In the Korean language, there is a term called “Hanja,” which is a Korean for "Chinese characters." Hanja describes the words that were borrowed from the Chinese language and developed into Korean language. Ever since last semester, my learning partner and I have learned about different examples of Hanja because it can help me make connections with actual Korean words.
For example, we learned about the Hanja words that relate the days of the week with the solar system and other topics. Starting with the prefix for Monday (“woel") is equal to “dal,” which is moon. Next, Tuesday ("hwa") is equal to “bool,” which is fire. Going down the days of the week, the following connections are observed:
- Wednesday (“sool”) equals “mool” aka water
- Thursday (“moek”) equals “na-moo” aka tree
- Friday (“geum”) equals “geum” aka gold
- This was the only example where the two words were exactly the same.
- Saturday (“tou”) equals “heuk” aka soil
- Sunday (“eul”) equals “hae” aka sun
This comparison was really interesting because I never knew that the days of the week could be linked to the solar system like this. It will be fascinating to continue learning about the culture of Hanja topics that are related to the Korean language!
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