My daughter has been learning Korean in Hong Kong in ILC for over 6 years since 2000, me and my husband really happy with her progress of Korean language, the tutor there is professional and made the lessons interesting and easy to follow.

I learned Mandarin for 3 years before taking Korean lessons in Hong Kong, I think Korean language is easier to learn than Chinese, my teacher made the lesson fun and she teaches in a way that I feel very easy to follow, therefore, I completely grasped the Korean phonetic system in just about 6 hours, I have been taking over 100 hours of Korean lesson, and I will definitely continue with them.

Hong Kong is incredible place to learn languages and the school, ILC was great at all levels for learning Korean language, I was very lucky with my teacher, she was always helpful and lovely, and the most important thing, she is very professional. Immersing in a new language is very important if you want to learn the language, understand this, I took a intensive Korean course in Hong Kong, spent almost 8 weeks to learn the language, it was in a group class with all other classmates from different nationalities, the teacher let us get into the Korean language very quickly, and we had a lot of interaction while learning the language. I would highly recommend this school with no hesitation to anyone who is really interest in learning the Korean language, I am very satisfied with them and my level of Korean.

I have been learning Korean over 10 years. If I don’t think learning Korean is fun, I would not have continued learning it for so many years. As I am interested in K-pop, Korean drama, movies and songs, learning Korean can help me understand more about Korean culture and it can help me understand better about the subtext of their
lyrics, scripts and etc. This better understanding brings more fun when watching these dramas and movies. It helps me to appreciate more about the Korean culture and its people.

I also like travelling to Korea during different seasons. Korea is a big country compared with Hong Kong and it has distinct four seasons. There are different natural scenery at different times. Being able to communicate in Korean with Korean people, it makes these travels much more fun. If you know some Korean, it will be much easier for trying local Korean food, doing shopping, taking mass transport.

Besides, being a Chinese, learning Korean is extra funny as many of the Korean nouns are originated from Chinese. The pronunciation and the meaning are similar to Chinese words. Therefore, being a Chinese has advantages in learning Korean than people of other nationalities. My Korean idol is So Ji Sub. Because of him, I had the drive of learning Korean at the very beginning. I wish that I can talk to him in Korean when one day I meet him in person. This also makes learningKorean fun when you have the incentive.

Learning Korean

Korean used to be completely foreign to me. The vertical and horizontal lines, circles and squares looked more like mysterious symbols than language. Unlike Japanese, as there are no Chinese characters, it was impossible to make sense out of the symbols. I never imagine I would learn Korean. It was not until last year when I fell in love with
the mega-hit KBS drama, “Descendants of the Sun” and the main character Song Joong Ki. Within days of finishing “Descendants of the Sun”, I decided to learn Korean. So I contacted my younger’s sister old Korean teacher, Mr. Alex Nam and arranged my first Korean lesson within a few days. I do not call Alex by his name as he is my teacher and I call him “Seon Saeng Lim”.

Although our syllabus is not based on any textbooks, Seon Saeng Lim’s teaching is very well structured. We started with the Korean alphabets “Hangul”. Gradually, Seon Saeng Lim introduced different grammatical structures. While grammar is often considered as dry and boring, I appreciate that Seon Saeng Lim placed a lot of effort in explaining the grammatical rules. Rules are always followed by examples in English. Seon Saeng Lim would explain, step-by- step, how to turn the English sentences into Korean. As Seon Saeng Lim’s explanation is systematic and logical, it is not as difficult as I originally thought. To reinforce learning, Seon Saeng Lim often gives revision to newly learnt grammar in the following lesson.

After finishing the essential grammar, which took us around three to four months, we started having some basic conversations. Under Seon Saeng Lim’s guidance, I was able to make simple sentences based on the grammar and vocabulary learnt. It was interesting and fun as the conversations are not textbook stories. I am able to express
what is happening in my daily life using simple Korean. Even though there is still a long way to go, I am very happy with the progress of my Korean learning. I do not think this would be possible without Seon Saeng Lim’s systematic and logical teaching. He is also very patient and often repeats the sentences a few times until I can become familiarized with the structure.

We all need motivation to commence a learning process. My initial motivation with Korean was simple. I was hoping that I could understand Korean drama. My goal now is that I hope I can converse in simple Korean when I travel to Korea. Goals are important as they help us to stay focused with the learning process. Of course, nothing comes easy with foreign language learning. We still need to put in a lot of time and effort in studying and revising. I recall Seon Saeng Lim once said it is always the most difficult at the beginning because everything is new. However, learning is accumulative and after a while, new learning would become old knowledge. This is so true. I feel fortunate that I can learn Korean from Seon Saeng Lim as not only his teaching is systematic and structured, he is also a very encouraging teacher with great sense of humour. I always have so much fun in my Korean lessons. Hopefully, I would be able to converse in simple Korean when I next travel to Seoul!