Please enlighten me with what's so important about Hanja

[oscabat]

So far I have not learned any Hanja, but the general concensus seems to be that it's important to learn the traditional Chinese characters if you want to get beyond a beginners level in Korean. I don't understand this at all. Living in South Korea, I see almost no Hanja anywhere. I understand that most Korean words are based on Chinese, but why on earth would you go to the trouble of memorizing the strokes of hundreds of Chinese characters when you will almost never run across them? (at least not in things like newspapers or the internet). Why not simply learn the Hanja roots in the Hangeul alphabet?

Has anyone gotten to be fluent in reading Korean without learning Hanja? Or did you find that Hanja really is essential, for some reason I haven't figured out yet?

[trutherous]

Yes, you can learn and be proficient in Korean using only Hangul, but understanding how the Korean language is put together is extremely helpful.

As you know, Hangul was created to replace memorizing and writing all those thousands of complicated Hanja; however, about 90% of Korean vocabulary has these Hanja roots. You don't necessarily need to learn to write Hanja, but it is very helpful to be familiar with these roots and understand the meaning. If you can at least recognize a few of them visually it is an added benefit.

The real problem is that Hangul has HUNDREDS of homonyms, and sometimes the meaning is nearly the exact opposite for the same word. Of course you can usually deduce the meaning based on context, even when the root behind the phonetic representation is not readily visible.

A couple examples of how familiarity with the Hanja roots can help with reading and understanding Hangul:

You are reading a story and it says a certain king went out to fight and 전사했다 -what is this new word " 전사," you wonder...

You could look up 전사 in a dictionary and memorize it as new vocabulary, but you might find the definition "warrior" and that would make little sense. However, if you already understand that this "전" is 전쟁 (war/battle) "전", and this "사" is 사망 (death) "사" then you can easily deduce that the king died in battle.

Now you are reading a story about 유관순, a national hero of Korea, and it says she was arrested by the Japanese and then in a certain year she 옥사했다. Once again, you could look up 옥사 in a dictionary, but now this story is taking too long to read. You are a smart person, you already know 감옥 means prison/jail and 사망 means death - so you put it together 옥+사, so it means she died in prison.

Here is another fun revelation: Husband - 남편 --I bet you know that vocabulary, but at a closer look "남" means 'male' and "편" means 'side.' so now you can understand that 'Nampyun' 남편 is not just a word meaning husband, but there is a reason it indicates husband - the male side of the relationship.

Good luck with your study.

George Posten

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[imaBALLER]

I had a Korean person explain it to me this way. Hanja is beneficial in learning Korean in so much as Latin is beneficial to understanding English. Quite useful, but unnecessary.

[sionie]

I'm korean but do not know many Hanja indeed ;ㅁ;
It is a headache!
I agree it will help you to understand Korean words, but not really necessary as much as Japanese.

[paekdusan]

I'll give you another reason to learn Hanja: because, at the drop of a hat, the Korean government might once again decide to start requiring it.

I don't know how long you've lived in South Korea, but when I first came to Korea 12 years ago there were Hanja in EVERYTHING. Signs, billboards, newspapers, etc. In fact, the more prestigious the newspaper (for instance, 조선일보) the more hanja it used in its pages. But nowadays, you're right, there are NO hanja anywhere.

But the Korean government has flip flopped on this issue many times over the past 60 years or so. Talk to someone who's 60 or older and they'll remember being taught the hanja. Talk to another who's 40 and she will sheepishly admit that she recognizes a lot of them, but was not taught them in school and is not proficient at writing them. Talk to a 30 year-old and they'll know them because they grew up reading them in newspapers and magazines. But now... the government is back to thinking them unnecessary and so does not require them in schools (or at least not to the extent they once did) and no longer uses them in official documents or even in the media.

This might be the way it remains from now on. I don't know. But they've changed their minds before. You might come back a few years from now and find that the newspapers are, once again, riddled with hanja and that you can't read a thing.

[julialim]

I think it is optional.
It doesn't matter whether you know 한자 or not.
But once you learn it, it might be easier to learn Korean.
You could catch the meaning from 한자.

Me? I don't really know.. We don't really learn 한자 in a school.
In my generation, the goverment emphasized "한글" at the moment like paekdusan said.
They did kind of "한국어 생활화하기" 운동.

But these days, younger generation starts to learn "한자", again as they take "한자능력시험".

[trutherous]

When I first started to study Korean I could not read a Korean newspaper because every sentence had Hanja in it.