Q&A: New site name

Jeannie asked: Omg why did you change your URL?

Astute readers of this blog might’ve noticed that my URL is no longer https://shiningkorean.wordpress.com – gasp!

Five years ago when I first created this blog on WordPress, I decided to go with my favorite Korean word (at the time) as its site name/URL. I was one year into learning Korean and was fascinated with mimetic adverbs (의성어/의태어 like 두근두근, 찰찰, 말랑말랑, 졸졸, etc.). For some reason, I really liked the word 반짝반짝; there was also the small matter of 반짝반짝 also being the title of an old Big Bang song that I liked. Heh.

At the time, I didn’t really think about the URL from the perspective of the blog’s future readers. I didn’t consider whether the name/URL would difficult for people to remember or if people would have a hard time Googling the blog’s name in Korean or whether it would just be off-putting or unapproachable to have a non-English site name. Thinking about it now, I realized people can’t even really tell that this is a blog about language from just the URL. Despite the name, which I think may have harmed rather than helped grow my audience, I’ve managed to build up a small readership over the years.

Recently, though, I’ve had more and more people ask for a link to my language blog and they’re puzzled when I tell them the URL. If they don’t already know a bit of Korean, the URL is hard to remember, sounds kind of clunky. Plus I usually have to give some kind of explanation as why I went with it, which became kind of annoying to do over and over again.

That’s why I decided to change my blog URL to a loose English translation of 반짝반짝 한국어. The domain name was super cheap too. Never fear – the old URL still maps to shiningkorean.com and if I decide to give this new one up, I’ll still have shiningkorean.wordpress.com, so no big concerns there.

Things have generally been looking up in terms of how I’m feeling about Korean lately. I’m starting to redefine where Korean falls in my list of priorities in life and what it means to be successful in a language. That’s taken a lot of pressure off me. I started listening to Korean music again and I’m still sufficiently entertained by 마녀보감. I’m reading again too! In a way, buying a shiny new domain name for this blog feels like turning over a new leaf… I’m a lot more motivated than I was a few months ago.

I’d love to know if any of you out there have a favorite Korean word. What is it, and why? Let me know in the comments.