BTS reaction: who pronounces English lyrics the best?

I've been asked to comment on the pronunciation of English lyrics by the world famous Korean boy band. 방탄소년단의 영어 가사 발음에 대해 댓글을 달아달라는 요청을 받았습니다.
Ed Sheeran photo by Harald Krichel
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
V, Korean audio clip by glamstar77
forvo.com/word/v/
All rights belong to Bighit Entertainment.
NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.
Suggested by HYBE Co., Ltd.

[@maxman2613]

The implied "you can't stop me rubbin' myself" made me laugh out loud

[@NithinJune]

😂😂

[@advaysri2006]

Explanation?

[@maxman2613]

@@advaysri2006 4:31

[@PC_Simo]

@@advaysri2006 Supposing you asked for an explanation, and not a timestamp: ”Rubbing” tends to have sexual connotations.

[@Zzyzzyx]

RM's American-accented English is heavily Texas-sounding. It's both admirable and odd.

[@sir_aken9706]

As someone from Texas, I picked up on it immediately and it was so strange to hear. He did slip out of the accent on the word "important" though.

[@Zzyzzyx]

@@sir_aken9706 I noticed the "important" too! It was a very native-sounding, yet nonstandard pronunciation. It really stuck out. Recently I got a phone message from a scammer in India. He still had a bit of an Indian accent, but it was heavily disguised as Texan. I was so impressed! - and also amused / bemused, as here. It's interesting that some people learning English are using such a distinctly regional accent instead of just the English of television.

[@Scipio488]

What's actually happening is that his vowel/diphthong pronunciation is being influenced by his native language and you're interpreting that as "Texan".

[@sir_aken9706]

@@Scipio488 is that really the case? What about the Korean language would make English pronunciation sound “Texan”? I’ve never heard a Korean speaking English with a Southern Accent :D

[@Zzyzzyx]

@@Scipio488 Nope. No English-speaking Korean I've ever heard sounds like that.

[@MooImABunny]

I'm not a K-pop fan but it was delightful to see how respectful you are towards BTS, not trying to "tear down their horrible English" but gently pointing out features and acknowledging how difficult what they do is, giving praise.

[@jonathanwadman3699]

I notice distinct discrepancies between the audio and video in some cases, e.g. 'lovin''/'lubbin'' - I hear a v even though Jimin definitely appears to be making a b. Presumably the group can pay more attention to the pronunciation in the recording studio, when they can concentrate on the vocals, whereas when they're making the video they have so much to do besides lip-synching. So I wonder if by watching the videos we might sometimes misperceive what they're actually singing.

[@jergarmar]

I went back to the v-b section, and in the context of a heavily-punctuated line like "you can't stop me lovin' myself", it sounds pretty good, and in fact could easily be an emphasized v-sound in american music lyrics, hip-hop in particular. But then the "disco overload" line does sound more like "oberload", and the slowed-down audio shows that pretty well. Good catch!

[@Raisinininin]

I actually heard luppin 😂

[@madelynmorgan2999]

yes i heard luffing! i think korean voice onset timing is longer than english, i often hear consonants as voiceless when the speaker is intending them to be voiced

[@scottishwildcat]

This is known as the McGurk Effect… hearing different things depending on the visual cues you’re receiving. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect

[@Raisinininin]

@@scottishwildcat thanks I’ll make sure to read that later ☺️

[@bedohy]

Thank you for your amazing video, Dr. Lindsey! I'm a native Korean speaker who's very interested in phonology, and I have to say your aspirated S sound is just spot on. I've seen many foreigners getting confused over this distintion between the aspirated (ㅅ) and the unaspirated (ㅆ) S sound in Korean.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thank you for you kind words! I'm very relieved that my pronunciation was good enough.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

So, is koreans "tensed/untensed" distinction really "unaspirsted/aspirsted"?

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

@@weirdlanguageguy No, Korean is described as having plain, aspirated AND tense, so tense is in contrast with both unaspirated and aspirated.

