The Korean Word for "God"

This account came from former American Christian missionary Ronald Nielsen and can be found in Richard Harris' Faces of Korea, The Foreign Experience in the Land of the Morning Calm (Hollym International, 2004).

Nielsen noted that although the Korean language can be very confusing for foreigners, it facilitates certain words and ideas about Christianity "a lot better than Chinese does."

For example, when saying the word "deity" in Chinese, you have to choose between the words tian (天), which means "heaven", and shangdi (上帝), which means "the guru on high".

But the Korean word for "God", ha-na-neem (하나님), according to Nielsen, "is more in harmony with Christian monotheism."