KIMIPAKCHWE: Power Korean: Hyunwoo Sun 선현우

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Power Korean: Hyunwoo Sun 선현우

If there’s someone King Sejong the Great should be thankful to, that would be my friend Hyunwoo. ^^ Korean language is now easier and more convenient to learn through an online source called Talk To Me In Korean (TTMIK), which happens to be managed by the Great Hyunwoo himself. hehe

Hyun Woo Sun was born and raised in Gwangju, Jeolla Province. He graduated from Gwangju Je-il High School in 1999. He then took B.A. in French Language and Literature at Korea University and graduated in 2008.

Multilingual at Heart

Many of you might wonder why of all languages he majored French. Until middle school, being able to greet in English was a milestone for him. So starting high school he decided to put more weight in studying the subject, which at the start made him really feel good because of the progress he was achieving, from zero to almost native. He shared an interesting study method, which is like that of a B-Boy. In order to master your moves you have to record your dance and watch it many times to see where it gone wrong and what kind of improvements are needed. It’s exactly the same when you learn a language. He practiced a lot, recorded his progress up to the point where he got fed off of studying it.

In his senior year in high school, 1998, he was chosen to represent his school in the National Foreign Language Contest for High School Students, a very prestigious national competition in Korea. As expected, he won first place. Since it was sponsored by the Ministry of Education, the benefits were unimaginable. He could choose the university he wanted to go. He decided to attend Korea University and was assigned to the Department of Western Languages.. Meaning, he had to study another foreign language aside from English. At that time he found French as the most attractive among western languages so he took French.

Now Hyun Woo can speak Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, aside from the languages mentioned above Korean, English and French and to add more to that he’s planning to learn more.

Blogger

Hyun Woo is a very prolific blogger. As a blogger myself, an amateur one hehe, Hyun Woo형 is like one of my mentors. He started blogging in 2005 ,so maybe that gives you the idea of him as a pioneer in the blogging world, especially in Korea. He started to write a blog when he realized that people around him ask a lot about learning languages and he kept on answering the same thing. And exactly, one good way to stop the torture of answering the same thing again and again is to write one entry and share it to everyone.

His Cyworld blog got a lot of attention from readers when it was featured by Cyworld on its main page. Just like any other blogger out there, he got excited so he started to write everything in his mind through his blog. When Cyworld removed the blog feature in their services he decided to create a Naver blog in 2007, why-be-normal.com. This is a blog for Koreans mostly about language learning and things you can do with it. The same year he also started writing a Google blog for foreigners http://sendmetokorea.blogspot.com .The idea is to get the feel of every day Korea for people who haven't been to Korea. His blog received awards from Naver making him a power blogger and has thousands of followers not just in Korea but all over the world.

G9 Languages
Hyunwoo is the CEO of G9 Languages when he created it together with 2 other friends in 2009. Under this company you can avail a lot of services, some of which are already very familiar to you. The Talk To Me in Korean (TTMIK) http://TalkToMeInKorean.com/ , a venue for people who want to study Korean language online especially to those who can't come to Korea for the time being. It has a very friendly and creative approach of teaching. TTMIK is a product of his work experiences when he was a college student. He used to work part-time at a publishing company where he made education materials and did a lot of editing and translation works. He also gained teaching experiences through his part time English jobs.

Other services are My Korean Store, where we could purchase study materials being taught on TTMIK; GongbuGage, which is for Koreans for them to purchase foreign language learning materials. G9 Languages has a lot or projects dealing with social media and they also do a lot of consultations for different companies.

More About Hyun Woo
Hyunwoo started doing B-Boy in his freshie year (1999) in college. A proud member of KU Dance, he used to join small competitions and performed in various dance concerts. He is also well-known for his talks on Korean modern history to different venues like EPIK, where his students are English native speakers who will be teaching English in Korea. He is also into photography http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyunwoosun and vlogging http://youtube.com/ever4one.

Hyunwoo is an adventurer. He wants to try and learn something new. Some people would think he is the nerdy type of student when he was in college. Well, think again. Probably he was… until high school. Did you know that he got a warning for skipping classes? He didn’t like a very routine type of lifestyle so at that time he wanted to sort of rebel. He dreams of a society free from all the social constraints.

He is now happily married to Mikyung Cho. I'm afraid that this entry would not justify Hyunwoo형's achievements and success. So please refer to the links for a clearer picture.

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