Check out the TED Talks above, first!

8 Chinese characters ShaoLan is explaining are also commonly used in Korean. I just wrote down the Hangeul (Hangul) with the meaning of Hanja (Chinese character) in the image below for you guys.

Reading Hanja (Chinese characters) is more like viewing pictures than actually reading words/letters. I’m pretty sure this video clip could be a fascinating introduction to the Chinese characters!

According to the Standard Korean Dictionary (표준국어대사전) published by the National Institute of the Korean Language (국립국어원), Hanja (한자) makes up about 60% of the Korean vocabulary. In the past, Korean used to use Chinese characters all the time. However, Korean now uses its own writing system, Hangeul (한글). But if you’re coming to Korea, there are still some Chinese characters you will often see in many places.

Today, let’s start learning the most commonly used Chinese characters in Korean!

①  大  vs  中  vs  小

These three simple Chinese characters are commonly used to distinguish between different sizes of items in Korean restaurants or supermarkets.

②  男  vs  女

These two Chinese characters are also found commonly in Korea, usually on the bathroom door.

③  人

④  山

⑤  門

Reference :

1. Park K, Amen H, Padrón A. Korean For Beginners.
2. Sino-Korean vocabulary. 2015. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Korean_vocabulary. Accessed September 30, 2015.
3. YouTube. ShaoLan: Learn to read Chinese … with ease!. 2015. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=troxvPRmZm8. Accessed September 30, 2015.