Korean
Is Korean becoming Tonal?
Play videoA video explaining Korean might be undergoing a tonal genesis. The video cites a paper that studies the decrease in difference between plain and aspirated consonants and increase in tonal distinction of vowels in Korean amongst young speaker.
Jeju Regional Account
Play videoJeju, as an island separated from the mainland of Korea, has developed both a strong regional accent and dialect overtime. Older speakers tend to retain strong manifestations of both even in the modern day. This video is an example of a Korean elder speaking; you can see in the comments, however, and in the video itself, that modern day non-Jeju speakers have difficulty understanding her speech, even going as far as to compare it to English instead of Korean.
Tongue Twister Bahasa Indonesia
Play videoAn Indonesian member of the K-pop group Xodiac introduces his bandmates to an Indonesian tongue twister, who then attempt to pronounce it. The video markets their new release to Indonesian K-pop fans. While the members speak Korean, English subtitles are hardcoded into the video.
IndoMY Tweet
This tweet is an example of the kind of translanguaging that takes place in the Indonesian K-Pop fan community on Twitter, seamlessly using resources from Indonesian and English (at different levels of incorporation, see "real life" vs "psikologi", assumingly an Indonesian phonetic respelling of "psychology") along with K-Pop in-group terms ("IndoMY" is a collective term for the fans of K-Pop group BTS in Indonesia, a fusion of the collective term for BTS fans globally, "ARMY" and "Indonesia", also a reference to a popular Indonesian instant noodle brand) and emojis (the purple heart is a reference to "borahae", a Korean term coined by the K-Pop group BTS literally meaning "I purple you", meaning "I'll love you to the end of the rainbow (purple)"), which is used to create transnational identifications, using the transcendence of language boundaries to transcend binaries of global and local and create multilayered community connections. Citation: Nurenzia Yannuar and Nazarudin, 2024. Between Oppa and Borahae, Language and Identity among Indonesian K-Pop Fans. [Published on 02-06-2025]
How to Say 'Wife' in Korean - Many Ways
Koreans are increasingly using the English loanword 'wife', due to it lacking many of the social and cultural connotations that are encoded in its native Korean counterparts. This blog post by Dom & Hyo provides brief breakdown of several Korean terms for 'wife'. As women's status in Korean society has evolved, the younger generations are moving away from some older and more formal Korean terms, including one that literally translates to "home person" or "person that stays at home".
Code switching
Play videoThis is a video showing a young boy and his sister speaking to each other in Korean. Their father asks the boy some questions in English, and the boy responds to him in English. This is a perfect example of code-switching between the English and Korean languages.
Dave/Erina trying Super Spicy Yeobki Tteokbokki
Play videoIn this video Dave (the man) and Erina (the woman) are trying a super spicy Korean rice cake dish. In the video both are using Korean, neither being their native languages, but through the experience of eating the food we see an instance of code-switching from both parties due to the spiciness; Erina to Japanese, and Dave to English.
Differences between English, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese
Play videoThe four speakers compare word pronunciations across languages with the general discourse held in Korean. Terms involving English morph to and from other languages depending on phonetic inventories. Also, note that the social practice of taboo words in Korean carries over when other languages a have a taboo Korean word in the comparisons leading to a humorous moment.
Code Switching
Play videoThis video talks about code switching, which means people sometimes use more than one language in a conversation. I found it very interesting, because I usually do code switching. I speak Chinese to my friend, and speak English to my professors. In this video, it introduces us why people would use more than one language or dialect in a conversation. Sometimes people act different around different people, such as we always use formal English to talk to teachers, but we will use causal or personalized English to talk to our friends. Also, when people are sharing a secret, they are more likely to use a different language, because they don't want the people around them to understand it.
Keith Ape - 잊지마 (It G Ma) (feat. JayAllDay, Loota, Okasian & Kohh)
Play videoMusic video depicting East Asian (Korean and Japanese) rappers using AAVE. This video was highly controversial because many felt the rappers were appropriating black culture, especially since the song itself was based off of an African American hip-hop song ("U Guessed It" by OG Maco).