You’ve often asked for this book and here it is! A handbook for learning hanja characters for Korean language students. This subject can be overwhelming, but Your First Hanja Guide is an accessible book which makes learning Chinese characters a pleasure.
As with all books in the TalkToMeInKorean series, each chapter is accompanied by audio files that can be found online – and this is really important when it comes to Korean pronunciation, which is not the easiest thing to learn. For each character, you will find its meaning, etymology, examples of use, but also exercises that will help you remember. For people who learned another character-using language before Korean (for example after Japanese), some of the characters will be familiar and simple, but you will still need to learn the words in which they are used and the different pronunciation – and this book really helps to systematize the knowledge.
What’s important – hanja are not always simplified in the same way as Mandarin or Japanese, so you will have to memorize a different look of some characters. For example, “student” in Japanese is gakusei, in Mandarin xué sheng (written as 学生 in both cases); in Korean it is hakseng (학생), but in hanja characters it is a more complex 學生.) While it can be overwhelming at first glance – both for people who already know another Asian language and for those for whom Korean is the first encounter – learning hanja really helps to organize your vocabulary, even if it is written only in hangul.
And let’s be honest, it’s hard to find a prettier and more accessible book on the market. We recommend it wholeheartedly because we use it ourselves!
There are no reviews yet.