[@ShaharHarshuv]

I'm constantly amazed by how well Lindsey pronounces sounds from seemingly every language. He's truly in expert not only in theory but also in practice.

[@TerezatheTeacher]

Thank you! Fascinating stuff. Our deputy head told me I "seemed to be putting a lot of effort into making my students pronounce English well", and "is it really a priority in our school?" after he sneaked into my online class on "can - can't" where I did indeed put a lot of effort into making my students pronounce "can't" correctly. Half of the class kept pronouncing it as "c*nt" ("I c*nt swim.") and it would be kinda evil to let them say that all the time without knowing what they were saying 🤣

[@TerezatheTeacher]

I don't care if they sound American or Southern British but I can't let them make fools of themselves. Many Czechs also have a "mouse" full of "teats" on their face (to eat with!), blue/brown "ice" (to look with) and "twenty fingers" (toes don't get a special word in Czech). They might also have pets, such as a dock, a beard or a ket (cat).

[@ifeeltiredsleepy]

@@TerezatheTeacher When I was teaching in Malaysia I would always be amused by children forgetting that English uses separate words for feet and legs, they always called their feet legs.

[@icedirt9658]

I c*n’t believe how funny that is

[@catbeara]

@@ifeeltiredsleepy Irish is the same. And only one word for hands and arms as well. :)

[@Zzyzzyx]

@@catbeara How interesting! What would they say in Irish to distinguish, say, upper arm from forearm from hand?

[@EchoHeo]

Korean /w/ isn't actually unrounded, The difference between it and the english /w/ is that 1. it's not strictly velarized, 2. it is prone to being dropped before consonants. The korean /w/ is better analyzed as a medial that can go between the nucleus and the initial consonant rather than a consonant like other korean consonants. In slow speech they tend to simply labialize the consonants and in fast speech they are often dropped. I believe what you're seeing here is /w/ dropping instead of unrounding. Another thing is that /w/ can only occur before certain vowels, but it is not relevant to the video. Koreans have difficulty with pronouncing english words like "year" and "woman", because to them they are identical to "ear" and "*ooman".

[@rosiefay7283]

If, to a Korean, "woman" sounds like "ooman", then are the English spellings Daewoo and won (as in the Korean currency) inaccurate,then?

[@Leaving999]

@@rosiefay7283 'won' as in the currency is correct, but daewoo sounds more like 'dae-oo'. As Echo said /w/ can only occur before certain vowels, so won, way, and wah, but no woo. I've noticed this with a Korean Athlete (tennis) who's name is spelled in English as Kwon Soon-woo, but in Korean it's more like Kwon Soo-noo. The /w/ in Kwon is pronounced, but not in Soon-woo.

[@EchoHeo]

@@rosiefay7283 Daewoo is /tɛu/, or in RR dae-u. the w is inserted there to provide a syllable break for anglophones who struggle with pronouncing consecutive vowels. Won is actually /wʌn/ where the vowel /ʌ/ is usually transcribed as eo. RR has a special rule for /wʌ/ where it transcribes it as wo instead of *weo because /wo/ does not exist anyway

[@mrstaemin7958]

Does this explain the "oolf" in EXO's "Wolf"?

[@EchoHeo]

@@mrstaemin7958 yes

[@nevaladder]

6:10 You're a few years too late, Dr. Lindsey. One of the members, j-hope, has a great solo song called "Piece of Peace" in 2018. Really unfortunate because the message is so wonderful. It goes: _If I (could be)_ _Someone's strength_ _Someone's light_ _I wish I could be_ _A piece of peace_ Much as I love the song, on cold, stormy nights, a little voice whispers in my ear, "I wish I... could be a p🙈ss of p🙈ss."

[@caroleg6223]

I am just so impressed that these young men speak so many languages, and sing in english too.

[@-homerow-]

I consider "Kpop English" to be it's own pronunciation much like American English vs English English or Australian English. The same can be said of any other combination. I think the wide diversity in how it is spoken as a second language is part of what makes English so wonderful.

