Comparative Analysis of Chinese Character Words in Korean and Japanese Speech

based on the Korean Drama "Winter Sonata" Script

Chad Walker
Yonsei University
Department of Korean Literature and Linguistics

Abstract

The aims of the present study are to 1) perform a comparative analysis of the Chinese character
words in the script of the Korean drama "Winter Sonata", using the original Korean script and a
published Japanese translation, and 2) to offer suggestions for more effective teaching of Korean
Chinese character words to Japanese learners. Results of the analysis of the first four episodes
revealed five types of Chinese character word corresponding pairs between the two languages: 1)
Complete match, 2) Partial match (at least one common Chinese character), 3) Chinese characters in
both, but none shared, 4) Chinese character word in Korean only, and 5) Chinese character word in
Japanese only. The frequency and examples of each type are given and discussed. Finally, the
implications of these results for Korean language vocabulary education are discussed.

Keywords: Chinese Character Words, Vocabulary, Korean, Japanese, Television Drama,

Winter Sonata, Language Education, Comparative Linguistics

Introduction

More than 50% of the vocabularies of Japanese and Korean are comprised of borrowed Chinese
character words (Song, 2006). Although many such words have retained approximately the same
meaning in their adopted language, both Japan and Korea have produced a large number of
neologisms by combining existing Chinese characters in novel ways to express different concepts.
Moreover, during Japans 35-year occupation of Korea the two countries languages became even
more similar, resulting in a large number of Chinese character words that are shared between
Korean and Japan but not present in modern Chinese. For example, although the word for (social)
atmosphere/ambience, (/) exists in both Japanese and Korean and has
similar usage, it is not a word used in Chinese.
The majority of the Chinese character words used in the Korean language today were borrowed
from Chinese before the end of the 19th century; after this period the majority of all new Chinese
character words were borrowed from Japan. In addition to these main two types, there is a certain


number of Chinese character words that were made in Korea, either by creating novel Chinese
characters or by combining existing characters in new ways (Song, 2006).
Chinese character words now comprise about 50% of the vocabulary of both modern Japanese
and Korean, and in both countries the majority of these words were borrowed from China
throughout history. However, one main difference in the usage of Chinese character words between
Korean and Japan is that, currently, in Japan they are all written in Chinese characters, whereas in
Korea all words, including Chinese character words, are written using the Korean Hangeul phonetic
alphabet. Another key difference is related to the treatment of individual Chinese characters. In
Korean almost all Chinese characters have only one reading, or pronunciation, whereas in
Japanese almost all characters have not only multiple Chinese readings (on-yomi)1, which represent
the Japanese approximations of the original Chinese pronunciations, but they also have multiple
native Japanese readings (kun-yomi). For example, in Japanese the character has 2 main
Chinese readings and more than 8 Japanese readings, for a total of more than 10 different readings.2
Moreover, in addition to the large number of characters borrowed directly from Chinese, Japan
has also created a large number of Chinese character words of its own. From around the end of the
19th century Japan began translating the new terminology and concepts originating from the
advancement of Western humanities and science into Japanese words, using Chinese characters as
building blocks. Most of these new words were comprised of two Chinese characters, but others
were made with one Chinese character affixed to a native Japanese word. In this way, a large
number of unique Japanese neologisms were created.
There have been a number of studies comparing the Chinese character words found in Japanese
and Korean. From a historical perspective, Seo Ik-Hwan (1991) categorized the Chinese character
word entries in Korean dictionaries (Korean-Korean) according to the three criteria of readings,
forms, and meaning, and then compared them with Japanese Chinese character words. Ahn
Pyeong-Ho and Yang Seol-Rang (2006) compared the corresponding relationships of transitive and
intransitive Chinese character verbs between Korean and Japanese. Lee Insun (2001) analyzed the
text of the Cho-sun Daily Newspaper to examine the semantic usage characteristics of the Chinese
character (/jeok). Finally, Song Ki-Joong (1998, 2006) suggested 13 categories of historical
etymologies of Chinese character words.

