With more and more people going into self-quarantine to stop the spread of Covid-19, now may be a good time to learn a skill you’ve been putting off for years. So why not take on the challenge of learning a new language with the biggest boy band in the world?
K-pop megastars BTS have announced they will be launching a series of Korean-language teaching videos to establish a stronger connection with their fans around the world.
The idea came about after the band’s passionate fan base called for English subtitles to be added to their videos.
According to the group's management agency, Big Hit Entertainment, Learn Korean with BTS will use reassembled footage from the band's videos, including Run BTS, Bangtan Bomb and BTS Episode, to make the learning experience more immersive and fun.
The content will be rolled out from Tuesday, March 24 on Weverse, a fan community app created by Big Hit Entertainment. Fans who are already registered will be able to access the short videos free of charge.
The group plan to release 30 videos in total that will each be about three minutes long and introduce simple Korean grammar and expressions.
The episodes are “designed to make it easy and fun for global fans who have difficulty enjoying BTS’ music and contents due to the language barrier”, their record label said in a statement.
Big Hit Entertainment said K-pop’s recent popularity had promoted a “demand for learning Korean”.
“We are planning Korean-language educational content to improve our accessibility,” the agency said. “We hope that through learning Korean, global fans will be able to deeply empathise with the music of artists and enjoy a wide range of content.”
The first three episodes of Learn Korean with BTS will be released today with plans to release a new video every Monday through the app.
BTS is one of the world’s biggest boy bands, with a huge and devoted fan base. They’ve had a massively successful run in the past couple of years, making history as the first Korean group to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart – not once, but three times.
The seven-member group formed in Seoul in 2013 and broke into the US pop market in 2017, becoming the first Korean group to win a Billboard music award.