[@Asidders]

The crossover I didn't know I needed 😂 Thanks dr. Lindsey!

[@MekuChanAnime]

I'd like to hear an analysis like this for people whose first language is spanish, specially someone with a thick latin accent like Sofia Vergara. Contrasting the rhythm in spanish and english is one of the reasons I almost failed my phonetic class, so it would help to know how to improve that 😂

[@NerlenDept]

Every time someone says that pronunciation is not important, I often quote your note on your blog about Polina Gagarina having sung 'praying for p*ss' instead of 'praying for peace' in her 'A Million Voices' in Eurovision and give them to listen to it. Works well on such objectors, thank you! By the by, here is an idea: how about a video called something like 'Top 10 most embarrassing pronunciational mistakes of non-native speakers of English in public', if you already have more such examples in mind? Would be hilarious and beneficial for learners, I suppose. :)

[@annasamek5179]

That would be really mean...

[@jeonghoko5545]

2:29 The audio clip is actually saying [pɯi] (브이), which is how "V" is pronounced in Korean most of the time. 뷔 is quite an unusual Koreanization, which might be a stylistic choice or something.

[@louisrobertbrown]

I've thought the same about 뷔, but I also wonder if there is a viable alternative within korean phonology that can substitute English 'vee' without sounding the same as 'bee'...

[@jeonghoko5545]

@@louisrobertbrown Other than 브이 and 뷔, there isn't

[@unarmed_civilian]

븨

[@ErinaBee.sMoney]

@@louisrobertbrown "bee", like the insect that makes honey?

[@louisrobertbrown]

One thing I've noticed from living with korean English speakers is the liaison sometimes used when an English word with a bilabial end consonant is followed by another word beginning with a bilabial. For example, 'stop me' sounds more like 'stom-me' (you can't stom-me lobing myself). I've even heard similar modifications happening with different consonant clusters between words, e.g. 'pick me up' sounding more like 'ping me up'. Isolated, 'stop' or 'pick' might be rendered as 'sutopeu' or 'pickeu'.

[@Treepwastaken]

I also always hear "ping me up". In Twice's "Cheer up" I always hear "shut up", or rather "shu' up". Maybe that's similar to the chip - cheap thing plus the r getting lost on the way?

[@louisrobertbrown]

@@Treepwastaken interesting example. I just listened to the song and it sounds like 'chutup' (or chudup from my British perspective). I'd expect a 'standard' Korean English pronunciation of 'cheer up' to sound more like 'chee-eop' with the dipthong of 'chee'uhr' being rendered as 'chee' (this rendering of dipthongs as a single approximant vowel is one I hear a lot in korean English), plus the 'missing' 'r' as you rightly point out. The choice of the schwa in Twice's song is one I don't quite understand linguistically.

[@jeonghoko5545]

@@louisrobertbrown They were more likely to be going for 'chee-eo-reop'. The reason we hear 'shut up' is that the R is pronounced in the Korean/Japanese way, and the vowel of 'chee' is deleted. (As a Korean speaker, I find it difficult NOT to drop this vowel in this phonological context)

[@user-fw9qp5hx2g]

@@Treepwastaken that's totally possible, because in Korean, a word that ends with g followed by a word that starts with a nasal sound m/n/ng makes the sound in between become an ng sound. For example 먹는 것 is actually pronounced 멍는 것 or 작년 is pronounced as 장년

[@summerstar143]

I really enjoyed this video!!! I’ve been listening to Kpop since 2010 and pronunciation has always been a topic in and of itself. Interesting that the song writers would use so many words that are difficult for Korean speakers.

[@susansato4751]

That's because the English speaking song writers don't know enough about Korean to have any idea what words would be easy or difficult. They need to watch these videos! 😀

[@ibrahimbeats]

as someone who listens to a lot of Korean music, this is a topic I've really been wanting to hear some analysis of, especially with more and more groups releasing English songs.

