#learning methods and materials
These days I’ve finally taken the plunge and have started learning 한자 (Chinese characters used in Korean). It’s definitely not necessary for a Korean language learner since Korean doesn’t use Chinese characters as their writing system anymore, but there are some advantages to learning them once you reach an intermediate or higher level of Korean.
So why am I learning them?
Reason #1: Expand Your Korean Vocabulary
A lot of Korean words come from Chinese, so even if you’ve never heard a word before, if you recognize the components within it, you can decipher the meaning.
Similar to how in English, a lot of our more complex words come from Latin, in Korean, the complex and advanced words usually come from Chinese.
So knowing Chinese characters will help you if you want to read/listen to the news in Korean or take the TOPIK and get a high score. In the news, they frequently use certain Chinese characters as shorthand too, and you can even see them in variety shows sometimes.
Reason #2: Other Asian Countries Use Them Too
If I know 한자 and I go to China or Japan, I’ll at least be able to read a lot of things. I won’t necessarily know how to pronounce these words (because I’ll only know the Korean pronunciation), but it should help me navigate the countries, read menus, signs, etc.
How I’m Studying 한자
So now onto how. I use 3 different resources (plus a notebook).
천 자문 따라 쓰기:
- Found in any Korean bookstore.
- Book aimed at Koreans wanting to learn 한자 so it’s all in Korean.
- Teaches you stroke order, Korean meaning and pronunciation and other words that use that character.
- Downside: doesn’t teach in order of most frequently used characters so you start out learning some complex characters that aren’t as common as others.
- Website which you can also use on your phone.
- Aimed at Chinese learners but teaches you the simple components of Chinese characters, which other complex characters are based on, so it’s super useful as a foundation.
- Teaches you stroke order and meaning.
- I enjoy listening to the Chinese pronunciation though because it tends to be close to the Korean ones. Also, even though I’m not learning Chinese, I’ve got a sense of how the tones are pronounced thanks to this website haha so it’s useful for those actually learning Chinese!
- Best resource because it teaches you the simple, most frequent characters that serve as a foundation for other characters.
- Downsides: It’s not the fault of the website, but it lacks Korean pronunciation so I need to use this in conjunction with a Hanja dictionary to apply this to learning Korean. Also, I feel like you don’t practice writing the characters enough (plus you only practice writing it online, not by hand), so I also need to use a separate notebook for writing practice.
Naver Hanja dictionary (and Naver Kor-Eng dictionary if needed).
- Used in conjunction with ABCs of Chinese to get the Korean pronunciation.
- Tells you the Korean meaning and pronunciation of the character.
- Since the Hanja dictionary is all in Korean, I use the Kor-Eng dictionary if there’s a word I don’t know.
원거지 노트: Lastly, I use this grid notebook paper to take notes and practice writing the characters. I also bought this in a Korean bookstore but you can make your own by printing it on paper.
And that’s it! Good luck with your studies :)
