Recently on my YouTube channel, I recorded an interview with a "K-pop” Korean language student. I was asked by the National Institute of Korean Language to make a video to investigate the way the Korean language is being studied and learned by Americans.

The student was one I discovered serendipitously through my physician, who during my last yearly physical mentioned that his high school daughter was crazy about learning Korean. So, I contacted her and asked if I could interview her about her study of Korean. She happily agreed.

In the interview I found that it was true — she was studying Korean through K-pop and dramas. And it was her mother who got her started as the mother would mimic the Korean actors as they would say, “Sarang haeyo” (I love you) or other phrases. The mother would say new phrases that she was picking up from the drama and the daughter thought it was fun to do, so she started doing it, too. Then she got serious — they both got serious. The mother ordered a picture dictionary of Korean words, and they got onto Duolinguo to “learn the alphabet” and then the daughter enrolled in an online university language course. So far, she has completed three units. Thus , a young woman, a high........

© The Korea Times