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Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on December 5, 2010 at 9:45am

There's a great game for the Nintendo DS called "마법천자문 DS" which teaches the first 1,000 Chinese characters. Of course, it's only as useful as the effort you put in.

Permalink Reply by Ondrej Slechta on December 5, 2010 at 8:55pm

The answer depends on what level of Korean proficiency one wants to achieve. I fully agree with you conclusion that you need to go through a lot much more hanja than a native speaker to be able to catch up with them.

So in terms of "how many":

-, to achieve strong average skills you'll "get away" with about 600 actively/1000 passively
- If you want to be really fluent (writing, reading, speaking, listening), it's more around 1200 actively/2200 passively (i.e. 2/3 of the Grant's dictionary plus the Yonsei hanja textbook (A First Reader in Korean Writing in Mixed Script)
- to achieve a nearly native speaker level in terms of knowledge active/passive vocabulary, some 2500-3000 actively and 6000/8000 passively should do it.

Obviously this does not mean that a Korean native speaker knows this many hanja. But contrary to the popular opinion that "you don't need to know hanja to learn Korean" I believe knowledge of hanja is an absolute must to achieve any above average level of proficiency. I maintain a strong opinion that unlike English you cannot "sort of" speak Korean. You either speak it or you don't and hanja is definitely one of the keys to achieve Steve's famous 15% level.

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on December 9, 2010 at 8:02am

There aren't too many non-Koreans I respect more for their Korean ability than Ondrej, so I realize how risky it is to disagree with him, especially considering that he actually remembered the hanja he learned, whereas I forgot most all of them. Still, I'm going to be brave and express my differing opinion regarding the hanja.

I should point out that my "famous 15% level" (the definitive word on Korean learning, of c... does not include proficiency in hanja.

If knowing hanja is a prerequisite to having a high level of proficiency in Korean, then I would wonder how the millions of North Koreans can call themselves fluent Korean speakers. There are plenty of South Koreans who didn't learn hanja during a period in the 80s (I think it was) when it was removed from the school curriculum, too.

There is no doubt that knowing hanja gives the learner a deeper understanding of the language which is useful in many, many ways. I would love to go back and relearn. But for day-to-day conversation, I think it is nearly irrelevant and a little (OK, I admit, a lot!) study should get one up to an adequate reading/writing level in one's field of specialty.

As for "sort of speaking" Korean, I think we all do that. I don't see any reason not to regard the learning process as a smooth continuum from beginner to "15% expert" and beyond!!

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on December 9, 2010 at 8:07am

Ah, but I do have a question for Ondrej (and others)....

One of the reasons I hesitate to go back and restudy hanja is that I am not sure how I will keep it up after that. Having learned and forgotten most of it when I first studied over 10 years ago, I just don't know where I would go to really practice in my day-to-day life, especially now that hanja is nearly gone from the newspaper.

So Ondrej, how do you maintain your hanja vocabulary and not forget it? What are your suggestions on this?

Permalink Reply by Ondrej Slechta on December 10, 2010 at 2:21am

"If knowing hanja is a prerequisite to having a high level of proficiency in Korean, then I would wonder how the millions of North Koreans can call themselves fluent Korean speakers."

This is because from a neurolinguistic point of view there is a major difference between how the brain picks up a language in early childhood and later in life. By the age of 5 a Korean native speaker's brain has a sufficient number of connections associating denotates with sounds and words from different vocabulary layers (i.e. incl. native Korean words and Sinokorean words). On the other hand, a non-native speaker who starts to learn later in life must start from scratch without such a spider web and also without any number of cognates - words that have a common etymological origin (provided he doesn't come from China/Japan/Vietnam).

Therefore a Korean doesn't need to know hanja to become proficient because he/she already is. For a non-native speaker, studying hanja is more developing a tool that will help him/her to master the language rather than a goal itself. Creating a mental hanja dictionary exponentially increases one's language comprehension ability - we are able to pick up unknown sinokorean words faster (Koreans don't because they already know them) and we are also more able to guess meaning of unknown sinokorean words (Koreans don't because they already know them). On the top of this, we're less likely to forget the word if it is associated with a hanja.

