SDLC 105 - Learning Journal #6

[Vivian Lee]

Knowing a language's history can help one learn the language in many ways. For Korean, Sino-Korean (Han-Ja), which is a set of words in Korean vocabulary that originated from or were influenced by Han-Ja (Chinese words), make up about 60% of the Korean vocabulary. Although Korean/Hangul is more commonly used in actual speech, Han-Ja is often incorporated in writing. The Sino-Korean lexicon consists both Chinese words and Korean words, and although a small number of Han-Ja characters are modified or unique to Korea, having a language background in Chinese can be helpful when learning Korean. Moreover, learning Han-Ja is very helpful in understanding the etymology of Sino-Korean words and in increasing one's Korean vocabulary as well as Korean history.