Annyeonghaseyo listeners!

Welcome to the new section of our blog, The Mail Bag. This is where we’ll share stories from our listeners in the endeavors with Korean. We hope stories from fellow students can help motivate and inspire you to learn Korean or give you that extra needed push and renewed sense of strength when you think it’s impossible to get become more proficient in Korean!

This week we’d like to introduce you to the recent Mail Bag Story winner… Shanna Tan , age 19 from Singapore.

Shanna had this to say about her studies:

“Korean was not the first language I had in mind when I pondered over taking up a new language 2 years ago. Spanish was higher up my list of ‘languages interested in’ then. However, the first spark of interest in the language came when I watched Princess Hours 궁. For a lot of people (including me), the first spark of interest came from watching entertainment such as songs, dramas, movies etc. It was one year ago (8 Jan 2007) that I started my first Korean lesson at

Singapore Korean School. I quickly fell in love with the language, always eager to learn and absorb more than what the lessons taught.

This was when I first came across ‘KoreanClass101.com’ when I googled ‘online Korean lessons’ sometime in February. Wow, that was perhaps the most organized online learning site that I come across so far. Since then, I have been faithfully downloading and listening to all the podcasts. I started out with the beginner series, progressing on to the intermediate series, audio blogs and I’m proud to say that I’m currently listening to the advanced lessons right now – all within a span of a year! Well, I spend around 2 months going through ALL the past lessons and even all the comments for each lessons. (I find that there’s a lot of valuable information and new stuff to learn there too 😀 )

(I really find this site so useful, that I stopped taking Korean classes after completing Beginner 2. From then on, I have been self studying, using materials from this site and other books.)

When I was a beginner, I appreciated how the dialogue is repeated slowly (한번 또 천천히) and the English translation. I could repeat the section over and over again to improve my pronunciation.

When I progressed on to intermediate, the longer dialogues and various dialects and tones used proved to be more challenging and yet a pleasure to listen to.

The audio blogs and advanced lessons proved to be the best in this site. It’s rare for other sites to offer entire lessons in Korean and I’m really glad that KoreanClass101.com is doing it. The audio blogs proved to be as interesting as it is informative. I loved the chit-chat and jokes of the hosts and I’ve learned so much more about Korean Culture. KoreanClass101.com’s podcasts have become part of my daily life, and it feels weird to spend the day without listening to one or two lessons.

I feel that the best selling point of the site is the helpfulness of the hosts, especially 현우씨, who would correct our sentences and answer all queries, even though they may not be directly related to the lesson. As a non-subscriber (I really wanted to, but my family doesn’t believe in having credit cards).

Wow, what can I say, but amazing! We hope your new direction in life as a linguist will continue to make you happy as you learn Korean, Shanna! Keep up the good work!

This is an ongoing project, so please share your stories! You may send these to contactus@koreanclass101.com with the subject line: “Mailbag Story.” Our favorite stories will win one month of free premium service and be posted here to be shared with others!

Until next time, 화이팅 (fighting)!!!!