Are Korean and Japanese the same?

Question

I'm going to paint a painting and I want it to have courtesy, integrity, and some other words on it painted in Korean. I'm looking on different websites to find what the symbols are for the words i want to paint, but I just keep getting these words written in Chinese and Japanese and not Korean. Are Japanese and Korean symbols the same? If not, does anyone know a good website that has Korean symbols and their meanings listed? Thanks!

Answer 1

no!!, the lenguague, and ways of writing are completely different! :P

Answer 2

Hm.. the question might sound offensive to some. But I can understand your frustration. I'm sure there are people who wonder if English, French, Spanish, Italian and German are the same thing.

They're completely different of course. They are both heavily influenced by Chinese language. Some ancient concepts in these 3 cultures share the same characters. It's kinda like how some words in English, Spanish and Italian are spelt the same.

Japanese didn't have any written system until Buddist monks brought in the Chinese text in the 5th century. Japanese quickly employed the Chinese written words in their language. While a vast majority of words are borrowed from Chinese, some everyday concepts has already been used in speech so they remained unchanged. That's why they use Kanji (Chinese characters), Hiragana & Katagana (for their own spoken words).

Korean language was entirely borrowed from Chinese language. They are now written in the phonic forms. Phonic characters are visually detached from the meaning, so it is often more meaningful to use the original Chinese character. That is probably why you keep getting the same Chinese words.

Korean phonic symbols are a lot like alphabets. You can have the list of components but you won't get the meanings unless you know the combination and its context. That's like asking for A-Z and the meaning of each letters.

You can translate the Chinese character you kept getting into Korean phonic symbols using Google Language tool: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

You should be careful when getting Korean words. Since it's phonic and not symbolic, there are lots of puns which could result in embarrassment.

BTW, traditional Chinese characters are prettier. And you can take the advantage of 3 cultures understanding it.

Answer 3

As you can gather from some of the other responses, Korean is written in Hangul, whereas Japanese is written in kanji (at least for your examples). If you want to appeal to an exclusively Korean audience, get a native speaker to give you the Hangul equivalents. On the other hand, though, understand that Koreans (like the Japanese) have a long history of using kanji, and although they do not use it in their daily lives anymore, they still regard it as an art form and practice it for calligraphy.

Answer 4

Korean used to be written entirely in Chinese characters; then a n alphabetic system was devised called Hangul (as correctly noted above). For some time, the language waas written using a combination of Chinese characters and the alphabetic Hangul (much as Japanese still uses Chinese characters (Kanji) and its two syllabaries (hiragana and Katakana). Now, however, Korean is written entirely in Hangul. You'd probably prefer to have Chinese characters (or Japanese kanji -- basically the same) in your painting, as they are more esthetically pleasing than Korean hangul (though some Koreans may disagree with me on that).

Answer 5

"Korean, a language spoken by about 63 million people in South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The relationship between Korean and other languages is not known for sure, though some linguists believe it to be a member of the Altaic family of languages. Grammatically Korean is very similar to Japanese and about 70% of its vocabulary comes from Chinese. "

etc...

Answer 6

I don't know any Korean, but I do know that the Korean language uses a script completely unrelated to the Japanese ones. Just try googling "Korean script." Good luck.

Answer 7

Unlike the Chinese writing system (including Japanese Kanji), Hangul is not a logographic system, but rather alphabetic.
In ancient times, the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Knowledge of such systems were lost, and the Korean language was not written at all; the aristocracy used Classical Chinese for its writing.
Korean is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet, optionally mixing in Hanja to write Sino-Korean words. South Korea still teaches 1800 Hanja characters in its schools, while the North abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Hangul consists of 24 letters — 14 consonants and 10 vowels that are written in syllabic blocks of two to five components.


Examples of Korean writing would be:
dongnip (tongnip) 동닙 - independence
gwannyeom (kwannyŏm) 관념 - idea / sense / conception
hyeoksinjeok (hyŏksinjŏk) 혁씬적 - innovative
haetbit (haetpit) 해빛 - sunshine
beotkkot (pŏtkkot) 벚꽃 - cherry blossom
yeongnyang (yŏngnyang) 역량 – strength
Uirye (Å­irye) 의례 – Courtesy
Oenjeonseong (oenjŏnsŏng) 완전성 - Integrity



Corresponding words in Japanese [kanji then (hiragana)]:
dokuritsu 独立 (どくりつ) - independence
kangae/ kankaku/ gainen 考え/感覚/概念　（かんがえ/かんかく/がいねん）- idea / sense / conception
kakushiteki 革新的　（かくしてき）- innovative
nikkou 日光　（にっこう）- sunshine
sakura 桜　（さくら）- cherry blossom
tsuyosa 強さ　（つよさ）- strength
reigi 礼儀 (れいぎ) - Courtesy
kanzensei 完全性 (かんぜんせい) - Integrity


Corresponding words in Chinese:
duli 独立 - independence
xiangfa/ gan[jiao;jue]/ gouxiang想法/感觉/构想 - idea / sense / conception
chuangxin创新 - innovative
yangguang阳光- sunshine
yinghua樱花- cherry blossom
liliang力量- strength
limao 礼貌- Courtesy
zhengzhi 正直- Integrity

Answer 8

Korean symbols are called hangul, they are completely different form Chinese/Japanese characters.

Answer 9

To answer your question:

Courtesy = 의례
Integrity = 완전성

You should try http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/ for the rest of your single-word translations, but know that Babelfish is not perfect when it comes to grammar, due to the large difference in the linguistic structures of English and Korean.

Hope this helps!

Answer 10

North Korean and Japanese are now very different.
200 years ago, most of the far east could readily communicate amongst themselves via written language due to fairly limited variations.
That has since changed.
North Korea has switched entirely to a native language....can't remember the name but it shouldn't be difficult to google.

Answer 11

NOOOOO!!
they are different..
just because they look similar it doesn't mean the two countries are the same. Too me, it's like saying Americans and Russians look the same.. (maybe im over-reacting,, sorry;)

but if you can't find korean symbols, then you can email me the word and i can write the korean characters (hangul) for you!!^^ (i'm korean)