korean language = chinese?

Question

Why does each korean word have a chinese word equivalent???

Answer 1

Korean language is not equal to Chinese but have similar origin like English words from Latin.

Answer 2

What do you mean a "Chinese word equivalent?" Do you mean a Chinese character or that every word in Korean can be translated into Chinese?

I disagree with some of the previous answers.

Since when do the Koreans not use any Chinese characters? Have you read any Korean newspaper lately? Or gone by a beauty shop? Or eaten a pomegranate ice cream bar or juice labeled "beautiful girl" in Chinese? There are a set number of Chinese characters that are taught in Korean schools today. Yonsei University has a list of 1800 Chinese characters that are still sure to be taught because they are used frequently in Korean.

As for Korea's written language being like Chinese and Japanese as another person claimed, I disagree. Chinese and Japanese are pictorial languages and while Hangul is based on where your tongue is in your mouth--it's phonetic! Korea used to use Chinese writing but came up with their own alphabet so more of population could be educated more easily.

Something like 50-65% of Korean words are from Chinese, depending on which source you believe. Combining that with the fact that Korea used to use the Chinese writing system, it's no surprise that many Korean words would have a Chinese character. My taekwondo Master teaches me new words daily and often says, "From Chinese." (:

Answer 3

They don't! No more than any other 2 languages you might select to compare, anyway!

People are the same the world over, so it's not so surprising that most (but not ALL) words have a translation in other languages! The obvious exceptions being imported words, especially names of companies and goods ('Apple Mac' and 'computer' being good examples, which are used in many countries that actually HAVE those products.)

Many English words are borrowed from French - hardly surprising as France is just a few miles away from England! And Korea is not too far from China either! Before Korea separated, it was joined to China and people were able to walk from one to the other - so it's hardly surprising if words were borrowed from one language by the other!

As a whole language, Korean is closer to Japanese - it has a similar grammatical system. But all 3 countries - China, Korea & Japan - share a lot of similarities, especially the writing systems of all three, which are modern versions of the original Chinese writing system, which is still in use throughout the world - just not in China ironically!
; )

Answer 4

Many Asian countries borrowed words from China, just like many European languages, like English, French, Spanish, did the same thing with Latin.

But the underlying language gramar is completely different. Even those borrowed words sound very differently. No Koreans can be understood by Chinese, and vice versa. In that sense, the language is not same at all.

Answer 5

Unlike Japanese, Koreans faded out Chinese characters completely from their writing systems. You wont see Chinese characters from a Korean text unless it is a proper name where transliteration is possible, much like the way English names can be transliterated into Chinese.

Answer 6

Korea and Japan both have Chinese characters in their language as China. However Koreans developed their own writing characters and I think they are trying to phase out Chinese characters. Hope this helps

Answer 7

huh. properly, being that i've got had very almost no adventure with korean and chinese language, i cant rather answer.. ive purely ever studied spanish (rather consumer-friendly) and jap (ongoing. its been 3 years so a techniques) and that i do think of its severely greater tricky than spanish is for advantageous. yet even even with the incontrovertible fact that its exceptionally tricky, i've got self belief like ppl exaggerate its undertaking. additionally i became constantly below the impression that chinese language became the toughest, korean became the least confusing, and jap became a intense high quality center floor. tricky yet no longer as tricky as is declared. additionally the kana is straightforward. and its truthfully way much less complicated than chinese language to pronounce!

Answer 8

Like Japanese and Vietnamese, Korean has borrowed much vocabulary from Chinese or created vocabulary on Chinese models.

For more information, please read the links provided...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language

Answer 9

They are two different languges. Just like Chineses and English are different.