Language Education Studies of Chinese Character Words

There has also been research on Chinese character words in the field of language education.
Through an examination of the Chinese character words used in current Japanese high school



     
 
 

    
  

  

         
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textbooks, Kweon Haeju (2003) compared the inflected forms of Japanese Chinese character words
with the corresponding Korean inflections (e.g., -hada). From the perspective of teaching Chinese
character words, Woo In-Hye and Seon Mun-Dae (2002) analyzed usage errors of Chinese character
words made by Japanese learners of Korean.
From the perspective of teaching Korean to foreigners, and in particular to Japanese learners,
although the existence of such shared words in Japanese and Korean make it relatively easy for
Japanese learners of Korean to learn Korean Chinese character word vocabulary, there is also the
problem of these learners assuming that most Japanese Chinese character words can be used in
Korean just as they are in Japanese; but this is obviously not the case. The fact that both the
learners native language and the target language share a large number of Chinese character words
does not necessarily mean the learner will not have difficulty learning such words, because the
words may not exist in the target language, or they may have very different meanings.
Most research on Korean vocabulary education focuses on examining what comprises basic
vocabulary and the categorization of words based on difficulty level or frequency (Cho, 1999). In
other words, vocabulary has heretofore been viewed as a target for memorization in Korean
language education. There is therefore a need for more effective tools and methods for teaching
Korean vocabulary, and in particular the often more confusing Chinese character words.
Based on an analysis of the original script of the Korean drama Winter Sonata and its Japanese
translation, the goals of this study are to 1) identify, compare, and contrast the Chinese character
word vocabulary used in the drama, and 2) suggest new possibilities for vocabulary education that
would better assist the mastery of Korean Chinese character word vocabulary by Japanese learners.

Definition of Chinese Character Words and their Types in the Current Study

Based on the classifications of Seo Ik-Hwan (1991), the current study defines and categorizes
Chinese character words as follows.

1. Definition of Chinese Character Words. A word is classified as a Chinese character word only if
at least one of the characters in the word is pronounced using its Chinese reading. For Korean
words, this applies to virtually all Chinese character words 3 , but for Japanese words, a
distinction had to be made between those words with Chinese readings (on-yomi) and those
with Japanese readings (kun-yomi). However, there are still many Korean words that are a
combination of a native Korean word and a Chinese character word, or a native Korean word
and a non-Chinese foreign loan word. Thus, in both Japanese and Korean, Chinese character
words can take one of three forms: 1) Chinese reading + Chinese reading, such as (
/); 2) Chinese reading + native Japanese/Korean reading (and vice-versa), such

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 as (+), (+); and 3) Chinese reading + Non-Chinese foreign loan word
(and vice-versa), such as (taxi+), (taxi+).

Methods

To compare Japanese and Korean Chinese character words, this study analyzed the script of the
popular Korean television drama Winter Sonata and its Japanese translation (Yasuoka, 2003). The
reasons for this choice of data are three-fold. First, this particular television drama provides modern
Korean conversation as it is used in everyday life in Korea. Second, Winter Sonata portrays the
lives of a cross-section of generations, including teenagers, young adults in their 20s and 30s, and
mature adults in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. Third, the main plot of Winter Sonata centers on
male-female relationships, including dating and marriage. For these reasons, the use of Chinese
character words in various Korean everyday interactions, and involving multiple generations and
both genders, can be examined. Further, the Chinese character words can be easily matched with
and compared to their corresponding modern Japanese translations using the translated Japanese
text.
In this paper the results of the analysis of the first four episodes4 of Winter Sonata are presented.

Results

Analysis of the Winter Sonata script revealed the following five types of corresponding
translations of Chinese character words between Japanese and Korean. Table 1 shows each type
with an example.

Table 1. Five types of Chinese character word correspondence and examples.

Type Korean Japanese
1: Complete match () [dou-butsu]
2: Partial match () [ten-kou-sei]
3: Different Chinese characters () [tomo-dachi]
4: Korean only () [yari-kata]
5: Japanese only [kon-do]

1. Type 1: Complete match

Of the 962 total entries analyzed, 27% (255) of the Chinese character words in Korean were
translated as complete matches in the Japanese text. These words had the characteristics of being
mostly two- or multiple-character compounds, and many of them, if they were not used as

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independent, free morphemes, were used as bound verbs or adjectives that required the affix -hada
(-) or -jeok (-), or their Japanese equivalent. Examples of this type are given below in (1).