[@Naademai]

I’m a bit late to this video but I really love this, there were quite a few that passed under my radar. I’d love to see more videos about non English speakers singing in English such as ABBA

[@chiaracelata2264]

Dear dr. Lindsay, my daughter who loves BTS and K-dramas would like to ask you the following question: Why do some Korean speakers look like having difficulties saying intervocalic [f] such as in "coffee"? To our Italian ears their pronunciation often sounds like "coppee" instead. Thank you!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

That's right, Korean lacks both /v/ and /f/. The nearest sounds in Korean are /b/ and /p/, so Koreans typically use these in borrowed words. The Korean for "coffee" is 커피, "keopi". Listen to the audio here: translate.google.com/?sl=it&tl=ko&text=caff%C3%A8&op=translate

[@womtv69]

It is, however, interesting to note that the Korean /h/ ㅎ phoneme tends to have an allophone before rounded high vowels of a voiceless bilabial fricative which is closer to [f]. From what I know, however, using aspirated [p] is usually more common for the [f] sound.

[@ikemyung8623]

Wow....such an interesting video and what an academic (in some cases) discussion in the comments! I lived and taught English in Korea (Seoul for 11 years) so got an earful of how Koreans tend to pronounce English. It is important to note that there is neither a V nor an F in Korean, so it is extremely interesting what happens with those sounds. You mention the V in this video, but I suggest you look at the F at some point---and I will give you just two words to get you started: "Fighting" and "Fork". The Korean sound system really is fascinating. Here, you have focused on the consonants that Korean "lacks". However, the uniformed might not realize that Korean is actually very rich in consonants, having lots of "extras" which English lacks. I love your videos and always learn so much! Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into them!!!!

[@santiagobolanos7040]

Dr. Lindsey, thank you for doing this kind of speech analysis it is so nice, I admire your work and I learn a lot with your videos

[@carolina6683]

Fascinating! I've never heard of them - as the kind of music that I like was produced 200 years earlier - but thanks, Dr Geoff, I was riveted!

[@franticranter]

Interesting example of the McGurk effect, as with the Vs being pronounced as Bs, given that I expected them to be V sounds I heard them as such (until I imagined them as B sounds)

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Yes, without the videos I wouldn't have noticed. I'm not trying to be critical of course, but using the songs to illustrate a few phonological differences. (To be pedantic, I think the McGurk effect is where you perceive something that's in neither the audio nor the video.)

[@nattenorio532]

The having a song with the word peace in it comment made me laugh because j-hope actually does have a song called “P.O.P (Piece of Peace)” .

[@susansato4751]

If you watch J-Hope's Lollapalooza performance you can see “P.O.P (Piece of Peace)” where his pronunciation of that phrase is a bit hit or miss. You can also see "Safety Zone" off his new album. The word "zone" is very tricky for him. It sounds more like "join". I know Korean doesn't have a Z consonant, and I guess the closest to it is J, but the word still seems to come out sounding like 'join' rather than 'joan'. But none of that matters, as you can see in the video; ARMY loves him no matter what.

[@nick3805]

It's interesting to see how different we would describe the pronounciation. I would say Jimin is pronouncing 'loving' with an 'f' and with 'cheap' and 'chip' I very clearly hear the difference, but that might be because the short 'i' I know sounds slightly different.

[@byusaranicole]

Korean also doesn't have an F sound....

[@blockpart2184]

So much detail! I love it, you did so much research

[@Riyoshi000]

4:31 Brilliant 😂😂😂 I wish he made that mistake Your channel is awesome Dr George! Keep it up!

[@szyszkienty]

Amazing video as always -- both educational and extremely entertaining. I was wondering if you could make a video on the phonetic peculiarities of Poles speaking English. I'd love to see your take on this topic.

[@e79905]

Thanks for the video. Loved the dancing at the end!

[@lacsinnacoffe3441]

Wow! I just learnt that the english /w/ is actually rounded-I'm very thankful for that :)

[@alangriffin8146]

RM sounds like his vocal donor for his English dialect is Brad Pitt! I love it! I was not expecting that.

