9
votes
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Why does the word for kindness, 친절 (親切), include a character meaning 'cut off; to disconnect'?
The character 切 has various meanings, not only 'to cut' or 'to disconnect'.
According to Naver dictionary, 切 has following meanings,
끊다
베다
정성스럽다 <= 절 of 친절 used this meaning.
적절하다
중요하다(重要--)
절박하다(...
- 1,564
6
votes
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Do all Sino-Korean words have exactly one reading?
Probably you know that a Hanja character may have more than one pronunciation. For example, 樂 has seven different pronunciations, 락, 악, 낙, 요, 료, 록, 로. (낙 is derived by the word-initial rule 두음법칙 ...
- 1,367
6
votes
What's the name for 4-character Chinese character expressions like 천고마비 or 오리무중?
They are called 사자성어 (四字成語), as Posh_Pumpkin said in the comment. 사자(四字) means four-letter. 성어(成語) means something like proverb, according to the dictionary, but I think it's only used in forms like ...
- 706
5
votes
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Does North Korean have a minimal pair with palatalization of ㅈ/ㅉ/ㅊ amongst Sino-Korean words?
문화어 is largely based on the early 20th-century central dialect of Korean.
The distinction between 차 and 챠 (처 and 쳐, 쵸 and 초, 자 and 쟈, etc) were already long gone in the central dialect (which includes ...
- 7,412
5
votes
Is My Chinese Name Compatible With Korean?
Yes. A rare name though.
심沈 S(h)im 비겸丕謙 Bigyeom
An interesting question! Your characters are included in the legal set of hanja for personal names published by the Supreme Court of South Korea, ...
- 2,805
5
votes
Middle Korean Tones for Chinese Loan Words
Yes. Middle Korean did retain the Chinese tones, and Middle Chinese had four tones, 平, 上, 去, 入. Middle Korean also had four tones, 平, 上, 去, 入. So in fact, it was a perfect match.
You probably ...
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4
votes
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By frequency of actual usage, what percentage of the Korean language is 한자어?
Most sources report the percentage of vocabulary in dictionaries, and the figures range from 53% to 70% - this will really depend on the dictionary used to calculate the figure.
The running words ...
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4
votes
Why does the word for kindness, 친절 (親切), include a character meaning 'cut off; to disconnect'?
切 is to cut as a verb. 切 is "desperate, sincere" as a adjective. Many of Chinese characters have several "parts of a speech" in their meaning. Usually each "part of speech" has nothing to do with the ...
- 41
4
votes
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Difference between "중국어" and "한자어"
한자어(漢字語) in the Korean language simply indicates a group of words based on Chinese characters or words, as opposed to 고유어(固有語) or 순우리말, both point to the other group of native-oriented words.
Here, ...
- 1,149
4
votes
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What is 훈음 in a layman's words?
音訓 (음훈) or 訓音 (훈음) is short for 音讀 (음독) + 訓讀 (훈독), referring to the short dictionary gloss given to Chinese characters by Korean dictionaries. It is typically formatted in the following order:
國 (...
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3
votes
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Why does the number 0 (zero) not have its own Korean native numeral?
There is circumstantial evidence that the concept of zero did come to Korea from China: 19th century Korean mathematicians certainly possessed copies of the seminal 數書九章 Mathematical Treatise in Nine ...
- 2,378
3
votes
Accepted
What's the name for 4-character Chinese character expressions like 천고마비 or 오리무중?
I wanna add some detailed explanations. If you only mean 4-characters Chinese character expressions, they are called 사자성어.
Many 사자성어 are 고사성어 and vice versa. But there are also many exceptions.
An ...
- 1,564
3
votes
Do all Sino-Korean words have exactly one reading?
In all character-using languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese), the core principle is the same: characters, or a combination of characters, have as many readings as the number of words they ...
