1. What is "Common Hanja 1800"?
The Ministry of Education 1,800 basic Hanja (900 for middle school + 900 for high school) is Korea's public-education standard for Chinese characters. This range covers 95%+ of Hanja you'll encounter in news, legal, and academic Korean text.
- News headlines (e.g., 韓美 summit = Korea–US summit)
- Legal texts (civil and criminal codes)
- Classical literature, poetry, four-character idioms (사자성어)
- University materials (Chinese lit, East Asian philosophy, history)
2. Hanja Grade System (Hanja Nŭngryŏk Kŏmjŏng)
The Korean Language Society administers the most widely-recognized Hanja proficiency test: grades 8 (easiest) → 1 → Special.
| Grade | Cumulative | Level |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 50 | Lower elementary. Numbers, sun/moon. |
| 7 | 150 | Mid elementary. Family, school. |
| 6 | 300 | Upper elementary. Emotion, society. |
| 5 | 500 | Early middle school. Health, history. |
| 4 | 1,000 | Late middle / early high school. |
| 3 | 1,817 | Full basic-use list. Law, economics. |
| 2 | 2,355 | University level. Names, places. |
| 1 | 3,500 | Advanced. Classical texts. |
| Special | 5,978 | Scholarly. All standard Hanja. |
3. Use cases
- Bloggers / teachers: generate ruby HTML in one click for news or classical citations — paste into WordPress, Tistory, Naver Blog.
- Hanja learners: filter only the characters above your level (red badges).
- Korean learners abroad: decode Hanja-laden headlines instantly.
- Translators / editors: check Hanja glossing in legal or academic texts.
4. Multi-reading characters
Some Hanja have multiple readings (e.g., 車 can be cha or geo). This tool shows the primary reading only and flags alternates with an "alt" badge. Automatic context-based disambiguation is not included — for critical work (legal, poetic translation), consult the source.
- 車: cha (car), geo (rickshaw)
- 樂: ak (music), rak (pleasure), yo (mountain)
- 金: geum (gold), gim (surname)
- 讀: dok (reading), du (indu — place name)
5. What is Ruby HTML?
Ruby annotation is the HTML5 standard (<ruby>, <rt>) for rendering tiny hangul pronunciations above each Hanja. It works on Tistory, WordPress, Naver Blog (HTML mode), and modern browsers.
<ruby>漢<rt>han</rt></ruby><ruby>字<rt>ja</rt></ruby>See the FAQ for more.