Exercises

Introduction to Hancha: Sinographs and Sino-Korean Vocabulary I & II

Although most publications in North Korea (since the late 1940s) and South Korea (since the late 1980s) rarely use sinographs (한자/‘Chinese characters’) anymore, it would be folly for ambitious learners (and teachers) of Korean to think they need no longer learn them. Even North Korean children still learn 한자 in school, and while 한자 teaching in South Korean schools is continually in flux, your university-educated peers have all had significant levels of exposure to sinographs throughout their education. In this two-semester sequence, students learn to read and write approximately 500~600 sinographs in their Sino-Korean shapes and readings. More importantly, they also learn approximately 2000~3000 한자어/漢字語 vocabulary items, idioms, proverbs and other expressions that feature these sinographs as their constituent elements. Knowledge of sinographs is the key to developing a sophisticated ‘adult’ vocabulary, as well as to accessing print materials prior to the 1980s from South Korea. Students also learn techniques and strategies for continuing to learn sinographs on their own (the learner’s ultimate goal should be to master at least 1800). This course also provides review for patterns learned in KORN 102-202 and reinforcement for structural patterns learned in KORN 301-302.

Readings in Middle and Early Modern Korean

Targeted in the first instance at students majoring in Korean, the main purpose of this course is to learn the basics of the structure of (Late) Middle Korean as exemplified primarily by close reading of excerpts from the Korean translations of the Literary Sinitic (한문 漢文 ) biographical vignettes in the 삼강행실도 三綱行實圖 (Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds), a 15th-century illustrated Neo-Confucian ethics primer composed not long after the invention of the Korean vernacular script. The Middle Korean forms are juxtaposed with their reflexes in modern standard Korean (as well as some other varieties) in order to give a diachronic overview of the history and structure of the Korean language over the past 500 years or so. We will also pay attention to some of the socio-cultural and historical background surrounding the publication and print history of this important and popular text that Koreans read in various guises for more than 400 years. This course will add a diachronic dimension and historical depth to your knowledge of modern Korean and show you how the language has evolved over the past half millennium.