Sung Yoon Heu from Korea has been with City Language School for six months. Having arrived as an Upper Intermediate, he leaves us today as a strong Advanced student. We sat down with im and had a quick chat just before he finished his course.
Where are you from in Korea?
I’m from a small town called Icheon about an hour and a half from Seoul.
Why did you decide to come to Dublin?
I arrived here back at the end of May. I decided to come here because I wanted to live in Europe. I got a lot of information about getting visas in different places and after my military service, I didn’t have a lot of money and so I knew I had to work somewhere.
Australia and New Zealand, there are a lot of language schools there but there are a lot of Koreans there too. If I went there, I knew I would meet only Koreans. So I needed to earn money but away from Koreans so that is why I chose Ireland.
Another big advantage of Ireland is that it is easy to travel around Europe so it was cheaper in that respect too.
What do you think of Dublin?
Well I have to say the rent is expensive. I live in Dublin 24 which is a little far out but the house is good. But the other side of that is that a lot of ingredients for food are cheaper so it\’s not bad.
The transportation is not always great compared to Korea where the transport is very good.
The Irish are really kind and I can really feel that and it’s a great place to learn English. So there are some drawbacks but overall I can really say I had a great time.
How do you feel about the school?
There are very few Koreans which was good and I made a lot of friends from other countries. The teachers were good. Ewan is a great teacher and he is really nice and Brenda was also really very good. I learnt a lot and they were perfect. When I came here I was at Upper Intermediate level but I finished in Advanced so that is great.