My full name is Won Chang.

Won Chang, could you spell that for me, please?

Yes, W-O-N and C-H-A-N-G.

Okay, very good. And could you tell me, do you like your name?

Do I like my name? Yes, I do, because usually most people have three syllables in their Korean names.

For example, the most common Korean name that I can think of on the spot right now would be 김치훈, which would be three syllables, but mine is two, which kind of makes me feel special.

So I like my name.

Okay, very good. And are you a student right now or are you working?

Right now I am a student, but I am not going to school right now because I'm on leave.

And as of now, I'm in Korea.

Okay, and could you tell me about your major?

My major is business management, and I'm studying in King's College London right now.

And, yeah, I mean, it's definitely not a major that I wanted to pick, but I thought that, because back at the moment when I was choosing my major, I guess I didn't really have a lot of choices because I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

And my parents told me that business is kind of like the go-to major if you don't really know what you want to do.

So that's why I chose it.

Okay, very good. And what do you like to do when you have some free time?

My free time? I got a couple of things on my list.

Well, usually I think I spend most of my time on YouTube watching all these videos.

I watch a lot of League of Legends videos because it's my favorite game.

And also I'm really into music and movies, so I watch a lot of movie review or critic videos and stuff like that.

Very good. Now we're going to talk about the area you live in.

The area I live in.

Yeah, so do you like the area you live in?

Like areas in a city or a specific part?

Well, maybe more like your neighborhood.

My neighborhood?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do like my neighborhood because, well, on the broader aspect, I live in Seoul in terms of which city I live in.

But within Seoul, I live in this area called Gubanpo.

And as a lot of people know, Seoul is a super populated area.

I'd even say overpopulated considering how small the city is.

And despite the fact that Seoul is such a crowded city, my neighborhood is really quiet.

And I don't even want to say that it's populated that much.

It's very quiet, not a lot of, I'd say, noises.

And the greatest part of my neighborhood is that you can find pretty much everything, like every other block.

Like say, for example, if you want to buy like a video game, like a game CD or like a game pack, you'd have to go to like a special neighborhood.

Like you don't find that every neighborhood, but we have that.

We have a lot of cool restaurants.

We even have elementary school, middle school, high school, a lot of institutions for, you know, like private education.

Okay, good. And have there been any changes to your area recently?

Recently? Recently, I don't think so, but I've lived in my neighborhood for almost 20 years.

And probably the biggest change that, the most noticeable change that happened was that about like 10 years ago, we had this, we had a new subway station installed in our neighborhood.

The closest one before that was probably about like a mile away.

But now we have a subway station like, like 300 meters from my house.

So that's super convenient.

Another change was that we used to have like a huge department store, but now it's like a, it's like a wedding convention.

So that's one downside.

I think that's about it because, yeah, it's a, it's a small neighborhood and it's not even like a, like a transportation hub.

So not a lot of people come.

So you can't really find a lot of, a lot of big changes, but I guess those would be the biggest two.

Okay, perfect. Right. That'll do us for the first part of the test.

We'll go on to part two now.

Okay.

I'll just give you that.

All right.

I'll give you a pen there.

So now I'll give you one minute to read the question and you can make some notes as well.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, you can begin there now, anytime.

I think that's your minute there now.

Yeah.

Some notes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Describe an occasion when the weather stopped you from doing something.

Okay.

So I'm going to talk about this, this time when the, when there was a huge typhoon that hit, that struck Korea.

I think it was two years ago.

That was back when I was in the military.

So I think it was my third month as, or actually like the second or first month as a corporal.

And I was supposed to go on leave for vacation.

And I don't remember the exact date, but I know that it was Monday.

I was supposed to leave on Monday, but the weather forecast, the media was talking all about this huge typhoon that's going to strike Korea that week.

And our commander decided to not let, to ban the soldiers from going on leave.

And an occasion where there's like a weather or like a disaster forecast, we're not allowed to leave base because we have to maintain a certain amount of force.

So all the soldiers were devastated, including me, because all we wait about and all we care about is vacations, to be honest with you.

And so I was supposed to leave on Monday, but I was banned to leave.

And we were either going to be let go the day after, depending on how the weather goes.

And on Monday, all my mates at the base, all we could possibly do was just desperately pray for the weather to get better and for our commander to make the optimal decision.

And the next day, thankfully, the weather got better and the commander let us all go and we were all able to go on vacation.

Okay, cool. That's two minutes now. All right. All right. So you're all able to go in the end?

In the end, yeah, it was a happy ending.

Very good. And was it common for the weather to affect like proceedings in the military?

Usually when it's not as that bad, they would just let you go if it's just like a slight breeze or a small rain.

But this one, when the whole country is talking about this typhoon, it's considered a natural disaster, right?

So in a case like that, they'd have to go through a lot of, I don't know, discussions on the high board.

And after that, they decide whether to let us go or not. So that would be like a very, very special occasion.

