Kim Min-sik Asks: Have You Ever Learned an English Book by Heart?

Kim Min-sik worked as a producer and director at Korea’s MBC. He joined its entertainment division in 1996 and moved into drama in 2007. He worked in scripted comedy early on, then found a larger audience with sitcoms that moved easily between sketches and drama.

New Nonstop made his name. The series starred Jang Na-ra, Yang Dong-geun, Zo In-sung and Park Kyung-lim. His television work includes:

• Entertainment
  • Exclamation Mark
  • Sunday Sunday Night
  • New Nonstop
  • Nonstop 3
  • Rainbow Romance
• Drama
  • Queen of Housewives
  • The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry
  • Gloria
  • The Queen’s Flower
  • Goodbye to Goodbye

The Book Kim Min-sik Wrote about Learning English

Kim published his book about English study in 2017. It became a bestseller around the same time as Cho Seung-yeon’s Fluent, another Korean book about learning the language.

Have You Ever Learned an English Book by Heart? explains the method Kim developed for himself. It arrives at a different answer from Fluent because its author starts from a different experience.

Cho lived abroad from childhood and learned English alongside the cultures in which it was spoken. Kim studied English in Korea and went on to complete graduate study in interpretation. Their books tell the stories of those different routes.

Fluent Explains. Kim’s Book Remembers.

Both books ask how a Korean speaker can learn English. They get to the question in different ways.

Cho asks why English is hard for Korean learners and uses that question to organise his advice. Kim stays close to the things he tried and what happened when he tried them.

He writes about what English made possible for him, how he handled discouragement and what allowed him to come back to the work.

One Learner’s Experience

The book is also a record of how Kim thinks about learning in general. His account of English study makes sense alongside his decisions about how to use time and what to stick with.

Use the Minutes You Have

Kim asks the reader to make a regular place for study in an ordinary day. Most people are already busy. His method starts with finding the pieces of time that are still available.

The title makes a point about getting the basics under your feet. Kim suggests learning one English book by heart as a concrete place to begin.

A hard book may feel like the ambitious choice. He prefers to start with something within reach, learn it thoroughly and build from there as you put the language to use.

A Talk about Learning a Language in Six Months

Kim also introduces a TEDx talk on learning a foreign language in six months. The book draws out five principles from the talk:

1. Learn material that relates to your own life.
2. Use the language to communicate from the first day.
3. When you understand a message, you can begin to acquire the language in it.
4. Treat language learning partly as physical practice.
5. Make it easier to learn by staying relaxed.

What to Read Next

The book suggests more reading once you have learned the first book well enough to have some confidence in the basics.

• Reader’s Digest
• CNN
• TED

Kim’s book is about the habits that kept him studying as much as it is about English. Finding a few minutes, using them and returning to the task the next day is the practice underneath the title.

It is an approachable account for anyone interested in how Kim got past his unease with English.

Book Information

Have You Ever Learned an English Book by Heart? (Korean title, translated)

Author

Kim Min-sik

Publication date

11 January 2017

ISBN13

9788960863132

Kim Min-sik’s blog

http://free2world.tistory.com

View the book on YES24

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