Tatyana Kazantceva’s Pegasus Experience
Hello! If you are reading this text it means you are thinking about taking Pegasus courses, or maybe have already decided to join us for studying. I would like to tell you a few words about my experience at Pegasus and I hope it will help you to better understand what these courses are and how it can improve your language skills.
My name is Tatyana, I am from Russia. Approximately three years ago I understood that Korean was the next language I would study and without hesitation started embodying my wish. Whether it was because Korean was totally different to the languages I was used to learning and to my own language, or because of some other reason, I didn’t go further than the alphabet and simple phrases for two months. I realized I needed help. I searched for everything in my city that could help me: courses, tutors, I wrote to Korean centers located in other cities and asked them to recommend me a teacher in my city, etc – but in vain. Though my city is not small, nobody could offer me any help. I didn’t give up on searching and three months later I found nuns who were Koreans and eager to teach me their language. I cannot express how happy I was. These kind ladies tried to do their best teaching me the language and culture, so I cannot overestimate the value of speaking to native speakers; but my understanding of Korean grammar was still in a kind of mess. Of course if you don’t know how to teach your own language it is quite difficult. I continued to look for something or someone related to Korean.
Suddenly in the summer I met an advertisement about Pegasus courses on the Internet. I was enrolled on a course and waited impatiently until December for the beginning of study.
There were over 20 or 25 students in my first group from all over the world. We started. Our teacher explained to us Korean words, grammar and cultural peculiarities in the language; we did translations in the lessons as well. Although we had one lesson a week we were given a lot of homework. Every lesson the teacher gave a quiz. Students who didn’t take study seriously, didn’t do homework, didn’t prepare for quizzes, and skipped lessons without reasons, were dismissed. Those who stayed with me tried to study hard. We were from different countries and had different time zones: somebody got up at 7 am; for me lessons were finished at 1 am, but we all were united by our wish to learn the Korean language and encouraged each other.
Maybe three lessons later the first lines of the Korean language’s structure started drawing in my mind. Tenses, cases, particles, etc became less complicated more structured, and step by step I was opening up something new in the language in a logical, not mixed up, way. That is why I appreciate the GoGo [Beginner’s Korean] course: it helped me to understand the way of moving on when you study Korean. Of course teachers can only explain to you the material but nobody can learn it for you.
I didn’t learn half of the demanded capacity, failed in the exams and took the course again. After passing the exams the second time I took Push It! [Intermediate Korean]. These lessons were a bit different. They were done in an interactive way and we talked to each other. We studied new grammar and a lot of words as usual, and also translated texts from TOPIK (the international Test of Proficiency in Korean) and learnt Hanja (Chinese characters used in Korean texts) added in the curriculum as well. Personally I didn’t like characters but soon I realized how helpful it was for understanding Korean words. It was one more discovery in my study.
There was speaking practice too during the lessons. Passing the Push It! exams, I was enrolled onto the Wang [Advance Korean] course. Unfortunately I couldn’t finish it because I went to Korea to study; but I can tell that the Wang course provided more Hanja, advanced lexis, and reading and translation of original Korean stories. Usually the amount of students on the Wang course is minimal due to the advanced level of study – and maybe you will be the only lucky student and have private lessons with a teacher, receiving all his or her attention.
If you have difficulties with finding places for studying Korean as I did, the Pegasus courses are a really good choice. GoGo will help you to structure basic knowledge you have already had or to obtain it; Push It! and Wang will help you to improve possessed skills. Maybe by studying the names of Korean dishes with Pegasus you will be dreaming to see them in Korea with your own eyes , and it will give you the strength to find a way to do it as I could.
Tatyana is now co-teaching the Push It! intermediate Korean course for Series 7 (January-May 2014). She has also previously helped with quiz grading for the GoGo course.
Prashanth Akunuri’s Pegasus Experience
I have been into language learning for more than 4 years, and I realized that consistency is one of the important factors in learning a language better and faster. I attended GoGo [Beginner’s Korean] and Push It! [Intermediate Korean] courses simultaneously, as I felt that my level of Korean was in between the two, and this enabled me to be in touch with Korean learning pretty much everyday, as we are occupied with homework and preparation for quizzes (every alternate session) in these courses.
If you are just getting started with Korean then “GoGo” (Which I am teaching for the current Series 7) is a good one, to learn the basics such as reading/writing Hangul/한글 (Korean script), and also the basic grammar which we need to form some basic sentences and expressions are used in daily life.
If you think you are already good at your Korean basics from some other sources, and are looking to further your Korean language skills, then you might want to join the “Push It!” course. As the name suggests, it really pushes you to your next level of Korean. It was pretty intense as we were expected to do some translation homework and learn tons of grammar and vocabulary, but that’s how it is. It was really helpful to me in pushing myself for my Korean skills.
Final tests at the end of the courses really evaluate our Korean skills acquired, and they also let us analyze ourselves on which parts we are good or bad at, so that we can focus on the bad parts later in our language learning journey.
I highly recommend attending these courses, especially if you are a self-learner like me. See you on the Pegasus courses!
The Pegasus Society 