 Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Jae and here is Maria and she's from Norway. She's from Norway. The reason that I met her today is I want to talk about why Koreans are not good at English. In European, they can speak English so frontally so I was curious why Korean people can't speak English. That's why I invited her and asked about their education system and how does she think about that. So here we go. Can you introduce yourself? Sure. Hi, I'm Maria from Norway. I live in Korea now. I've been studying here for about a year. So why did you come to Korea? First, I like K-pop. That's how I was introduced to Korea and through TV shows. I was introduced more to the cultural aspect of it and then I got interested in learning the language because I thought it sounded very pretty. So I came here mainly to study Korean and then I stayed because I really liked it. That's cool. Which group did you like? VIXX. VIXX? Yeah. Oh, really? I've never seen VIXX before. Why? They're really good. They're like BTS, XL. Listen to them. They're really good. Yeah, because I like VIXX too. Actually, I want to ask that in Korea we study English for a long time over 10 years but Koreans are not really good at English. Why do you think that? I think that the problem lies in the education because it's very focused on the test. Like you're not really doing a speaking test as well and the English language is very different from Korean and I think that's also a contributing factor. Like that it's so different than that. The teachers kind of fail in that aspect of being able to teach Korean students English also comes on to the general public because in Norway we have a lot of American TV and I don't really notice that in Korea. And even if there is American TV in Korea, it's always subtitled and nobody cares to like try to just listen. Also games. Games are also easily translated into Korean but in Norway we're just like you're kind of supposed to know English so especially like more adult games like shooting games and stuff like that or more they kind of think that you have should know English so there's no real reason to translate it. Yeah, I think I agree with that. Living with just Koreans, there are not many opportunities to speak Korean foreigners. Especially that Korean people have the opportunity. I think that it also comes to pride because a lot of Koreans I've talked to in Korean and then they speak to me in English suddenly and they're really good but they're just being like oh I was so afraid to make mistakes but it doesn't really matter because I totally understand what you want to tell me even though you're doing making mistakes and that's what I'm trying to do in Korean too. It doesn't matter that I speak perfectly as long as we can understand each other because I feel that's like the meaning with language but I feel that's kind of lost with the Korean people. Yeah, right. They are too shy, have no confidence to speak English. Korean people should think how they feel when foreigners speak Korean to them because even though us foreigners make mistakes you're just like wow, you speak Korean well. It's really like that. If you only say hello it's like wow, they speak English like thank you. How about Nuri? How they learn English? We study very vocal based I think. We always have like a participation grade in class. I'm not exactly sure how it is now but I would always go to like the teacher parent conference and the teacher would be like oh Maria didn't speak a lot of this class and like she has to speak more in this class so I would try harder to speak in those classes and also I started to think that this is a learning opportunity like I'm not supposed to be in a classroom to be perfect so I just have to try to say what I want and the teacher will correct me and help me along the way. That's what they're there for so I think that the Korean English teaching system should be more focused on speech. Speaking with each other in English as well like don't have to speak with people who are really good in English to be able to learn from somebody else. Oh, I want to ask suddenly you studied in Ewha University for two years so what do you think in Korean education and Korean education there is difference? Yes, the biggest difference that I feel in Norway you're kind of trying to learn a skill that you can apply in different ways but in Korea it's more focused on being able to like write on a test or memorize how you're supposed to do something like you have to do it in a special sequence and also it's a little bit more focused on doing what the teacher wants you to do not really what you know it's very like a mind game kind of with the teacher to know which part of the book she will choose to do the test on. I feel the same in university yeah but in Norway it's kind of easy a lot of the times that things also here you're not allowed to argue with your teacher in Norway you can and I really like arguing I was always taught to ask why. Yeah that's important. Yeah but when I asked why here like even in my English class but I had a Korean teacher but she said some things and I asked oh why is it like that because I want to learn but she was just like how it is but I don't understand why so it's harder for me to get it in my brain she was just like you just have to memorize it. That's a little bit of the difference like if you really need to know why in Norway the teacher will try to find a way to make you understand why and how things are happening in that way. I agree with that because in Korea we are not used to questions like give questions answer questions you're not used to like when professor asks that do you have questions that means can we end the class? Yeah it's the end of the class really it's the end of the class. At the atmosphere Korean class asking something is so weird. Kind of showing that you don't know that's shameful. Yeah it's kind of shameful to show that you don't understand what the teacher is talking about so the teacher is like okay we will end class now like it's done and then all the students will line up and in Norway that would be like but class is over the teacher is supposed to leave the next teacher is supposed to come in like there's a different class in here and every class I've taken there's just like a line waiting to ask the teacher questions. Yeah I think the atmosphere should be changed like they're more arguing and asking that's so much important but in Korea just test memorize test memorize that so yeah my teachers in Norway said like almost every teacher came into class and they were like no question is a dumb question and if somebody else makes you feel dumb that's their problem like they have a problem with themselves that they are too scared to ask or something like that and I feel a little bit like in Korea since there is that relationship between the students to like compete against each other you're kind of like frenemies people don't want to share their knowledge unless it's with like they're really close friends so they also don't want to ask in class because then everybody else will know a better way to do the study as well so they would rather like keep that a secret everyone in the classroom is the competition yeah because in Korea we give the grade like only five percent a like ten percent b so we are so competitive we should win the other friends yeah so what I think is important is that the parents should support their children no matter what kind of I feel like here also the push from parents and also especially in my situation I had a lot of support from my parents like they would always say that Maria you just do the best that you can and that's good if you can't get into Harvard you know it doesn't matter you just have to do as good as you can do and that's good enough for you me and everybody they're so different because in Korea you should be a doctor lawyer they make students too much pressure so yeah I agree with that that's really important just whatever they choose believe their children and support that's really important I think I might think that if that's what your passion is and that's really what you want to do like you should go for it it's important to think about your future but you can't do something you 100% would never want to do but I mean with a music background like you can be a music teacher you kind of just have to find different ways to look at what you want to do yeah that's important just do what you want is so important if you choose saying you don't want but your parents want yeah you will be miserable yeah miserable life if you can you can be successful but that doesn't make you happiness yes what do you think how do people study happily I think that there should be a good balance between kind of your work or student life but also like an actual life because many people here kind of throw away their friends and everything like that two weeks before midterms or exams because like since you have to compete against everybody but it's really easy to burn out or feel kind of hopeless and very tired because you're always just studying you're not really doing more things that you enjoy you know continue your workout or eating something that you like eating like stuff like that should also be a priority in your life like don't exercise your mind so much that your heart is not exercised yeah that's that's really good answer yeah we just we live for being happy not just for studying or success yes the more important thing is being happy yourself yeah so and it was really a good answer yeah I think there are so many problems in education but even though there is a problem in education you should find the way by yourself yourself and love yourself that's really important so I want to say that today I'm done I will come back with another content slayer thank you hi thank you oh you're welcome