Congratulate Daniel Rhodes for being the first runner-up for our Mail Bag Contest #2!

Daniel lives in Korea and teaches English as a second language.  He’s very enthusiastic about learning the language and increasing his cultural knowledge.  Read Daniel’s great story he sent us:

“I started to learn Korean after I moved to Daegu, South Korea to teach ESL in September 2004.  I immediately felt an overwhelming desire to connect with the Korean people and to  have a more intimate understanding of Korean culture to avoid feeling like an outsider.  I, therefore, asked a friend to teach me how to read Hangul and I started to study basic Korean grammar.

Now, after living in Korea for over four years, and learning more and more Korean everyday, my reasons to learn Korean are not only because I want to communicate effectively with the Korean community and my Korean friends, but because my older brother married a Korean woman and I eventually will become an uncle. I, therefore, study Korean religiously everyday because the Korean culture, including the Korean language, is now an integral part of my family.  As a result, I love to speak Korean and hope to become proficient in Korean one day.

While I listen to the Koreanclass101.com podcast, I read and study the lesson notes.  I then use the Line by Line Audio Transcript to improve my pronunciation and increase my fluency.  Finally, I write down the Korean notes in my notebook and study them while I listen to the podcast on the subway, the train, or on the bus.  This study method has enabled me to retain the new vocabulary and the grammar rules that Koreanclass 101.com has taught me.

Koreanclass101.com has helped me learn Korean because it applies listening, reading and speaking to its lesson plans.  Furthermore, it allows the Koreanclass101.com member to use these learning techniques at the same time, which enables me to learn Korean much more efficiently.  Finally, the Koreanclass101.com website is user friendly, provides its members the opportunity to review what they have learned, and communicate in Korean with other members.  Koreanclass101.com is thus an outstanding educational website that provides first rate instruction to its members.

The Koreanclass101.com  lesson notes have helped me learn Korean the most.  The lesson notes include the dialogue, the vocabulary, the vocabulary sample sentences, and the grammar points.  Because I write down the lesson notes in my notebook, I can reread them whenever I have the opportunity and thus reinforce what I already have learned.  As a result, the Koreanclass101.com lesson notes are the most important part of the Koreanclass101.com lesson plan.”

That’s a great study plan, Daniel! Daniel is definitely serious and very diligent in his studies.

What motivates you to study?