(1) , , , , , ,
, , ,

2. Type 2: Partial match

Type 2 corresponding pairs were the smallest in number, at only about 9 % (86/962) of the
analyzed Chinese character words. Specifically, these words included three subcategories of words:
1) one or more Chinese characters together with a native Korean word; 2) one or more Chinese
characters together with a non-Chinese foreign loan word; and 3) one or more matching Chinese
characters together with one or more non-matching Chinese characters. Table 2 shows examples of
each subcategory of this type.

Table 2. Subcategories and examples of Type 2 Chinese character words.

Subcategory Examples (Korean /
Japanese)
Chinese character + Native Korean /
Chinese + Foreign Loan Word () / 5
Matching + Unmatching characters /

3. Type 3: Different Chinese characters

Type 3 corresponding pairs represented the second smallest category type, at 12 % (111/962) of
the total. This type included all corresponding pairs in which both sides included Chinese
characters, but none were matching. Some representative examples are shown in (2) below.

(2) () / ; () / ; () /

4. Type 4: Korean only

Type 4 Chinese character word translation pairs were those in which only the Korean counterpart
included Chinese character words. These pairs comprised 26 % of the data (254/962). Further, this
type could be divided into two subcategories depending on whether the Japanese counterpart was a
native Japanese word or a non-Chinese foreign loan word. Some examples are shown in (3) and (4)

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(3) Native Japanese counterpart: () /

() /

(4) Non-Chinese foreign loan word: () /

() /
() /

5. Type 5: Japanese only

Type 5 Chinese character word pairs were those in which only the Japanese counterpart included
Chinese character words. This type comprised 27% (256/962) of the data, or approximately the
same percentage as Type 1 word pairs. In most cases, the Korean counterpart was a native Korean
word; further, this type was seen in all parts of speech, including nouns, pronouns, verbs, and
adjectives. Examples are shown below in (5).

(5) Native Korean counterparts: /

/
/

The total number of cases for each type and their frequencies of occurrence are summarized
below in Table 3.

Table 3. Number and frequency of occurrence of each word pair type.

Type Number of Cases Frequency
1 255 27%
2 86 9%
3 111 12%
4 254 26%
5 256 27%

Conclusions

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in the use of Chinese character
words between Korean and Japanese, based on the script of a Korean drama and its Japanese
translation. The analysis identified five types of Chinese character word translation pairs. The fact
that Type 1, that is, cases in which the Chinese character words were the same between both

-
languages, had one of the highest frequencies of occurrence (27%) suggests that nouns comprised of
two or more Chinese characters, along with bound Chinese character word verbs and adjectives that
require the affix -hada () or -jeok (, ), have a high probability of being the same in
both Japanese and Korean. From a language learning perspective, this result indicates that Japanese
learners of Korean can learn words of this type relatively more easily; in a sense, they would be
re-learning the same words in the target language, Korean.
As for the Type 2 results, that is, pairs that were a mix of Chinese characters and native words or
non-Chinese loan words, they only resulted in 9 % of the total amount of Chinese character word
corresponding pairs. Further, this type of corresponding pair had the most variation between
languages, mainly because of the many different ways native words or non-Chinese loan words can
be attached to Chinese character words in both languages. Indeed, even the same non-Chinese load
word can be attached to different Chinese characters, such as in the case of taxi + bi (())
in Korean and taxi + dai () in Japanese. In Korean, the Chinese character bi/ ()
is used to represent fare, whereas in Japanese the character dai/ is used in this case. Further, the
fact that there were also a large number of words for which both the Korean and Japanese versions
were in Chinese characters, but varied in composition, such as in (Korean) and
(Japanese), is evidence of how each language has adopted Chinese character words
differently, even when representing the same concepts. From the perspective of a Japanese learner
of Korean, this aspect of the two languages would seem to be one of the most difficult to master.
Accordingly, special attention should be given to such words in when teaching Korean to Japanese
learners.
The Type 3 results show how even when only Chinese character words are used, depending on
the language completely different characters can be used to represent the same meaning or concept.
One of the simplest examples from the analyzed text was the word for book, that is chaek
(/) (Korean) and hon (/) (Japanese). Examining the reason for this difference is
outside the scope of this paper, but it is likely the result of historical differences between the two
countries with respect to contact with Chinese culture and Chinese character words. From the
perspective of Korean language education, it should be helpful to highlight such differences during
language instruction. In particular, for Japanese learners of Korean, knowledge that the underlying
Chinese characters for such vocabulary are different should assist in their organization and correct
memorization.
Type 4 pairs were those in which only the Korean counterpart was a Chinese character word. In
such cases, the Japanese counterpart was either a native Japanese word or a non-Chinese foreign
loan word. One likely reason that the frequency of this type was relatively high (26%) is that
Japanese often uses native Japanese words and readings for concepts even while still representing
the written form of the words in Chinese characters, and according to the present studys definition
of Chinese character words, vocabulary derived in this way are not classified as Chinese character
words. Further, although modern Korean also has a large number of non-Chinese foreign loan

