Yul is learning Korean reading and writing at school but I am teaching him to read English at home. I wasn’t raised bilingual so when I was learning to read as a child, I didn’t have this awareness of different languages that Yul has. The Korean language is almost completely phonetic and is quite easy to read but in comparison, English can seem like a mess. Koreans also know their history about King Sejong and the development of Hangul, so perhaps that’s why Yul was also asking about who invented English. Maybe when he is older he will learn to appreciate all the influences English has and how it grew and changed over time.

A challenge for parents raising kids to be bilingual is maintaining the interest in both language, so they continue learning both. As Yul is now in elementary school, there is a big focus on Korean, so he possibly feels like learning to read in English is much slower and more boring. I also try not to pressure too much because I want him to discover how amazing reading is for himself. I was a voracious reader as a child, and I want my children to also have that escape from the world too. We are lucky to have an English kids library close by to where we live in Seoul and Yul enjoys visiting it. Hopefully it is just a matter of time before English seems a bit less stupid.