Learn some words using Hanja! These words use Chinese words as a basis so a lot are related and use the same syllables. Which makes them easier to learn and remember their similar meaning.
Similar to “un-” words in English (unhappy, unclear, unknown, unusual, uncomfortable) you know all of them have the meaning of “not- this thing”.
Today is 한글날 or Hangul Day, which is a Korean holiday dedicated to celebrating the Korean writing system and its creator King Sejong! So to commemorate, I’ll go through a bit on Hangul’s history, King Sejong, and some resources on how to learn Hangul yourself.
不 means “not” and is very much like not, non-, un-, dis-, etc. in English! It generally appears in Korean as 불 or 부 at the front of a word. With that said Let’s get into some negative Hanja words! I’ll start out by breaking some of the words down, so you get the 2-for-1 combo~
A while ago I touched on Korean body vocab, now it’s time to dive deeper and go inside the body to the organs! I’ll cover Korean organ vocab from internal and external, along with bones, muscles, and more.
You may have noticed 문 come up often when learning about writing or culture in Korean. From 문화 meaning to 문학 they are tied to a hanja of course! The hanja 文 means culture and literature/writing so you will see it in a lot of literature vocab in Korean.
Kim is everywhere as a surname in Korea, Koreans named Kim make up millions of the population! It’s almost guaranteed that you have come across this name enough to wonder “Why are so many Koreans named Kim?”.
The 생 in 인생 Meaning comes from the Hanja 生 which meaning is tied to life and living. You’ll find 생 in a lot of words; from a social life, birth, and even over to students!
If you’ve been learning about terms for outer space in Korean you might have noticed 성 pop up multiple times, 성 has Sino-Korean origins and uses the hanja 星 which means a star or planet. You’ll especially see it for planets in our solar system which all, excluding earth, end with 성 and have their own meaning for their names!
You probably already know the 4 seasons but seasons in Korean can go more in-depth than that! Following the Chinese lunar calendar Korea’s traditional calendar has a solar system for seasons too, spaced approx. 15 days apart these dates mark specific points in the seasons.
식 is a reoccuring piece in many Korean food words and that’s because it has sino-Korean and hanja origins. 식 comes from 食 which means meal and food. So let’s get into some of the words that it comes up in!
Let’s get into a quick & easy Sino-Korean lesson! 年 (년) is the Chinese and Sino-Korean character used to say year in Korean. It is used for year vocab and also vocab related to age and generations.