로운 形態의 또 다른 삶의 始作이요. 새로운 삶의 創造이다. 그래서 살아 生前에 언제나 죽음의 삶을 爲해서 많은 것을 미리 準備해야 한다고 生覺했다. 나이가 들수록 自身이 죽어서 묻힐 땅「묏자리」이나 죽어서 입을 옷「수의」等을 미리미리 準備를 해 놓아야 마음이 便安하고 이승에서도 長壽를 누린다고 믿었다. 예前부터 내려오는 이야기를 살펴보면, 사람에게는 魂이 있는데 몸에서 이 魂이 떠나면 世上을 떠난다고 卽 죽는다고 生覺했다. 또 이 魂이 몸「肉體」을 떠났다가 다시 돌아올 수 있다고 여겨서 魂이 떠난 몸「屍身」을 所重히 看守하고 깨끗이 지키려고 했다. 이승에서 이루지 못한 일이 있는 사람들은 죽어서도 이승의 일을 아쉬워하여 恨을 품는다고 믿었다. 그래서 죽은 사람들의 怨恨을 풀어 주어야 죽은 사람들이 便安히 저승에 갈 수 있다는 것이다. 韓國사람들은 저승의 일보다는 이승의 문제를 더 重要視해서 살아있음을 즐기며, 죽음이라는 것도 살아 있음의 다른 貌襲으로 여겼다.




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