Hanja (한자) & Korean Family History Documents (Jokbo)(족보)
Translation Services
Have you ever heard of “hanja” (한자)? Simply put, these are Chinese characters used in Korea, but often have a different meaning and pronunciation than the characters used in China. Our Hanja-English team is familiar with the context of Chinese character usage in Korean texts. In order to translate these documents accurately into English our team members that can read Chinese and Korean work together with our English native speaker linguists.
Of special interest, we have translated many Korean family tree/family history (족보) documents such as: 대동보)(大同譜), 파보(派譜), 세보(世譜), 가승보(家乘譜), 내외보(內外譜), 계보(系譜), 만성보(萬姓譜). We also handle the translation of modern documents family registers (호적서), certified copies of archived family registers (제적등본), documents containing handwritten or calligraphic Hanja and more.
These are just examples, so feel free to reach out to our team with your request even if it’s not specifically mentioned on this page.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know before the year 1980, most Korean publications used hanja, mixed with a few pure Korean words. More recently, hanja is primarily used to explain highly technical concepts, new words, or words that may be confusing and thus require a little extra information to be fully understood. Many younger Koreans can’t read many of these Hanja characters, so the Korean equivalent is often indicated in brackets, or on top of the hanja character. Since Hanja is not widely used in Korea anymore, it is a challenge to find a translator familiar enough with it to render a good translation. There is currently no definitive dictionary source around that contains a fully accurate representation of Hanja in English.
Some of the most commonly requested Korean Hanja documents:
Korean Family History Documents (Jokbo) 족보/대동보/파보/세보 Korean Genealogy Records
You’re likely to come across Hanja if you have an older Korean document or newspaper, or older hand-written texts of birth, marriage, adoption, and genealogical records. Hanja is still used in cemeteries on headstones, and when compiling or adding to family genealogical records.
Our Hanja-English team has extensive experience in translating Korean genealogy documents. We have received excellent feedback with our Hanja-English translation services, and have a qualified team that specifically handles such requests.
Korean Name 이름풀이 / Saju Interpretation (사주 해석)
Korean and English translations of name interpretations, saju readings, and horoscopes. These are mostly written in Hanja characters along with a very few Korean characters. In addition to translation a bit of research and number calculations are needed to determine the most accurate meanings of Korean names.
Subject Matter
Check out some other subject matter we work with. We handle Korean medical, patent, technical, immigration documents, and more.
Services
We provide a variety of other Korean to English language services, including proofreading and transcription.
Success Stories
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Questions? Get in Touch.
We are ready to help you with your unique Korean to English translation needs.