New e-book: Still, I Want to Get Better at English

After enough rewinds, would the English on the cassette finally make sense? Lee Kang-hyeon listened to the same recording dozens of times. At some point he could make out the sounds and still miss what they meant. Writing down what he heard showed him where he had lost the thread. In Still, I Want to Get Better at English, published as an e-book by Owl Publishing Media on 15 November, Lee follows his English from those cassette tapes to the workplace and the AI chat window.

Forty minutes to write a first message

An interest that took hold after South Korea’s college entrance exam carried into his military service. Lee played the same recordings, repeated them aloud and copied entries from a dictionary. When he returned to grammar after leaving the military, the task had changed. He could recognise the structure of a sentence and still struggle to make one he needed. He forgot words he had memorised and eventually moved his vocabulary cards from paper to a computer.

It took forty minutes to write his first message to a pen pal. A cassette always played the same voice. A person writing back could take the conversation somewhere unexpected. The sentences that passed between them opened a way into spoken conversation. Lee also writes about meeting a friend in Seoul whom he had first got to know online. Each new use for English changed the sentences he needed to practise.

Reading an answer and deciding whether it works

Later chapters take in university transfer exams, English education and the beginning of Lee’s working life in the language. The final three turn to AI. He considers how to judge an answer written in English, where he would use AI if he were starting again, and how to make a suggested sentence part of his own vocabulary. With a cassette, the question was where he had stopped following the speaker. In a chat window, he also has to decide whether the answer says what he meant.

The book gives readers returning to English a way to locate the point at which they get stuck. Missing the meaning of a phrase and hesitating to send the first message are different problems. They call for different kinds of practice.

Book details

Author Lee Kang-hyeon
Publisher Owl Publishing Media
Published 15 November 2026
Format e-book (ePub) in Korean
ISBN 9791122251609
See the book and preview a sample at Kyobo