The Seoulite has been in Korea for approximately a year… and in that period of time, his Korean has gotten much better. But of course there are light years to go… and he’s decided lately that the best way to save on tutoring costs, class registration fees and language books is to get into an argument with a native Korean once a day.
Conduct the whole interaction in the most livid, kimchee fueled Korean ability you’ve got… and not only will you get your tasks done faster, you will have the motivation to add more vocabulary words to your repertoire. What’s a fight without a full arsenal? In Korean, there are words that are purely Korean and those that have Chinese roots (similar to Latin roots in romance languages). This Chinese-based language is called hanja (한자) and if you really want to kick ass, you must use this higher level vocabulary.
The Seoulite hopes to have one hanja root per day up on this blog for the betterment of everybody. Once you know enough of the roots, you will find that you can figure out vocabulary based on the hanja. It’s a much more efficient method than rote memorization.
약 - promise, approximate, sparing
http://hanja.naver.com/hanja.naver?where=brow_hanja&id=10453
약속 - promise; appointment
공약 - public promise (i.e. election pledge)
서약 - oath; vow
기약 - pledge; promise
계약 - contract
해약 - cancellation of contract
예약 - reservation
선약 - previous engagement
조약 - treaty; pact
약혼 - marriage engagement
절약 - economize; save
요약 - sum up important points
제약 - restriction; condition
Lazy? There are three techniques to winning arguments in Korea if you don’t want to study Korean:
1) When you can’t say something… don’t back down, just keep repeating your point in English until the Korean can come to you. It throws them off.
2) Borrow your friend’s BMW and run them over.
3) Threaten to call your connection to the mafia, chaebol or labor union boss.
More noble to study.
Here’s a great online hanja dictionary: http://hanja.naver.com/
