Your First Hanja Guide: Learn Essential Chinese Characters Used in Korean
$27.99
Product Details
“Hanja(한자, 漢字)” refers to Chinese characters that are used in Korean, and even if you don’t actually know how to read and write the Hanja characters themselves, knowing Hanja-based words will exponentially increase your Korean vocabulary, since many Korean words are based on these Chinese characters.
Over the past few years, we have received many questions like these and here are our answers.
- Q: Do Korean people really know thousands of Hanja?
- A: Many of them do! And most people can at least read and understand hundreds of Chinese characters but they may not be able to write everything from memory.
- Q: Will knowing these Hanja characters actually help with my Korean vocabulary?
- A: Definitely! Learning Hanja can be compared to learning Latin and Greek word roots when learning English, but much easier and much more applicable to everyday usages.
- Q: So, even if I don’t actually memorize Hanja characters, studying Hanja can still help me improve my Korean?
- A: Yes! Studying Hanja will help you develop a sense of understanding and even guessing the meaning of new words you encounter for the first time!
Table of Contents
Preface
How to Use This Book
Person
person 人/亻
enter 入
make 作
substitute / historical period 代
year 年
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
earlier
light 光
color 色
fish 魚
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
change 化
flower 花
north 北
old 老
long / elder 長
die 死
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
child / suffix 子
study 學
teach 敎
woman 女
good 好6
necessary / essential 要
mother 母
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Body
body 身
big 大
beautiful 美
character / script 文
oneself 自
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
pain / pungent 辛
intimate / parent 親
new 新
meaning 意
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
mouth 口
name 名
article / object 品
add 加
country / nation 國
the people / subjects 民
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
old 古
high 高
center 中
bear (fruit) / tie 結
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
mind / heart 心/忄
must / without fail 必
nature 性
love 愛
feeling 情
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Hanja Sadaritagi (Ghost leg) Game
Hand
hand 手
father 父
time 時
special 特
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
right 右
left 左
have / exist 有
opposite 反
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Foot
foot 足
go out 出
right / correct 正
subject 題
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
summer 夏
back / after 後
winter 冬
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
go 行
move / transfer 運
way / morals 道
pass through 通
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
shelter
house / -ist 家
peaceful 安
room 室
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
door / gate 門
ask 問
interval / between 間
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
inside 內
south 南
city / market 市
rain 雨
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Hanja Yut-Nori
tools
fire 火
autumn / fall 秋
nothingness 無
dot / spot 點
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
power 力
man 男
move 動
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
eat / food 食
gather 會
metal / gold 金
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Animal
cow 牛
half 半
divide / minute 分
public 公
truth 眞
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Natural Scenery
tree 木
east 東
west 西
heavy 重
cart / car 車
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
school 校
come 來
music / pleasure 樂
taste 味
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
mountain 山
world / lifetime 世
tea 茶
be born / life 生
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Heavenly Bodies
day / sun 日
spring 春
moon / month 月
bright / next 明
a lot of / many 多
front 前
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
soil 土
land 地
place 場
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Miscellaneous
small 小
work 事
water 水
alcoholic drinks 酒
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
up 上
down 下
Review Quiz
Flow Chart
Hanja Board Game
Index
Swipe to view more images of the book!
Reviews by people who have purchased this book
Rose G.
Ohhh, I like this book! I wanted to expand my vocabulary so I ordered it. The little explanations about each hanja make it really easy to remember them, and the etymology is really helpful in picking up new words. I would definitely recommend this to others (and in fact, already have). I also have to add that visually it’s a very attractive book. The layout is pleasant to look at and very clear, and the whole book has a solid, lasting feel to it even though it’s a paperback. Maybe that is standard–if any country loves books, it’s Korea!! But really, whoever designed the book deserves some praise, too.
Dylan C.
대박! This book is comprehensive, easy-to-use, and great for reference as I continue to study Korean vocabulary! 😀
Elizabeth W.
Learning Hanja is really fun. My First Hanja Guide is a great book to start studying hanja. It’s organized clearly and isn’t overwhelming. I’m learning Korean, but my mom studied Chinese and she’s so excited that we can actually study something together. We compare the meanings and pronunciation between Korean and Mandarin.
Specifications of this book
Paper Book: 352 pages
Product Dimensions: 168 * 230 * 21 mm
Shipping Weight: 760g
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I haven’t finished reading the whole book yet but I am enjoying learning the Chinese roots of Korean words. It has helped me to see connections between words and also to guess the meaning of new words. For example, I was watching a Korean variety show on a mountain and they said 하산하다. Thanks to this book I knew 하 meant “down” and I already knew 산 meant “mountain” so I guessed that it meant “to go down a mountain”. When I looked up the word online, my guess was correct! I hope I have many more moments like this thanks to “Your First Hanja Guide”.
I’m still doing level 3, but since I’ve been really interested in hanja, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a sneak peek. I’ve learned some of this hanja already and it’s so fun. I feel like some words make so much more sense! Definitely levels up your Korean!