For example, in 2001 I went to buy sandpaper without knowing Korean for sandpaper and explained I need "a paper to brush wood". The ajussi said "아, 사-지". I have quickly associated it with 황사 and 신문지 and I never forgot the word afterwards even though I have never used the word since then.

Another example, my teacher once used the expression "인생은 고해다". My braing quickly scanned all possible meanings of 고 which could be associated with 인생, picked up obvious [:-)] 苦, next scan checked all 해 against 苦 and the next thing I knew is that I was writing the expression 인생은 苦海다 down to my vocabulary notebook without even checking the dictionary. I was myself surprised how automatically this all happened and happy that long hours and years of studying hanja started to pay off.

The issue is that I cannot unlearn Korean and try to learn it again aiming at similar level without bothering with hanja to test whether hanja skills do really help. But what I can see is that I remember Sinokorean words much more easily than pure Korean words and I believe that this is due to a spider web like set of connections in my brain that were reinforced during the whole hanja learning process.

I agree that keeping active knowledge of hanja after learning them is quite difficult and time consuming with unclear benefits. I am happy with knowing most of what I have learnt only passively, i.e. I can recognize a hanja when I see it and when reading a hangul text which includes some more difficult words I am satisfied with "seeing" approximate shape of the relevant hanja in my head without the ability to write it down correctly 100%.

What helps me to keep it all up is that when I come accross an interesting Sinokorean expression or 사자성어 I note it down. When encountering an unknown or long forgotten Sinokorean word I note it down twice - both in hanja and hangul. And last but not least - every couple of years or so when things get settled I pick up Grant and rewrite it (i.e. all 1800 hanja). I recommend the last mentioned exercise wholeheartedly because it takes less time than it seems and it gest easier every time you do it :-)

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on December 10, 2010 at 3:59pm

Ondrej, as usual, your postings are exceptionally insightful.

 

I will acknowledge that as a mnemonic tool, the hanja characters are second to none.

 

It's also interesting that you mentioned remembering Sinokorean words is easier than remembering pure Korean ones, which I find to be the case for me also. And the 사지 and 고해 examples are excellent and valid.

 

Perhaps we're approaching with slightly different perspectives though. I think the 사지 and 고해 examples can be valid even for someone who lacks the ability to recognize most SinoKorean written in Chinese characters, such as myself, since the linkages between words can still be made effectively.

 

For example, I know plenty of Korean words to make it clear that the 지 in 사지 has a meaning similar to paper (편지, 용지, 신문지 - but from meaning, I know it's not the 지 in 사지, 가지, 지적, 토지 or 지렁이 [especially the latter because it's not Sinokorean], though I didn't realize it wasn't the 지 in 지면 until I looked it up) and 황사 as "yellow sand" is easy because I know words like 황금 and 유황 and that Koreans always translate "황사" as "yellow sand" so the 사 must be sand (I can't, off the bat, think of any other Korean words with 사 meaning sand, but I've seen them). I got the meaning of 고 easily enough from various Korean words, though 해 eluded me (but probably would fit into my knowledge base if someone pointed out some related words I know but don't remember now). This is not nearly as neat as the "full hanja" approach, which is certainly better. My point in writing this convoluted logic path is that these linkages are achievable without remembering that 지 is written 苦.

 

And besides, I don't agree that Korean is unique in this respect. My daughter's studying English from a US textbook while we're in Korea and here are some of her spelling words this week: emit, omit, commit, admit, permit, submit, remit. These all derive from Latin, I guess, and I can make a stab at the meaning of "mit" in Latin from what I know of these words. If I knew Latin, I could speak at length about the meanings behind these, which might be interesting and all, but for normal applications, it's not really an issue whether I know that background. And it wouldn't be reasonable to tell a Korean they need to study Latin too if they start their English studies late in life. I think we'd agree that knowing Latin might be useful in many ways, but if your goal is English, then just studying English is the shortest route toward that goal.