Okay, glad it worked out. Right. So we're going to the third part of the test now. Okay, so we'll keep going.

All right. Yeah. So do you think the weather has much impact on people's daily activities?

Daily activities? Yeah, definitely. Because we have these, I don't know what the exact term is called in English, but I'm just going to say micro dust because that would be the literal translation.

Actually, every like this time of the year, every year, we have a lot of micro dust that comes sweeped in from China.

And as of now, the coronavirus is on the main issue.

But usually during this time of the year, the weather forecast always talks about how bad the micro dust is.

And I think that definitely affects people's daily lives because around this time of the year, especially like during spring, people would like to go out to the park and have a picnic with their families.

And it's always after winter. So people are so wanting, so desiring to go out and have some time with their beloved ones. Right.

But like the micro dust, if there is micro dust present outside, people would probably want to stay in instead of going outside.

Okay. And do you think people in your country talk about the weather a lot?

Talk about the weather a lot? Yeah, I think we do.

As I previously mentioned, right now, coronavirus is kind of like the main thing that's keeping people inside.

But if it wasn't that, I think that, yeah, we always talk about how bad the weather is.

And that would definitely affect our decisions on whether we should go out tonight or today or should we go out the next week.

Okay. And do you think has the weather in your country changed a lot in recent years?

In recent years, I think it definitely did. I think that I'm not really into climate change or the environment, but I could definitely physically feel that the temperature has changed, especially this winter.

I don't think it was, I think it was possibly one of the warmest winters that I've ever experienced in my 25 years of life.

So, yeah, I think global warming is real. It's like an imminent thing that we're facing.

And I don't think I could possibly recall the last time it snowed a lot.

I think it snowed like twice this winter and it wasn't even that much.

Right, right. Good, good. And yeah, do you think the weather has much of an effect on tourism?

Not just in Korea, but in general, does it affect tourism?

Well, yeah, definitely. I think it does. I'm going to give you a personal example if I can.

The last time I went to the Philippines, it was last year, September, and it was during Chuseok, which is like a Korean Thanksgiving.

And it was a long weekend. It was a long holiday. So our family decided to go to the Philippines and spend some vacation there.

And we chose the worst timing to go traveling because during that time, it was when the Philippines were experiencing a typhoon.

I have a lot of bad experiences with typhoons. And this one time we got stuck on an island because the boats can't go back to the main island.

So stuff like that. If there's a disastrous weather, I don't think people aren't going to go there as much as they usually do.

Okay, good. And could you tell me what jobs do you think are affected by weather conditions?

The one thing that I could think of on the spot would be construction site workers because they work outdoors.

And let's say that if it's raining, then it increases the risk. There's more hazard in their working site because it's slippery and higher percentage of getting an injury.

So I think that the weather would affect people that work outdoors mainly.

All right. So yeah, let's start with the feedback. Obviously, really good tests. I'd say your score would be about an 8.5 today.

Some parts, you actually speak better than me. Your pronunciation is perfect. I think your pronunciation puts my pronunciation to shame.

Yeah, pronunciation is very high. Also, vocabulary, you've got good range. You're showing good idiomatic expressions.

You're saying like, it's my on the spot, my go-to major, transportation hub. These are good to put in your test. Give your score a bit of strength in the vocabulary part of it.

Fluency, yeah, also very strong. Some instances of hesitation, maybe that would pull you down slightly towards that. But again, very high level of fluency.

Grammar-wise then, again, the mistakes are minor. The mistakes are small. Let's just have a look at a couple of them.

When you talked about your neighborhood, you said maybe one thing you didn't possibly like were some noises in the area.

I'd probably just say noise instead of noises, like collectively. Noises, if you put it plural, it's more like one noise and two noises.

Yeah, that didn't really make sense.

That's a small one, that's a small error. Also, when we talk about the subway station, you used the verb, you said the subway station was installed.

I would say, it's better to say opened when you talk about an establishment or transportation. I would say like it opened, the restaurant opened, the subway station opened, new complex opened.

Installed sounds a little bit more like something inside a building, like the air conditioning was installed or some sort of appliance was installed.

Come to think about it, yeah.

Yeah, these are small issues. Okay. I was, one thing, a couple of small prepositions. You said I was banned to leave. I would say banned, always comes banned from.

From.

From, I-N-G.

Yeah.

Banned from leaving.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Banned from, I-N-G, always the way it is. Other small thing, one question I asked, I said like has it changed? And you said it did, should be it has.

It has.

Has it changed? Yeah, it has. Has it done this? So these are like a few small errors with the grammar, but all in all, nothing really much to worry about.

Okay.

Or I think, you know, anyone speaking a second language for 15 minutes, you have to make a few errors, you know, so that's nothing to worry about, but yeah, really good score, really good test.

Thanks for taking part.

Thank you for the feedback.

Yeah, cheers.