3
words, for Japanese learners of Korean this finding suggests that it is important to learn Chinese
character words even in cases when they are not used in Japanese to describe the same idea or
concept.
Finally, Type 5 pairs were the opposite of Type 4 pairs; that is, Chinese character words were
only present in the Japanese translation. The high percentage (27%) of this type of pair suggests that
Korean also uses a large amount of native Korean words to express various concepts, not unlike
Japanese. Moreover, the fact that both Type 4 and Type 5 had very frequencies of occurrence in the
data indicates that the two languages employ their native words in different ways. In other words,
the usage and mixing of native words and Chinese character words does not overlap greatly; native
Korean words are often used where Chinese character words are used in Japan, and vice versa.

Discussion

Suggestions for Korean Language Education

The current contrastive analysis results offer a number of suggestions for future Korean education,
and in particular specialized education for Japanese learners of Korean. First, because the data
consisted solely of the drama script dialogue, the vocabulary should have a relatively higher usage
frequency in daily Korean life and conversation compared to the vocabulary commonly found in
Korean textbooks and dictionaries. As a result, much of the current data should be immediately
applicable to the everyday lives of Japanese learners of Korean. Further, existing literature that has
examined Chinese character words to create inventories for educational purposes (e.g., Kang
Hyunhwa & Kim ChangGu, 2002; Kang Hyunhwa, 2001; Kim Jung-Seop, 1997) has yet to include
conversational dialogue in its data scope, and thus the current study can provide a useful addition to
such work.
Second, through categorizing the corresponding Chinese character word translations into types,
the results of this study allow language instructors and researchers to better understand which words
are more likely to cause problems for Japanese learners of Korean, and which ones are more likely
to be easily memorized. For example, the Chinese character words that use the same characters and
are used in the same way across both languages should be easier for learners to memorize than those
for which different characters or native Korean words are used. In follows that in cases where the
words are different, language instructors should emphasize these differences or follow up with some
additional historical or etymological information.
Third, with respect to the development of language teaching materials, the current study results,
in the form of a Japanese-Korean Chinese character word translation index, comprise a valuable
resource. Specifically, because the current data comprise an index of Chinese character words used
in conversation in modern Korea and Japan, they can be readily used for language teaching to
realistically illustrate how Chinese character words are currently used in Korea.

4
Limitations and Directions for Future Work

The limitations of this study are as follows. First, because the drama script was originally in Korean
and set in Korean society, Japanese viewers and readers of the script translated into Japanese may
find some of the expressions to be unnatural. This is an unavoidable problem of cultural differences
that must be considered when undertaking cross-cultural comparative research. Second, because all
of the data were obtained from the drama script dialogue, the data is limited in scope to strictly
conversational Korean and Japanese. Third, by its very nature the Japanese translation is subjective;
that is, there may be other equally acceptable Japanese translations for the drama script. Though not
necessarily a better translation, the use of such other translations in the current analysis would
likely produce different results in terms of the frequency and types of Japanese Chinese character
words used.
The results of the current study provide a valuable tool in developing Korean language
vocabulary materials that take the learners cultural backgrounds, previous knowledge, and native
language into consideration. Further, the Korean-Japanese Chinese character word index developed
in this study can also provide valuable supplements to Korean-Japanese and Japanese-Korean
dictionaries.
Future work will continue to enlarge the Chinese character word Korean-Japanese index. First,
analysis of all 20 episodes of Winter Sonata will be completed. Second, to further expand the scope
of this study, a similar index made from a Chinese translation of the Winter Sonata script will be
made, allowing for a comparative study of the usage of Chinese character words between Korean,
Japanese, and Chinese.

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