[@L-mo]

you can’t stop me rubbing myself 😂

[@lennih]

Loved the video. Unlike Japanese, traditional descriptions of Korean say that [ɾ] and [l] are allophones of the same phoneme in complementary distribution: [ɾ] in the syllable onset and [l] in the syllable coda. Which is why 'Korea' was transliterated from 고려 ('Goryeo'), and Seoul is written as 서울, and in both words we can see the symbol ㄹ representing the phoneme /ɾ ~ l/, but it was transliterated by Europeans with two different letters. So in principle, 'running man' should have [ɾ], and the tongue movement may correspond to a tap. Who knows, really. Next time you can react to xooos's viral videos :) In her Light Switch cover, 'lovers' sounds like 'libers' to me.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks. The point is that the initial sounds of "looking" and "running" have been given obviously *different* articulations here. The latter looks like a lateral to me, and can't possibly be the same as occurs at the start of "looking" in the UN clip.

[@lennih]

@@DrGeoffLindsey Ok, I'm not sure I follow. But in any case, the more comments, the more it helps with youtube algorithms.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

@@lennih Then I need to make a lot more mistakes! Thanks!

[@lennih]

@@DrGeoffLindsey #McGurkEffect

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Just got round to checking out xooos doing Light Switch. Thanks for the suggestion. I hear 'lovers' as 'lubbers'. I don't think you're mistaken, but she's using a frontish schwa that sounds totally native to me in the AmE accent she's using. My guess is that your ear is 'expecting' STRUT to be a more open/back RP/SSB type vowel. I'm making a video on STRUT at the moment...

[@ezb6798]

I have had many discussions with friends who are native speakers of Spanish and Greek about the challenges of short and long vowels in English. I find that in many cases, they simply can’t make the differentiation between the English long and short E sounds, so they use their own language’s I vowel, which sounds in-between to my ear. And then for some reason, if I don’t listen very carefully, I hear the opposite of what they intend, which creates embarrassing or funny moments with words like beach, sheet, and peace.

[@rosiefay7283]

Is it distinguishing by *length* that challenges them, or is it distinguishing the large number of different English vowels?

[@ezb6798]

@@rosiefay7283 I’m probably using the wrong terminology. The confusion I am referring to is between the vowels in “feet” and “fit.” But yes, English has many more different vowel sounds than their native languages, and the vowels sound quite different in different native accents, all of which create difficulties for my non-native-speaker friends.

[@RaphiSpoerri-cq4rm]

I’ve noticed: - 1:25 “so watch” sounds like “soach” - 2:57 “the wait is over” sounds like “issover”, with a voiceless “s” - 3:35 sounds like “les break ipplantz ‘n leave jus like iggolden” - 4:04 sounds like “no rooking beck” - 5:15 sounds like “hay like the moon brock with me baby”

[@leovalenzuela8368]

Brilliant analysis.

[@free_soul1111]

You analyzed it really well sir.. JK does it well and V still has MT influence. ❤

[@m.p.6039]

Your channel is amazing, thank you

[@martinlyhagen6166]

This is a common thing in Chinese restaurants in Sweden. Swedish word for rice is "RIS"... (You have to google the pronunciation - okej, the google lady can't pronounce it either) but Chinese people can't say R in the way swedes do so the pronounce it "LIS".

[@masterman1001]

As a non-native english speaker (swiss german native speaker), "cheap" also does sound like a stretched out "chip" to my ears. I did invest a lot of time into listening as many accents as possible in english, however, and have been doing so for 24 years now, which is probably why I have less of a hard time hearing these differences, as opposed to my girlfriend who, as an italian native speaker often has issues pronouncing ship/sheep or dip/deep, etc. according to her, she does not easily hear a difference between the two. To be fair to her, coming from a romance language learning a germanic language, hearing differences might be a fair bit more difficult and require extensive training and not just passive listening. Additionally one must mention that swiss german dialects seem far closer to english than, say, standard german and its varieties, as our alemannic dialects are older and haven't changed as much as the german language did. Such a thing is noticeable when comparing syntax (although our syntax is now more closely resembling that of standard german) or some words, such as "cheese" (chääs in central swiss dialects, käse in german), where we retained the CH and did not lose it in favor of K.

