One question,
three apps later

Osam — Seungjong Oh. A Chinese literature graduate of Seoul National University who served as a diplomat at the Korean missions in Beijing and Hong Kong. Someone who used English and Chinese at the sharp end of the job.

And yet he had an ear that would not open. After years posted abroad, English spoken quickly between native speakers was still a blank. That gap became “Daechung English” — do not memorise, do not aim for perfect, open the ear with sound first.

Then, at a lecture five years ago, a student raised a hand and asked:

“Teacher, is there anything wrong with listening to English as MP3?”

He could not answer on the spot. A lifetime in language teaching, and he had never once thought about what the file holding the sound does to learning. It was embarrassing — so he started searching that night.

Hours later he found a science documentary: “The Sound of Life: Analog” (Daegu MBC). The results were startling — after just ten minutes of MP3, students’ reaction speed had slowed by 0.087 seconds. A fetus winced within one second of hearing MP3 music, plants grew less, and growth-hormone readings dropped.

The problem was not the content. It was the container the sound came in.

From that night he dug into sound, hearing and neuroscience. MP3, he learned, permanently cuts the high frequencies to save space — “lossy” sound. WAV keeps the original intact — “lossless”.

As the answers piled up he wrote them down. Last year, “Daechung English” (a five-stage method for opening the ear through sound). This year, “The 30-Day WAV Speed-Listening Miracle” (why lossless is safer for the brain and how hearing gets younger). The method is registered as a patent — a speed-listening-based language learning system.

A reader of “Daechung English” came to see him: a man in his sixties who wanted to learn English. Osam made him lossless WAV Korean speed-listening material, exactly as the book described.

A month later he doubted his own eyes. An ear that first measured at a hearing age in the seventies came back at twenties. The TV volume he used to push to maximum (20) dropped to 7. And his English listening comprehension had roughly doubled. The man who set out to teach English had first witnessed an ear growing younger.

That surprise led to the next step — measure, train, measure again, and see it in numbers.

Five years after finding the problem, he finished the answer this year as three commercial apps. All three run on lossless WAV plus the BrainHZ high-frequency engine.

“Measure → train → measure again”: Sound Power turns one reader’s experience into anyone’s, and Speed Bible comes from wanting the best text delivered in the best possible sound.

Parents today choose organic food for what goes into their children’s mouths. Nobody has yet chosen what goes into their ears. Osam’s next ambition is “organic WAV” — English and Korean materials and picture books in sound that has not been cut or squeezed.

A story that began with a single question became a documentary, two books, one reader’s younger ear, and three apps. What he is really making is one thing: sound that is good for the body — the sound of life.

“When the ear opens, the party starts.” — Osam