Learn English! LingQ Podcast #37: How to Learn Korean with Ian of @Korean Patch - 한국어 패치 (2)
the tongue is hitting the roof, ... and it's, and it is shaped accordingly.
So a lot of the characters have this very visceral feeling to them when you learn
how they work and you can kind of, I don't want to over-hype the writing system,
but you can kind of visualize what you're doing in your mouth while you're reading.
If you know a lot about how the system works.
I don't think most people do know that, but, but that's how it was designed.
I had no idea.
So do you have any Korean content recommendations?
Maybe this is more for intermediate and advanced learners.
Movies, YouTube channels other than yours, that, uh, that you are into?
Yeah.
Okay.
So the two best things that I think a, someone who wants to be able to
speak Korean well, of course reading, I think reading is a different skill.
I think we can agree on that, but if you want to listen and speak well,
I think, uh, obviously you have to do a lot of listening, right?
And so I think the two most powerful Korean language resources in the
world are Netflix and YouTube.
Those are like just overpowered resources and they're both
extremely popular in Korea.
So Netflix of course, is producing world famous TV shows right here in Korea.
Like you may be familiar with what's called in English Squid Game.
Right.
Of course, yeah...
In Korean it's called ... yeah.
Yeah.
How do you say it in Korean?
... oh, okay.
Yeah.
A squid is called an ... so game of course is game.
But, um, um, other things like The Sea of Silence and whatever that are really
popular all over the world, these are made here in Korea and uploaded straight
to Netflix and you get all the,you know, multi-lingual subtitles and same
language subtitles, which a lot of native Korean streaming services don't include.
There's no Korean subtitles.
I don't know why they do that.
But, um, and YouTube is also extremely popular in Korea.
There's tons of YouTubers that are making just hundreds of hours of
content a day that I'm sure you can find something you enjoy from.
My channel has great content as well, but, uh, yeah, I I'll give, I'll
give one specific recommendation to, for people who are learning Korean.
There's a, there's a great comedy YouTube channel.
It's called ... if you want, if you can read Hangul, you can find that, but, uh,
they have a ton of high quality, fully subtitled, funny material you can learn
from that I've been using for years.
Oh, super.
I'll get, I'll get that from you and I'll pop it in the description for
anyone who'd like to check that out.
Yeah.
And so did you watch Squid Game?
What did you think of it?
Oh yeah, of course.
Yeah.
I saw it when it, when it first came out.
Um, it's a very Korean show, I think so, so, so I have not
experienced the show in English.
I watched it in Korean and listened to.
We have participated in online discussions about it in Korean, not in English.
I've only read about what people say about it in English.
I do get the vibe that, um, it's a little bit more meaningful
in Korean than in English.
I think it's a little bit more deep.
Yeah.
You know, for example, like all the games that they play and stuff,
those are totally foreign concepts to, you know, non-Korean speakers
or non Korean people, I guess it has nothing to do with your ethnicity, but
people who don't know Korean culture.
Those games are not as ubiquitous as they are here.
Like when you see the symbols, you're like, oh, okay.
They're going to do, you know, ... now.
Whereas it'd be like, if it would be like in America or in North America, if we
were doing like hopscotch or like jump rope, if these were the games, you know?
So yeah.
I loved it though.
It was cool.
Yeah.
I think I read on the BBC actually that people were saying to watch it
in Korean and to watch it in English were kind of two different experiences
and they missed out the nuances, uh, when it was translated into English.
So it's interesting.
It's kind of sad for, uh, uh, non, uh, Korean speakers.
A lot of the characters too are like characatures of things
that are happening in Korea.
And if you don't know anything about Korean society, you're
like, uh, why is there, uh, an Indian or Pakistani character?
Why is there this North Korean girl, like what what's going on?
And if you live in Korean society, you know, you know what's up, you know why
these people are here, but otherwise I think a lot of people are just confused.
Like why are there foreign people in this Korean thing?
You know?
So you get that out of it too.
So tell us about Korean Patch.
Um, I mentioned that you have your comprehensible Korean series.
Um, yeah...
What, what kinds of videos are you making and what is the
plan for the channel for 2022?
So we are, we, I, all...
there's more than one of us.
What we're doing is trying to build a catalog of materials for
people who are learning Korean who want to become authentic speakers.
That's kind of a word that I've, I've come up with, but, um, I've been
teaching people language and learning languages for, you know, most of my
life, um, all of my adult life, for sure.
And, uh, I think there's a big difference between someone who is like fluent or
proficient and somebody who is authentic.
I think we often run into people who are not the most eloquent speakers
in their language, in their target language, but other native speakers
of that target language totally received them like a native speaker.
And then sometimes there are people who are, you know, like super, super fluent.
They have a really high, like academic level of the language, of
their second or third language, but it's, something's wrong, you know,
something's like not quite there.
And I think that happens to a lot of people who learn Korean
because the cultural foundation is just super different.
A lot of people don't understand how to kind of pretend to be a Korean,
if that makes any sense, how to create a Korean cultural persona.
And so what we're trying to do with Korean Patch, this year and going forward
is create, uh, courses and hopefully initiate some discussion about the other
things besides language that people need to learn about in order to be really
authentic, you know, members of Korean speaking earth, if that makes sense.
So the first thing that we're working on, uh, we actually just released,
uh, Beta version of the course, um, and sold out in like two hours.
So people are clearly interested in this, which is great.
Uh, yeah.
Thank you.
We are uh...
so the first thing that we're talking about is learning regional dialects and
how that's pretty important in Korean.
Um, future things that we're going to talk about are like how you should be learning
Chinese characters to improve your Korean and, uh, you know, how to improve your
pronunciation and things like that.
I'm not really interested in like teaching people basic grammar
or any of that kind of stuff.
But I do think that there are a lot of things that native speakers know about
their language subconsciously that if you ask them, they would say, I have no idea.
Like for English speakers, maybe it would be things like a Greek and Latin roots.
You know, we're able to just like pull these from the
ether whenever we need them.
And you can hear words like antidisestablishmentarianism and you
know what it means right away, but someone who's learning the language,
if they don't spend any time learning that these words are built of these
little components, I think they really struggle to be natural...
um, both in their understanding and in their production of the language.
And so Korean has a bunch of things like that, and we're going to try to
eliminate those and then share them with people in a way that that English
speakers can understand hopefully.
That's excellent.
So lots of plans, lots of fantastic stuff for anyone studying Korean
currently idea or anyone who wants to start studying Korean.
Perfect.
Um, I will pop of course the link to your channel in the description.
And also if I can get that, um, that YouTube was a YouTube channel?
I'll pop that as well.
Okay.
Perfect.
Great.
Well, Ian, thank you so, so much for joining us today, uh, early in the morning
and best of luck with Korean Patch.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
It was great to meet you.
I appreciate your time.
Thanks.
You too.
