Hanja: Week 1

Hanja is something that I don’t need to learn for another year, in the third year of my degree. But I figured, why not make my life in third year easier, or at least more manageable, by getting a head start on hanja? I bought the book that we’ll be using for that unit, and it looks like it will be easy enough to teach myself hanja from it. Sure, there’s bound to be some things that we’ll cover in class that aren’t in the book, but at the end of the day if I spend a year studying this stuff on my own then I’m going to have an easier time once this stuff actually does roll around. And I personally am a huge fan of making my life as easy as possible.

Since I do have about a year and a half to get through this entire textbook, I decided that I’m going to take it fairly easy and just go through one section of the textbook per week. Each section introduces about 12-13 characters. I’ll document my progress here and show which hanja I’m learning each week, including stroke order diagrams for anyone who wants to learn along with me. 화이팅!

Hanja: Week 1

• Hanja
• Notes
• Examples
• Stroke Order

Hanja:
一 / 일 / one
二 / 이 / two
三 / 삼 / three
四 / 사 / four
五 / 오 / five
六 / 육, 륙 / six
七 / 칠 / seven
八 / 팔 / eight
九 / 구 / nine
十 / 십 / ten
日 / 일 / day
月 / 월 / month, moon
年 / 년, 연 / year

Notes:
六 follows the standard rule for 육 and 륙, which is that it is pronounced 육 word-initially, and 륙 elsewhere. For example: 육십 vs 십륙. The same goes for 年, which is 연 word-initially and 년 elsewhere.

When numbers are written in hanja, they are read with the Sino-Korean pronounciations. 一 is 일, not 하나. However, if hanja are being written to tell the time in either hours or as duration, then they are read with the native Korean pronounciations.

Examples:
九月 – 구월 – September
一九八三年 十月 二十一日 – 일구팔삼년 십월 이십일일 – October 21st, 1983
十五 – 십오 – 15
六十 – 육십 – 60
十六 – 십륙 – 16
九十三 – 구십삼 – 33
四月 四日 – 사월 사일 – April 4th

Stroke Order: