Korean to Stay Connected
For intermediate and advanced Korean learners who want to stay connected to Korean through quiet, personal stories.
Korean to Stay Connected is a slow podcast about language, memory, and everyday thoughts.
I am a Korean language teacher. I have taught Korean in several countries.
During my time teaching abroad, students often said:
“I want to keep studying Korean, but there’s nothing I can just listen to.”
This podcast is for learners who already know some Korean and want to maintain it — not through intense studying, but through calm, natural listening.
You don’t need to understand everything.
Just listening is enough.
If you’d like to speak Korean slowly like this,
you can find my 1:1 lessons here: https://www.italki.com/ko/teacher/7545999?lv=1
Korean to Stay Connected
EP21. Our First Birthday (돌잔치)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode,
I share a quiet reflection after attending
my friend’s child’s 돌잔치 —
a Korean celebration for a baby’s first birthday.
In Korean, 돌잔치 is a special day
when family and friends gather
to celebrate a baby’s first year of life
and to wish them health, love, and a happy future.
While watching the celebration,
I started to think about something else:
that all of us must have had a moment like this too —
a first birthday we cannot remember,
but one that was filled with love and blessings from our families.
I talk about how it felt to imagine my own first birthday,
and my parents when they were younger —
a version of them I can no longer see,
but can still feel through their love.
This episode is about memory, family,
and the quiet beginnings that support our lives
even when we don’t remember them.
🎧 Listen slowly,
and think about the love that surrounded you
at the very beginning of your life.