Hugh can laugh at his mistakes in English, but even more now that I speak some Korean and my mistakes are way worse than his. Actually if my Korean was a good as his English I would be very happy. If he makes a funny mistake in English he is very quick to point out where my Korean is in comparison to his English. But one day it will be more even!

I’m still curious about this public potato…

So obviously that is not a very serious video! Hugh channeled his inner Korean middle school student for this. We made it because the first time Hugh watched the ‘Hello’ music video he said “I’m fine thank you and you?” to that part of the song. Although it was a joke, it was almost an automatic reaction because of the way this English dialogue is drilled into the heads of students learning English in Korea. In Korean there are set phrases that everyone says, however English is more flexible with those initial greetings and I’ve seen many Koreans quickly falter when faced with native English speakers who vary from the ‘script’. We don’t all say “I’m fine thank you and you?” like that. So this video was a little dig at the way English is taught in Korea and I hope it makes people, especially English teachers here, laugh.

We cut this video down a lot, and we also talked more about BAE and how the meaning has also changed to also just things that we like as well. Like some people say “OMG that cupcake is so bae!”. We also mentioned how the “before anyone else” meaning is probably an origin myth and made up after it was first used. Probably it just came from “baby”.  We have previously talked in a video about what BAE actually means in Korean.

A lot of these words my friends (who are my age) didn’t know at all. The copious amounts of time I spent on the internet are the only reason why I know these.

We had just come back from Seoul when he said this. I was so disappointed that there wasn’t little piggys on the farm. But it’s funny because I start to make mistakes too. After being in Korea for so long, in English I do have problems with some sounds that should be natural for me but are difficult for Koreans. I find it harder to differentiate between B and V now. F and P is still okay for me, but for Hugh, even speaking English every day, it still trips him up.

Click here for HelloTalk website.

If you are needing language exchange partners to chat with, we do recommend this app. We don’t usually do sponsored videos, in fact this is the first time we’ve ever done one, and we only want to to talk about products or services that we really like and would recommend anyway. I hope this app helps some of you with your language learning.

Slang can be totes hard!

Oh second languages… This one came out of nowhere. It took me so long to understand what he meant. But I have noticed how he can get very lazy with his English with me, because I’m his wife. He will have flawless English with other people but when just with me he expects me to decipher his mumbles, and then gets annoyed when I have no idea (some other wives of Korean guys have said the same thing too haha). So for us, it’s not only deciphering the normal male grunts and mumbles, but we have the added difficultly of it being a second language combined with laziness. Oh well, when I speak more Korean I’ll be able to get him back with my mumbling Korean.

That’s his joke at the moment! Most of the English my father-in-law knows he learnt from old pop songs but I’ve noticed his vocabulary has increased recently.

Mr Gwon is having some trouble with the word ‘tadpoles’ again. (Which he thought were called “typos”).

English is really hard and I can see why he thinks this many tadpoles are uncountable. What do you think about his logic? And what about words like “sheep”? If you are learning English do words like that confuse you?

Mr Gwon is judging your accents.

But don’t worry, he has trouble differentiating between British and American accents sometimes so he has no authority on the subject.

Usually Koreans are usually only familiar with the standard American accent that is on TV shows and movies so they can be surprised when they hear an accent different to that. It’s also the same with British accents, there are many they have never heard before. YouTube videos showcase a much bigger range of real accents because it’s more likely to be real people talking.