Dr. Ross King, professor of Korean Language and Literature and former Head of Department at UBC Asian Studies, recently made a guest appearance on the 283rd episode of the Korean talk show Yoo Quiz on the Block, which aired in March 2025.
Yoo Quiz on the Block, one of the most beloved variety shows in Korea today, features the life stories of a wide range of guests – from ordinary Korean citizens to well-known Korean celebrities, as well as foreigners from diverse backgrounds – allowing the audience to connect, relate, and be inspired.
In this episode, Dr. Ross King shared what sparked his fascination with the Korean language and why he founded the first Korean Language Village in the world. His former PhD student and now Stanford professor, Dr. Dafna Zur, also joined him in sharing language learning tips.
Interest in Korean
It was pure coincidence that Dr. King first developed an interest in Korean. He shared that one day, he came across a student writing a letter in Korean at a cafe and thought that the letters looked beautiful. He started learning Korean in 1980, but had to self-study due to the limited resources on Korean education at the time.
While in the 1980s, the only foreigners who learned Korean were those who had to learn Korean due to their occupation – such as the US military stationed in Korea, or US Peace Corps Volunteers – Dr. King was propelled by his fascination with the Korean alphabet and language and his intellectual curiosity, and went on to pursue his PhD at Harvard University in 1984, further exploring the linguistics of Korean.
Establishing the first Korean Language Village
Inspired by his experience as a child attending Russian, German, and Spanish summer camps (which sparked his interest in foreign languages), Dr. King founded the first Korean Language village in the world in Minnesota, USA in 1999. The village hosts an outdoor Korean language immersion summer camp called Sup sogŭi Hosu or “Lake in the Woods” (숲 속의 호수). Programs range from one to four weeks in length over the summer, and students ages 7-18 come from all over the US and abroad to learn Korean language and culture in a residential immersion environment. Students also engage in Korean cultural activities such as K-pop dance, fan dancing, calligraphy, taekwondo, and more.
Dr. King shared that students who have participated in the camp not only reminisce on their memories at the camp, but more than half of the students who participate in the camp end up pursuing a university which offers Korean. Through the language village, Dr. King has created lifelong Korean language learners.
Language Learning Tips
In response to the host’s question on how we can learn languages faster, Dr. King and Dr. Zur agreed that there is no easy way. Instead, Dr. King advised that students should “just study like crazy”, while Dr. Zur advised that students should establish a kind of emotional relationship between themselves and the language.
Dr. King concluded the interview by expressing deep appreciation for the uniqueness of the Korean language and strong aspirations to expand Korean language education, calling for better investments to spread the Korean language overseas.
The episode can be viewed on YouTube here:
