Questions about hanja

[prettyfunbird7837]

Hi everyone,

I've never studied Korean, but I'm interested. I'm wondering a few things about hanja.

1) Do all hanja have a single reading/pronunciation? If not all, do most only have one reading? Or is it more like Japanese, where most have at least two readings, and often more.

2) I realize hanja aren't used as much anymore, but I imagine most Korean words have hanja, right? Do dictionaries and other vocabulary resources (vocab books, word lists) often show the hanja?

3) If anyone here has studied both Korean and Japanese: How similar are hanja and kanji? How much overlap is there?

Thanks so much for any info!

[trutherous]

I'm no expert (regardless what it says next to my name) but I will give you answers based on my experience thus far:

1. If you mean how the hanja is pronounced in Korean, I haven't noticed multiple pronunciations. However, in Korean the same exact pronunciation and spelling in Hangul often have multiple meanings depending on the hanja the word is based on.

2. I don't know the actual percentage, but if I had to venture a guess I would say that 70-80% of Korean vocabulary was based on Chinese characters. Keep in mind that Korean scholastics go back thousands of years but Hangul has only been around for about 500 years, and really hadn't reached it's zenith of popularity until the turn of the last century (early 1900s). A Hangul dictionary was not even available until 1957. And yes, dictionaries typically show the hanja unless it is a "pure Korean" word.

3. I personally have no experience with Japanese writing systems but my youngest daughter (half Korean) studies both Korean and Japanese, with Japanese as her major at UCLA. According to her, Korean hanja is quite a bit different than its Japanese counterpart, and "is weird" (to put it in her words).