KBS Korean Lessons: Review of KBS Korean Lessons

The KBS Korean Lessons website review was originally published in Dulaboo.com. I used to write for the said website before my contract expired. Republishing here for archiving purposes. Edited to suit Yoast’s requirements.

Those who are familiar with Korean drama and KPop shows are aware that there are 3 networks that usually distribute their canned series internationally: Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). So when I found that KBS offered basic Korean language lessons too, I checked it out myself.

KBS knew that their canned shows are aired abroad with the Korean characters still showing at the bottom of the screen. So I already expected an orientation on some basic characters usually seen in them.

When I clicked “positives and negatives”, I was expecting the sentence tags like “is it?” and “isn’t it?”. But I wasn’t disappointed when I found out it was a different positive/negative grammar dynamic that KBS Korean Lessons taught here. It was more about what you are or what you are not and what you have or what you don’t have.

KBS Korean Lessons also taught the 3 different tenses of the Korean language, a similar lesson taught in English classes. The way they explained it here reminds me how a few letters in the alphabet can change the tense in a word. Here, just insert a certain character and it will change the tense of the word illustrated. Sentence examples are also given to show the differences

KBS Korean Lessons also provided audio clips of the lessons that they teach with Romanized and regularly written sentences of the words. The sentences come with English translation under them easily scrolled along with the audio.

Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Korean language lessons offered here at KBS are very helpful to tourists who just arrived in South Korea. From basic airport conversation to booking some transportation needed, translations of basic terms to survive the hectic environment usually found in airports can be found here. It even teaches you how to check on lost items. (Ugh! The inconvenience of lost luggage in airports!)

Some lessons are as comprehensive as this sample from part 2 where both vocabulary terms and the sample dialogue can be seen in the same screen. Even Korean terms for US cities are seen here based on how Koreans pronounce them. I never knew there’s a Korean term for Chicago until I saw this sample.

A little observation I saw is how the basic conversation is found in Chapter 2 of the KBS Korean Lessons site when some are found in Chapter 1. To make it more convenient for the online learners, they should be found in the same link instead (just a suggestion).

In Chapter 2 of KBS Korean Lessons, the vocabulary, short dialogue and full dialogues are segregated into different tabs. Most, if not all, terms refer to airport-related conversations.

The moment we shift into the short dialogue better known as small talk, it’s still about airport-related situations i.e. booking a flight.

KBS Korean Lessons are still up. No updates so far. The focus is still on basic, conversation level of Korean language taught. You might want to write some of these conversations down for real-life practice. Best practiced with a language exchange partner. Click here to start.

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