[@aubreywang3937]

The Korean language has unreleased final consonants /-p, -t, -k/ just like many southern and certain northern Chinese languages, maybe that's why they adopted the glottal stop for "night/alight" in the song (?

[@gudrun5531]

One question I have is that many of the Korean variety shows have games relating to Korean language such as pronouncing things correctly, shouting out words with a certain number of syllables, and other puns relating to numbers of characters that I just can't imagine english speakers being able to do in English at the same speed. I would need to pause and count the number of syllables for each word, but for these Korean games it seems like the speakers innately must know how many characters or syllables words have. do you know if Korean language does require this knowledge of the language from native speakers that English doesn't require? Korean show Knowing Brothers (ask me anything) often has games like this.

[@BearBettermentSchool]

Korean is written syllable by syllable. All syllables have two to three characters. All written syllables start with a consonant, but there is a symbol for a silent consonant. If a syllable has three characters, the last one is a consonant. To know where to start writing the first character in a syllable (and how big to make it), you need to know what vowel will follow it and possibly whether there will be a third character. When English speakers create an acrostic poem, they do it letter by letter. Koreans do them syllable by syllable. Koreans just think of syllables in a way English speakers are not used to.

[@gudrun5531]

@@BearBettermentSchool Thanks for answering in detail! It seems my intuition was right. very interesting!

[@junsui100percent]

super interesting. i've been a fan of them and kpop in general for a long time, and one thing that still puzzles me is that i see some koreans pronounce the "p" in words like "party" or "hope" as a kind of "f" sound. the words end up sounding like "farty" and "hof". which i found very curious, since korean does in fact have "p" and "b" sounds. so what is it about these english words that causes this

[@JCChoi-tx2pt]

Korean doesn't have the 'f' sound, and some people mistakenly uses 'f' when they should be using 'p' to pronounce 'ㅍ'. Maybe that's why they are confusing them.

[@michiganabigail]

I would love to hear what I should focus on pronouncing correctly if I were to learn Korean or Japanese or Mandarin or anything like that!

[@gerardacronin334]

Fascinating video, and well done to BTS! I would be very interested to see a similar analysis of the wonderful Korean acapella group, Maytree. Only one of their five members, Kang Soo-kyung, alto, is fluent or near fluent in English.

[@dothedo3667]

I think half of these are totally fine. It definitely seems like the audio sounds right in most of them and it's just the videos that influence what you're thinking/hearing, which is fair, there's a lot of other stuff that has to take their focus when filming vs just recording. Anyway, I didn't know half these songs were theirs, haha. Quite unexpected for some of them.

[@chocolatebeforebed]

Cannot believe you do BTS! 🎉😂

[@binimbap]

4:00 "faze" exemplifies a good one, korean doesn't have a z sound, and it's more like a middle way between z and j, often romanized as j

[@vladimirbaloyan440]

The writers don't seem to have made ... It seems (not "doesn't seem" ) the writers haven't made .... So structure is different but the main meaning is the same.. That's what English looks and sounds like

[@12Trappor]

A suggestion for an interesting topic: have a go at analysing and explaining some of the conventions and choices made in classical music when singing English. For instance, something like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hmKmdnaEdtlrepo which is Bryn Terfel singing Vaughan-Williams. Why does he roll his R's? Why is the R in "o'er me" pronounced, but not the R in "before me"? How do you pronounce the last syllable in "haven" and "even" when it's on a long note? Are the "i" sounds in "river" and "me" different or the same?

[@anarghyamurthy3490]

I have a question about the unrounded W you mentioned. Is this the same as the labiodental approximant [ʋ]? (To my ears it sounds similar but distinct) If not, how would you narrowly transcribe this sound using IPA?

