You may be wondering who is behind Lang-Wich and why it started.
The co-founders of Lang-Wich are Lee-Anne Davis from the UK & Sung-Ju Kim from South Korea. They met while teaching in the same middle school in Busan, in 2017. Lee-Anne taught English and Sung-Ju taught Chinese.
Lee-Anne was learning Korean and maintaining Chinese. She had lived in China before and did not want to lose Chinese completely. With that, Sungju and Lee-Anne began to study together in the popular study rooms (공부방).
In 2018, Sung-Ju and Lee-Anne were using graded readers in Chinese and English as part of their studies.
‘Are there any graded readers in Korean?’
Sung-Ju immediately went on a hunt to find some. Most books were mostly based on folklore in Korean but they were not easy to read.
As teachers, language learners, and creatives they thought about it for a moment. ‘Why don't we write them?’
And here they are.
Lee-Anne and Sung-Ju know that without being able to read, there is huge limitations to communicating in the target language. Through reading, they found how to use words and are able to remember them in the correct context.
Learning Korean is no different. Although today, there are more reading resources in Korean, some have too many new words in one chapter. Many are not designed for language learners. Lastly, there is no roadmap in reading as there is with other languages and that can make readers feel like they do not have a direction in Korean.
Starting Lang-Wich is a personal language-learner pain as the co-founders know the benefits of reading in another language. So instead of waiting for others to do it, Lee-Anne and Sung-Ju decided to pick up the mantel.
Learn more about us on our website. Link in bio.
Follow us on @koreanstudybysj @imleeannearlene