- 791
3
votes
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Chinese character pronunciation in Japanese vs Korean
In “Chinese character cultural sphere”, it used to be very universal to read a same character in different ways. In past, most of Chinese character cultural languages had both 'reading by traditional ...
- 1,564
2
votes
How does A Korean Odyssey (화유기) derive the character names?
You have a lot of questions, but I'm focusing on the one in the title.
Obviously the TV show takes its motif from the Ancient Chinese literature. As you conjectured, it is a twist of 西游記. I think ...
- 1,367
2
votes
Historical Text: how to translate domesticated animals 謂牛馬雞犬
Korean translation for the whole story can be found here:
해동고승전 세속오계
삼국사기 살생유택의 의미를 이해하다
The story is about what's known as '원광의 세속오계 중 살생유택' that has much to do with Confucianism.
Four domestic ...
- 1,224
1
vote
The use of Pure Korean words like 가람 [river]?
As others answered above, 가람 is not used in daily conversation. Sometimes it is used in names of organizations or people, as in the attached photo below (한가람고등학교).
- 1,658
1
vote
Accepted
Why did a Korean business executive title "태산" (Mount Tai) on her business card?
It is most likely just the name of a small business. If you search for 태산 부동산 (realtor) for example, you see at least a dozen places named 태산 부동산 or 태산 공인 중개사 all over the country.
There is one ...
- 2,362
1
vote
Accepted
Does Korean have a word for "偏爱" (love preference)?
Got it: 편애.
Found it after searching for translations of "favoritism" (a more accurate translation) instead of "preference", which is 선호.
- 143
1
vote
Do Korean share more vocabulary with Chinese or Japanese?
I think the best answer you can expect from any Korean is "we don't know."
That is because while there are so many Sino-Korean words in Korean vocabulary, we do share certain terms and words with the ...
1
vote
How does A Korean Odyssey (화유기) derive the character names?
Most of Korean can't read 漢文(the sentence written in 漢字) naturally. We know some of 漢字, but only characters because many Korean words are from 漢字. I think many young Korean know only a few 漢字, and ...
- 196
1
vote
When should Native Numbers be used?
https://ko.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%88%98%EC%82%AC_(%ED%92%88%EC%82%AC) (wikipedia about 한국어 수사 - 수 meaning number(s), 사 meaning word.)
So it definitely says over 100 often uses 한수사(한 meaning from ...
1
vote
When should Native Numbers be used?
For pages, I guess you can say several ways. For example, to count from 1 to 10, you can either
한 페이지
두 페이지
세 페이지
...
열 페이지
or you can say
첫번째 페이지
두번째 페이지
세번째 페이지
...
or simply
한장
두장
세장
네장
...
열장
...
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1
vote
Help regarding terminology on Korean history: 정화오례신의, 주자가례, 진사시, 재지지주, 강남농법, 등
정화오례신의 (政和五礼新儀) - A book of etiquette/rites compiled during the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song.
주자가례 (朱子家禮) - A book of etiquette/rites of the household (common rites, coming of age rites, weddings, ...
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Help regarding terminology on Korean history: 정화오례신의, 주자가례, 진사시, 재지지주, 강남농법, 등
Koreans learn their history, and learn a bunch of Sino-things. They're even not Sino-Korean. They're totally in 漢文, Chinese writings. Sadly, it's quite different from our current language. The ...
- 2,805
1
vote
Terminology related to Social Thoughts and Korean Society: 위정척사, 공맹사상, 가묘, 종묘, 위패
You know that Korea is after Josun (roughly 1500 year -
1900 year).
To understand the followings, I suggest that we would know the
background. And in further, let me use non-terminology.
유학 is ...
- 3,041
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Why does the word for kindness, 친절 (親切), include a character meaning 'cut off; to disconnect'?
The primary meaning of「切」means to cut.
The extended meaning of this is close, near, analogous to English cutting it very close or drawing a fine line, from which the meanings urgent and relative「親切」...
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