大

This character is very common and means big or large. Originally a pictogram, it is easily remembered as a representation of a person holding their arms outstretched, as you might do when telling someone how big something is.

(큰-대) Remove the outstretched arms and you're left with person (사람-인)

Found in restaurants, place names, rock inscriptions as such as well as Korean names.

Dae-gu – 大邱

Dae-chon – 大田

Dae-Han-Min- Guk (대한민국) – 大韓民國

Dae-Po – (artillery) – 大砲

This series of posts is not aimed to teach hanja, I am not in the least qualified for such a  task, but to simply highlight some of the important and simpler characters. For information on stroke order, radicals and the two elements of a character (spoken – meaning). I suggest you buy a dictionary such as; A Guide to Korean Characters.

© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.