Raising a bilingual child w/ Hyunwoo Sun 바이링구얼 아이 키우기 (선현우 출연)

He runs an educational online educational platform called Talk to Me in Korean, where he teaches Korean to hundreds and thousands of people worldwide. He's been on ebs, I did on radio. He has his very popular blog called ybnormal.com that's on Naver. That's on Naver. I know you have written one book about your business, Hangeulgul Bangnira. He has also written an English phrase book.

Yes, that was.

Did you also translate Because I'm a Girl?

Because I'm a Girl? It was in Japanese. I translated it into Korean.

Oh, and did I also mention he speaks six languages? You write a lot. You produce many videos. Like, how are you so prolific?

On my personal YouTube channel, I have 600 videos.

That's a lot.

And on Talk to Me in Korean, we have 1300, more than 1,300 free lessons that we've published together. I have a wonderful team that works with me.

I think it's great that you have such a great team with you. I mean, even before you started your company, you know, like, you were still writing a blog, you were still making your own videos. What drove you to do that?

I think I love teaching. You love teaching? Yeah. Not in classrooms, though. I think I love breaking things down so that it is easier for other people to understand. So when I started, you know, my hobby, break dancing, I also immediately started trying to teach other people how to break dance, because things can be broken down into small steps. This is also kind of my motto, my approach to life. Just look at the single problem that's ahead of you that you're trying to solve, and solve that, and then the next problem will present itself.

Now, if you go to his personal YouTube channel, he raises his children bilingual. So his first son is Jun. He's three years old.

Yes.

And I've seen the videos. I've seen the videos where Jun is, like, telling everybody in the camera, everyone, this is daddy. And he goes outside and comes back, everyone, it's dark outside, and he's only three years old. And I saw you, like, having a conversation with him, like, very naturally in English and people who are watching this. So on behalf of them, I want to ask you, how do you do it? How do you raise your children? Bilingual.

I've been speaking only English to my first son ever since he was born. So that's it. There's no other secret.

Does his mother use English at all?

Sometimes when he wants her to pretend to be me.

So that is very complicated.

So when I'm busy for five days in A row or for the whole week. He wants to talk to this daddy figure in English, but I'm not at home, or I'm busy at home. So he says, mommy, you're daddy now. Because for him, it is weird. The idea of speaking English to his mommy is weird. So he wants her to be daddy. So she does speak English when she's daddy. But other than that, everybody around him in his life, everybody else in his life actually speaks Korean.

And then you had to be very disciplined about it. Right. Because even when, you know, you're feeling tired, lazy, when you're angry at your son, like, you had to control yourself and only use it in English.

Yeah, I'm never angry. I'm an angel, by the way. Oh, you're gonna confuse your child. The child will not even grow up with one complete language. That is absolutely not the case. It has been proven by many, many experts that bilingual parenting doesn't result in the child being confused or not, you know, adequately fluent in any of the languages. With that belief, with that confidence, I started doing that. And it was hard because I basically deprived myself of my own right to speak my own mother tongue to my own son. Yeah. So I. Yeah, I rarely speak to him in Korean. But you get used to it. So for the first year, you don't get any feedback from the baby. Yeah, it's. You could be talking to a block of tofu, and the response is the same. Nothing, nothing. But after a while, you get used to it. I think that's the key when you. You are just starting to do it. For the first year, the process isn't for the baby to learn the language. It is for you to actually get used to the idea of speaking this other foreign language. The first year was difficult, but then things got easier and easier.

As parents, you know, we might say, oh, I need to discipline my children. But like listening to your story, it sounds like you need to be disciplined yourself.

Yes.

Before you can teach your kids how to do anything.

He actually speaks better than his peers at the same age. He's Korean, is better than most other kids at his age. His English is, of course, much better than, you know, I would even say he has a wider vocabulary than a lot of kids in the States because we try to read many books together. We try to watch a lot of videos together rather than just giving him my phone. Sometimes I do that, but we sit down together side by side, and we react to the silly, you know, cartoons for children. And I, you know, I don't really enjoy watching those But I enjoy my interactions with him. Oh, there's a big fire truck. Oh, there's a small fire truck. You know, me narrating, Being the narrator. Being the narrator, or like, you know, somewhat like the sports casters. Yeah. Me being the narrator definitely helps him with his understanding of the situation. Because in the cartoons, maybe there's no language, no verbal cues. It's only visuals and music. If you do it too much, though, if you do the narrating too much, you know, the child will say, be quiet.

How many hours a week do you spend time with your son?

Very good question. I think those specific questions are really, really important. So every day I try to spend at least two hours with him. Actively speaking.

Actively speaking.

Not just sitting side by side. Me doing something on my laptop, him doing something on his phone or something like that. Yeah. So two hours a day, at least. So that's 14 hours a week. It's very, very small compared to the hundreds of hours that he's exposed to Korean. But I'm trying to secure my share. For example, there's this driving app that he likes these days. It's very complicated. So he's crashing all the time. So I taught him the word crash. Oh, you crashed. And he didn't immediately respond back to me because he was so into that game. But a few days after that, he met with a friend of mine, and she was at our place, and she was like, sitting next to my son, and he was like, oh, no, I crashed. And he was using it. He had kept it for later. So even if the input doesn't come back to you, echoes back to you right away, it doesn't mean it's not working. So give him the input. Give your child the input, and it'll eventually resurface. You have to have faith in it.

What I want you to take away from what Hyun shared with you today is, I think that's great. Narrate, Tell him what's going on around the world. Tell him you know this word crash. And I think even that alone, whether you're watching a video or reading him a book, I think that alone can be immensely helpful.

Yeah. And please remember that eventually what you want your child to be able to do or children to be able to do is switch back and forth. If you are shy, like, oh, my pronunciation is bad, but you do it. I agree. English speakers stay away from me. It's fun. It's wonderful. Speaking two languages is awesome. It's natural. It's nothing weird. If you are too shy, too embarrassed to speak English in public in Korea. You don't have to. You don't have to. Yeah. You can do that in your car or when you know in private. When you're alone with your child or children, that's enough. Because you will eventually spend the majority of your quality time, quality language time with your kids at home. Right? Right. When you're taking a bath together or when you're feeding them, those moments really count.

Change your clothes. Eat your vegetables.

Watch your step. Wash your head.

Wash your hands.

Yeah, wash your hand.

Where's the best place to find you online?

You can go to talktomekorea.com and click on my profile on the first page. Or you can go to naver.com and type in my name in Korean. You will see an image page with my activities. And you will see a link to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Yes.

Well. Song Hyun and Sons Nim, thank you so much for coming to our show today.

Thank you so much. It was fun.