At the age of 13, SMU graduand Lin Ruiqi started self-studying Korean due to her enthusiasm for Korean pop culture. This sparked a passion for language learning, and she has since learnt eight languages and dialects, including English, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Hokkien, Indonesian, Spanish, and French. Ruiqi, who is working in the civil service, said that her initial motivation to learn Korean stemmed from her love for the Korean boy band Super Junior and her desire to understand K-pop (Korean pop culture) and its lyrics. Ruiqi recently graduated from SMU and was awarded the 2024 Mustafa Izzuddin Outstanding Social Science Graduate Prize for her excellent academic performance and conduct.
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Lianhe Zaobao
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