TV Program Fuses Learning With Entertainment
By Han Sang-hee
Staff Reporter
Learning Korean is not an easy task. It's complicating, hard to pronounce and even has a different way of speaking to the elder. Korea's English broadcaster Arirang TV's hit show ``Let's Speak Korean'' has been a big help, and this year marks its fifth season.
``It's important to have a program like ours because it's important to not only introduce Korean culture, but also the language,'' Han Yong-kee, the senior producer of the show told The Korea Times during an interview at Arirang TV last week.
It was in the late 1990s when the broadcaster started airing the first version of the show, where Han was working as an assistant producer. It was revamped after viewers started to lose interest in the cookie cutter lessons.
``Even I thought it wasn't fun. Educational it may have been, but it was not entertaining,'' he said.
The crew realized that it would help to have a foreigner with mastery of Korean, as he or she would know the difficulties in learning the language. Having a Korean-speaking foreigner proved to be a big hit, and although it meant longer hours of planning and research, it was worth it.
``It takes time to plan an education program. In our case, we had to discuss with Korean language professors just to make sure we were on the right track, and that took about a year,'' he said.
The following seasons were a success, but Han and his staff felt they needed more. In season four, they brought comedian Kim Young-chul as co-host and even made a mini sitcom to explain conversations.
``We wanted to translate the hit drama `Jewel in the Palace,' but it was too difficult because it's a historical drama. So we brought some actors who appeared in the drama as supporting roles and made our own,'' Han explained.
The fifth season is completely different from the previous teach-and-learn methods. Four participants compete as two teams and they are given questions regarding Korean words and sentences. The winning team them must compete individually to become the winner. Every now and then, the two hosts Lisa Kelley and Kim Young will step in and explain the words and phrases in English.
After three rounds deciding three winners, the show will host the final competition to choose a winner. The winner will get to travel abroad to promote the Korean language.
``Because it's a competition, the contestants tend to get very competitive. We have so many people who want to try out, so we are holding auditions every weekend,'' Han said.
Despite the success, the producer pointed out the difficulty in trying to bring both educational elements and entertainment. While professors wanted to stress the proper usage of the Korean language, program makers thought it was also important to teach slang and jargons as well.
``Learning is important, but having fun is too. We think having fun is a great way to learn anything, especially something as complicating as a language,'' Han said, shrugging.
The program attracted not only foreigners who wanted to learn Korean, but also unexpected fans. Koreans who want to learn English tuned into the program, as the overall English content is easy and ``perfect to learn English.''
One of the most asked questions is about actual foreigners who appear on the show: How well do they speak Korean now?
``This is something we are very proud of, for the program actually helped a lot of people, some becoming university professors and others running successful restaurants. They have basically become Korea. Sometimes we wonder if we should change the name of the program to `How to Become Korean,''' Han said beaming.
So what would be the final mission for the producer of the hit program?
``I want people around the world who are interested in learning Korean to study with our program. I also want to make an international version of `Let's Speak Korean. We would shoot the show in the Philippines, Vietnam and so on. It won't take long, I hope, as long as we are willing to continue,'' Han said.