Guessing Korean: 안내 and 은행

I’m told about 60% or so of Korean words, especially nouns, are Chinese derived compounds. They once used 한자 (漢字／汉字), or Chinese characters when they wrote most if not all of these words. Now, I think, hanja is only rarely used in the South and almost never in the North. I know this is really selfish of me, but I really wish Korea still used Chinese characters for these words. Ya ya, literacy concerns, the benefits of using the “world’s most logical” alphabetic system, Korean identity and all that, I have heard it all before. But just think though, if they still used 한자 over a billion Chinese, over a hundred million Japanese, and a bunch of other Asia scholar geeks could all prance around Korea and understand the signs!

Ok, perhaps it is a little too much to expect but, if you speak some Chinese and some Japanese, and you sit down and spend the hour or two needed to learn the Korean alphabet, it is still not that difficult to guess many Korean words you come across, assuming you have some hint at the context. That is because Korean words derived from Chinese character compounds often sound really similar to either the Chinese or Japanese equivalent. Sometimes the compound exists in Japanese but not in Chinese. Other times, only in Chinese. Sometimes they exist in both but the pronunciation is very similar only to one of the two.

This kind of guessing game is usually much more difficult to do between Chinese and Japanese, unless you have put a lot of time getting used to how particular Chinese syllables sound in their Japanese version. Many Chinese I know who speak Japanese, and Japanese I know who speak Chinese can use this technique but it isn’t as easy. There is a completely different game though, that is much easier to play between speakers of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese: if you know a compound in your own language, and you know how the characters in that compound are pronounced in the target language, then you can try using the word and hope that the compound is used. Unfortunately, as I have discovered from failed attempts in essays and on tests in Chinese and Korean classes, compounds are not always used in all three languages. Sometimes when they are, there is not complete semantic overlap. There are a number of famous examples when there is no overlap 手紙=J: a letter [for sending] / C: toilet paper and 湯=J: hot water / C: (can literally mean hot water but is most often used to refer to) soup.

Back to the Korean guessing game. Success, like all communication in language requires some context, and thus limits somewhat the extent to which this can be done. Two examples of how this works are 안내 and 은행 which were two words I “guessed” during my day in Seoul. The former means “to guide” or “show around/conduct” or “show the way” and the original characters are 案内. The word sounds really similar to the Japanese equivalent. In Korean it is pronounced “annae” (ae is kind of like the “e” in bed?) and in Japanese, “annai” (ai like “I”). The compound is not used in Chinese but seems to have approximately the same meaning in Japanese. A second example is 은행 which means bank (as in a place to put your money). The original characters are 銀行, the word is used in both Japanese and Chinese, and in Korean it is pronounced, “eunhaeng” (um, not sure how to explain the eu sound, something like the sound you make when someone punches you in the stomach really hard). However, a Japanese speaker might not guess this one as easily as a Chinese speaker could. The Japanese pronunciation of this character compound is “ginkô” which is completely different. The Chinese speaker can recognize it much easier though, because in Chinese it is pronounced “yinhang” (the “i” is kinda like the ee in spleen, while the “a” in hang is like the “a” in Han Solo).

It is surprising how often you can use this technique. Signs are one thing, but this is remarkably effective when reading academic or news materials. Even though I can’t even speak enough Korean to order tea, or get my hotel room key without looking like a total idiot, I (and most Japanese and Chinese speakers) can guess a lot of words from newspaper articles or academic papers because if you know something about the contents, you know what kinds of character compounds to expect. Then the only complicated thing is working out the verbs, which, of course, can make the difference between, for example, declaring a war, and ending one.