 

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm not saying that learning the Chinese characters wouldn't be a useful skill, or that it isn't difficult to call oneself a fully-educated Korean speaker without knowing them. I want very badly to relearn them myself and I respect everyone who has done so. I'm just saying that while hanja is an important tool for Korean communication, it doesn't mean you're crippled without it.

Permalink Reply by Ondrej Slechta on December 11, 2010 at 7:08am

Steve, I see what you mean and I can imagine that a learner can naturally create associations between sounds and meanings as he goes (i.e. 신문지, 잡지, 휴지 ---> 지 = paper). But I believe this is possible only to a certain level because of the huge homonymity within the Sinokorean vocabulary layer.

 

For example 사 can mean four, death, temple, history, address, speech, thought, sand, scholar, snake, lion, thread, put together, investigate, reward, shoot, move...... Naver dictionary lists 405 different characters pronounced 사 and on the top of this many of them have more than one meaning. When learning Korean I soon reached limits having had only learnt a couple of hundred characters and the progress I have made after immersing myself into hanja study was tremendous.

If the learner's goal is to achieve medium proficiency level which will enable him/her to communicate in daily situations, make some friends, and do some business then it's probably fine to learn just a couple (i.e. 300) of commonly used characters and simply look up an unknown character when it appears in a text.

However I believe that high level knowledge of any language is about details and nuances. Korean language has been exposed to Chinese characters for several thousand years and the Sinokorean vocabulary cluster (including whole expressions) is so deeply rooted in the language that to understand fully certain expressions and the way they are/are not used is not possible without having strong hanja background. In addition, while hanja might dissapear from daily press, they will most likely not dissapear from academic and legal texts because of the above mentioned homonymity issue.

The obvious issue with hanja is that more than anything else they are hard to learn, even harder to remember, and very easy to forget. If the time for study is limited, i.e. for example 2 hours/day & 5 times/week or less then there are probably wiser ways to use this time than spend half of it learning hanja. However if the learner sets the goals high and wants to know the language and everything about the language, read academic texts, translate hyangga, enjoy sijo, read through old newspaper (I absolutely love naver's 디지털뉴스아카이브), guess meaning of people's names, understand caligraphy, and use 사자성어 then hanja is, in my opinion, the only answer.

Permalink Reply by Mike Park on December 6, 2010 at 11:35pm

Hi Christopher -

If we look at your question from a different angle...somebody who's mother tongue is Korean can ask a similar question, "how many English words do I need to learn/memorize?"

To answer the above question, I would say that learning words (vocabulary or characters) is a life-long and life-time process --- don't be afraid to open up the dictionary everytime you come across a new (unfamilar) word until it becomes truly yours.

In other words, and getting back to your original question....unless there is real specific reason for counting; do not limit (count) your vocabulary (hanja/한자/漢字 characters) by numbers - just continue to add and absorb.

With this said, often you're field of work (or characters that you come across on daily/weekly basis) may be self-determined by the number of corresponding Chinese characters (Korean words) you use in your line of work. As is often the case with a foreign language, unless you use it, it is easy to loose it.

In looking at your Korean learning material, the Chinese characters you use are quite advanced. In fact many Koreans will not be able to write those characters with ease. Hence, I believe that you are well on your way towards becoming an advanced-level (상급) individual.

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on December 9, 2010 at 10:44am

I've got a little more to share for this discussion.

1. Here's a photo of the Nintendo DS Hanja game:

2. Here are some of the booklets from the hanja correspondence course I took in 1998-1999. It was written for Koreans, in Korean, and I thought the methodology was excellent. I'd do two booklets per month and then take the test (all on the honor system). After sending the test in, I'd get it back graded in detail within a few days. I made it through ten months of the one-year program. The only person to blame for my having forgotten most of what I learned is me.

Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on August 2, 2011 at 10:30am

FYI - This week's Soapbox reviews a few more of my Korean-language learning resources over the years. Here's the link - http://www.koreabusinesscentral.com/forum/topics/the-kbc-community-...