Random Quote
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
review of koreanclass101
The EFL Geek described a new KSL class online and I am in the process of giving it a try. Koreanclass101 is growing and currently has ‘newbie lessons’, beginner lessons and a little more (the audioblog seems geared toward stronger Korean ability). The site offers free podcasts and additional paid material. When you sign up, you get a free week of access to the premium material, including transcripts and review.
I am about to game the system. I don’t recommend this, but I will soon sign up with a second email address (doesn’t everyone have a handful of email accounts these days?) for a further week of free access to the full service. My trivial excuses are: 1) I’m doing this for you -helping give you a better account of the services offered, and 2) I was busy that week - it was a bad time to explore the content.
A more serious reason is that I have not yet found my true level in the material offered. Again, I was busy. Perhaps a level test is needed (is ‘level test’ a Konglish term -it rolls naturally off my tongue but I’m not sure). I would even accept a sort of eye test: “Can you read and understand this line?” “How about this line?” There’s not much point in cheating on a level test, after all.
I don’t mind, and probably need, review. I am not a ‘newbie’ but, well, false beginners are always hard to place.
Anyway, the podcasts are clear and stand alone well. The documentation prints out in good format, but I don’t really like PDF files. I would prefer a simple ‘.txt’ file that I could store in my phone’s ebook folder and read while listening on the bus. That would be handier than paper in my situation.
I found the audio wonderfully clear and having the proper tone. Keith and Sol are fun to listen to and sound like they are having fun. This is good, professional work, not like the audio I prepared a year ago and still plan to do more of.
Keith’s two emails to me, encouraging me to sign on with a premium account (about $25.00 or 25,000 won) were a little annoying in tone. I don’t begrudge his entrepreneurial spirit at all, but his “I know what you’re thinking” line was, indeed, annoying.
I would also like the individual podcasts to have clearer titles. A typical title is “003_B3_082707_kclass101.mp3”. I think this was lesson3 in beginner class and I suspect it was saved on July 27, 2007. That’s nice but I would prefer something like, “Beginner class 3 kclass101” or the like. I am not sure about class 3, but many of the classes have extra (paid) content so “Beginner class (main)” and “Beginner class (extra)”, “…(review)” and similar, more-meaningful titles.
This is a great site and the material is portable. The best purely online site in my view, is Sogang University’s KSL site. Facebook has a ‘Korean word of the day’, should you want more supplemental material.
I didn’t ‘game the system’ but I have downloaded a few more free episodes. I do recommend the site but strong beginners or better should wait as content is still being built up. I have decided not to pay for further content…yet. When further content is added, I plan to sign up for basic or premium content.
kwandongbrian inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Oct 30, 2007 at 12:55 PM
About_Language | Podcasting | Guest Author |
