Important Hanja: LIFE 생 (生) (한자) | Korean FAQ

Learn about the Hanja 생 (生), which means “life” or “birth,” and also is used to mean “to occur.” I’ll also show how 생 can be used before other words to mean “raw,” as well as “natural.”
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Music by Kevin MacLeod: “MJS Strings" and “Brightly Fancy.” (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 (creativecommons...)

[@raycheng4875]

From a native Chinese perspective, the most primary meaning of 生 are definitely "to born" : 생일 生日 (birth+day = birthday) 탄생하다 诞生(formal birth+birth = birth) 동생 同生 (together +birth = siblings) "to live": 생활 生活 (live+be alive) = daily life 인생 人生 (person + live) = life (one' experience set) 생명 生命 (live + life) = life (physical) Like Billy mentioned. It also derives the meanings like "to grow"/"to raise"/"to occur". 발생하다 发生 (launch/develop + occur = happen) 생장하다 生长 (occur + grow = grow) 생산하다 生产 (occur + produce = manufacture/give birth) A commonly used but secondary meaning of 生 is "young men" 학생 学生 (study + men = student) 선생(님) 先生 (earlier + men = teacher) The men who born earlier are usually knowledgable 의생(=의사) 医生 (medical + men = doctor) lastly, it means "unprocessed", also derives the meaning of "unfamiliar" and "raw": 생고기 生肉 ( raw + meat = raw meat ) 생소하다 生疏 (unfamiliar + sparse = unacquainted)

[@DebHell]

Yes, more hanja, please!

[@SuAmazing]

Yaaaa

[@yumnaapta]

We would absolutely love more hanja videos! 감사합니다~!

[@ErronBlack-xo2jc]

More and more hanja. We need more. Hanja videos will never be enough. Just keep making videos ❤❤

[@fransmith3255]

Hey Billy! I always want more hanja! It helps me learn words! I think hanja is very important for learning Korean. I started learning them quite late, but when I started learning them, my Korean almost immediately took a giant leap! 🙂

[@burheadft8372]

Thank you for the Hanja video!! Looking forward to seeing the next one! 😁

[@kellipnida]

I love these kinds of lessons ❤ keep doing

[@leylorenzohaataja8551]

yes definitely want more hanja videos

[@starmyenmoa6998]

More hanja please💜💜it’s easier to determine a word in Korean if we don't know it💜

[@aryakm2474]

thank you

[@Timeupdate2024]

Good definition

[@jessicaalvarado4590]

Thank you for this lesson!!

[@StevenChus]

Can you do a Hanja lesson on 실? I see this word all the time.

[@PaulinaKarolina]

생존, 생면, 생산, 고생

[@kariokke7968]

생식 생존자 수험생 생물학

[@lex6819]

I'm interested in finding out if there is or ever was a Korean language course comparable to Destinos or French in Action or Fokus Deutsch? A course that is basically a drama that presents a story in episodes using simple language in the beginning and building on that with each successive episode? I know Lingopie exists for use with actual kdramas, I am just hoping to find a serial language course if one exists. Doesn't matter how old it is. I think the BBC has released drama based language courses for decades. I don't think they made a Korean one. Some if the old ones are still pretty good for learning languages, like Zarabanda for Spanish, which came out in the late 1970s I think. Have you ever encountered any older or even recent language learning series like those but for Korean?

[@CT-jp2ep]

I want more.

[@anistaru_]

생얼 (굴) ah now i know more about it thanks Billy

[@rosys3173]

Plssss moree 쌤 🥹😁

[@oceandiscovery5288]

한자🎉

[@sulljoh1]

한자 좋아요 저는 보통홍콩에 살아서 한자 유용하네요

[@ErronBlack-xo2jc]

Hanja

[@wuwei87]

생맥주 is draft beer!

[@BlackCatBCB]

Since I’ve studied Mandarin and Japanese I’m really interested to see how Hanja is used in Korean! 🙂✨ Oh I know 생맥주 😬✨ 🍺

[@GoBillyKorean]

Both Japanese and Korean borrowed lots of their vocabulary from Chinese, so you're going to see many similarities in these words.

[@KarlShreeves]

생각, 기생충, 새기다/못생기다 -- "생"을 많이 보입니다.

[@GoBillyKorean]

생각 is just a theory, but they're not sure where it's from (could've been a different 생, or this one, or something else). 생기다 is a different case - it doesn't come from this Hanja but instead is from an older word 삼기다.

[@KarlShreeves]

@@GoBillyKorean Ah, thank you. Since 생기다 has a meaning of to be formed, to happen, etc., it seemed to fit with "to emerge" or "be born."

[@GoBillyKorean]

I thought the same thing for a long time. You can read a bit more by searching 생기다 on Naver Dictionary.

[@NatiaMae]

I wish Koreans would stop be so ashamed and deny being of Chinese origin. As someone who can speak Chinese, I can confirm the linguistic resemblances between Korean and Chinese is undeniably uncanny. And it’s not just the language, the proof is everywhere. Koreans didn’t magically appear in Korea. They must’ve descended from somewhere - and somewhere is China. They're not a distinct race; rather, they're a subgroup within the broader spectrum of races that collectively comprise the Chinese ethnicity.

[@tibethatguy]

Your mind's gonna be blown when you learn what a sprachbund is.

[@NatiaMae]

@@tibethatguy Sprachbund exists because they share the same origins. So thanks for proofing my point.

[@xuser9980]

Chinese didn't magically appear in China. Maybe they originated from Korea. 🤔 And I don't think Koreans are ashamed at all. In fact, they are quite proud people. Calm down the rhetoric.

[@Xylos8]

@@NatiaMae Maybe you didn't read the meaning of "sprachbund", so I'm gonna quote the very first few sentences of its Wikipedia page: "A sprachbund, also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The languages may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related, but the sprachbund characteristics might give a false appearance of relatedness." And in case you might not know what "areal features" are, here's another quote from the Wikipedia page: "In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, i.e. a common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted with lingual-genealogically determined similarity within the same language family."

[@wuwei87]

Loanwords are not an indication of genetic relatedness, whether biological or linguistic. English borrowing 'pizza' and 'pasta' from Italian doesn't make it a Romance language; borrowing 'sushi' and 'tsunami' from Japanese doesn't make it a Japonic language. Likewise, Korean borrowing words and characters from Chinese doesn't make it a Sino-Tibetan language, nor does it mean Koreans are Chinese people.