How To Say Japan in Korean
Japan in Korean
In yesterdays KWotD, we treated you with a sweet lesson where we looked at the Korean word for candy and today we take a step away from the realms of edibles and a step towards countries. Or more specifically – Japan. So to say “Japan” in Korean, we use the word:
ilbon
(in Hangul: 일본)
While I could go on for hours and hours about the relationship between Korea and Japan from both a historical and a modern viewpoint, I will force myself not to digress too much, since this is, first and foremost just a lesson on the word.
The word itself comes from hanja and is composed of two words- il (일) and bon (본). The former translates to ‘sun’ or ‘day’ and the latter to ‘origin.’ So you could interpret this as to mean “the origin of the sun.” Or…the land of the rising sun!
You can combine this word with many others so if you wanted to say “Japanese” (person), you just attach the word for person (saram / 사람) at the end, like this:
ilbon-saram
(in Hangul: 일본사람)
Examples
jeoneun ilbon-eseo wasseoyo (in Hangul: 저는 일본에서 왔어요).
= I’m from Japan.
jeoneun ilbon-saram-ie-yo (저는 일본사람이에요).
= I’m Japanese.
ilbon-e kago shipoyo(일본에 가고 싶어요.)
= I want to go to Japan.
As usual we reocmmend that you learn hangul if you are serious about learning Korean if you haven’t already done so. It is much easier than you probably think and, believe it or not, it will only take you a few days to be able to read the entire alphabet. So what are you waiting for?
Please like or share if you found this lesson useful. And if you have any questions or something else on your mind, whatever it is – make sure to let us know by leaving a comment below and we will do our best to help you out!
By: Kimchi Cloud