Very well structured, easy to navigate book. It’s amazing for those who wants to learns hanja. Also great for those who wants to understand better the etymology of words (knowing which helps to understand better the mentality as well). Organized by topics, with review quizzes to check what’s learnt. The book even have a board game. I personally like the most examples and sample sentences. Strongly recommending.
Very well designed. Clear. It’s a lot of fun to leaf through the book. I was able to learn a lot. I pick it up again and again. It was a very good decision to buy the book.
Thank you TTMIK Team, You’re doing an amazing job.
This book can seem overwhelming at first by the amount of Hanja characters in it, but do not feel discouraged! Even if you don’t want to actually memorize and learn the Hanja characters themselves,(Although that is highly recommended and you’re guaranteed to impress Koreans by knowing them) you can still learn a lot from this book! As you can see preview images available for this book, it shows you that the character 학 means “study, learn, school.” After memorizing this, if you hear someone say a word you don’t know with the character 학 in it, you’ll be able to use context clues to help figure out what the unknown word means. This is coming from personal experience. This book helped me a lot.
This book is soooo useful. I have been learning with it and it makes so much sense to use it as a tool of better understanding the words. Plus, I would highly recommend this book to a chinese native speaker. A friend of mine is a chinese native speaker, started learning Korean and has been struggling so much. I lent her this book and she made amazing progress, because so many things started to make sense for her, and it made it easier for her to memorise words.
As an 1.5 generation living in the USA, I’m constantly trying to keep up my language skill so I don’t lose it! This book has helped me tremendously in expanding my vocabulary and comprehending the words used on signs and brochures. It’s also easy to use and super fun to learn these basic Hanja characters, which I never got to do as I left Korea long time ago when I was only 12 years old. I love how it builds on characters systematically and has section reviews and quizzes. It’s well laid out and explained in such an easy way that it’s not hard to retain the vocabulary. I was surprised how much it helped me correctly guess the words and their meaning when I visited Korea last month! Keep up the great work on providing excellent learning resources, TTMIK staff!
This book is sooooo good! I have been trying to learn more hanja characters, and this book has really shown me the beauty of those characters, and I’m starting to understand how it works – it actually makes a lot of sense! I’m currently learning at level 7, but it’s not really something you’d need a specific level of fluency, therefore I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in chinese characters 🙂 Thank you very much !
Thank you for your kind review! We are so glad you like this book 🙂
I’m not very far into this book but I am already enjoying it. I’m mid-level 5 of TTMIK’s grammar course and I have already come across a few familiar words/characters in this book but even then I learn things I didn’t already know about them that help cement them into my memory and at the same time interest me.
The explanations behind each character are easy to follow and as a bonus doesn’t require too much brain power if you are studying at the end of the day or first thing in the morning 🙂
I think that this is a well-rounded book that serves as a good bonus foundation for beginner OR intermediate learners (maybe even advanced learners, I can’t say from experience yet;) ) and I would recommend to anyone who is keen about digging a little deeper into the Korean language.
Ps. If you opt to practice writing some of the characters, personally I like to try writing them with a felt tip pen after practicing in pencil as it makes them look more authentic:)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us! Great to hear that you enjoy studying with this book!! 감사합니다🙂
As I’m living in Korea at the moment (originally a student from Dominican Republic), I received my book super quick. As soon as I openned the package I was extremely pleased with the book. The book content exceeded my expectatives. It’s really complete and lots of hanjas, it shows how to write them, words that use them and sentences with examples.
I’m totally in love with it and I know it will help to improve so much both my korean and my chinese.
I know this is the first of many books that I will buy . Thank you so much TTMIK!!!
Hi, I’m Hwayeon from TalkToMeInKorean. Glad to hear that you love it. Thank you for purchasing with us:)
Please make it available as an ebook as well.
When I first saw the title of this book at @ttmik website, I told myself I won’t get it because modern korean doesn’t use Hanja any more. 그렇지만 as I learned more korean vocabulary, I realized many words sound similar to Japanese Kanji, Chinese Characters or even Chinese Dialects! Not only they sound similar, their meanings are actually the same! Having able to understand both Japanese and Chinese, I find this really beneficial for my learning of Hangul, so I decided to buy 이 책 ?! True enough, when I received this book and browsed through it, I was really excited and fascinated ?! Now I could even guess the meaning of a new korean word, that I have never come across, correctly by breaking down the Hangul into its Hanja 漢字！ ??✌?
For those who don’t understand Japanese Kanji or Chinese character, this book actually teaches you how to write and gives its meaning. So you are hitting two birds with one stone, learning Korean and Chinese characters at the same time ?
Thank you for your nice review! You got the point! Hope you continue to enjoy studying Korean with us🙂
Can you tell how many hanja this book covers?
Overall the book looks good based on the excerpt. I just wish it was available as e-book too.
Thank you for your review, youve convinced me its useful. I’ve been debating getting it for quite some time.