[@myaobyclepiej]

[ɰ]

[@elin_]

The bts guys are extremely talented. Some people might judge their english, but those people forget to think about that not all countries have mandatory english class.

[@frogandspanner]

A few years ago I taught a couple of Chinese girls, and teased them about their American accents. That was on a Friday. The next Monday they turned up with perfect RP accents and teased me about my Yorkshire accent.

[@martinhartecfc]

Could you do a video on /r/ and /l/, please? There are so many kinds of each and I'm finding teaching the difference to Japanese speakers really difficult.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Good idea, Martin.

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

That feels particularly important just due to the horrible way in which that particular speech error by English-speaking Asian people has been used in racist, reductionist "humour"...? 😣 I really hope your students won't encounter anyone crass enough to mock their pronunciation! But the world is sadly all too full of idiots, so a little preventative work of the type you describe feels like it's time well spent, if only to ease their way a bit! (Definitely makes a functional difference in terms of comprehensibility too, of course.)

[@BearBettermentSchool]

This video on Asian R versus L may help: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKrdfoipaMeUmsU

[@JLynnEchelon]

I've been teaching English in Korea for 10 years and this is so fun to watch. I would also be willing to bet that "lubbin'" was practiced A LOT. Korean ㄹ is not an r at all. The shape is the same as an L, but further back. His tongue is fully against his teeth and that is usually really hard for Korean speakers, even ones who are very good at English.

[@mstly4lg]

short i and long i . Ah, that's why my Greek friend asked me to clarify the difference between pronouncing "piss and peace". As they said "piece and piece"!

[@jikiajikia]

Geoff, Can you make a similar video on the English pronunciation of NFKRZ? he is a Russian KZbinr who makes videos in English and he has a very atypical Russian accent in English.

[@arthurjohnson9982]

He described his English accent in a 2020 video as ''a mixture of British English, American English and some Russian sounds''.

[@user-ez4or8ly4c]

I heard "you can't stop me laughing myself"

[@hoiming]

Interesting about the long and short vowel sounds. My wife is native Cantonese speaker and she's quite fluent in English growing up in Canada most of her life, but the long vowel often turns short, like in "coke" becomes "cook", "cake" becomes "kek", "steak" to "stick". Do you know if this is common among Cantonese speakers?

[@annasamek5179]

To be fair, if English speakers tried to sing in Korean they would also make lots of embarrassing mistakes...

[@timothynoll4886]

This reminded me of the scene in a Lethal Weapon film where Mel Gibson is trying to be condescending to a crime lord from Asia by asking if they had "flied lice," to which the crime lord replies, "it is FRIED RICE, you PLICK!" I'll grant this is a bit racist but it is fascinating to see how non-native speakers use the knowledge of their native language to try and pronounce sounds they don't usually make.

[@helenamcginty4920]

I know you are discussing pronunciation differences but even in my long ago teens I rarely understood pop song lyrics. I recall a song with the line 'Oh a tree in motion" that I now know was "poetry in motion". I can recommend Peter Kaye's misheard song lyrics on you tube if you want a giggle. Look for the complete set. Its more sloppy diction than mispronunciation.

[@Jagaimo_chan]

2:03 That's a /β/ sound. It tricks me into thinking it was a /v/, so I was surprised when you claims that it's a /b/ because it doesn't sound like one

[@ErinaBee.sMoney]

but it's still bilabial, and Korean has many bilabial sounds, so it's still considered a "Korean accent"

[@rogeriopenna9014]

I would like you to comment on the English pronunciation level of the Brazilian actress Liliana de Castro, from channel Socratica. Like in the video "how to use the Feynman technique"

[@bobbyventon5015]

This video got me thinking - maybe you could have some viewers send you a sample of their English and you would try to identify where they are from, based on their accent obviously. Sounds exciting or not really?

[@tracyh5751]

2:35 I think it's important to point out that music videos are lip synced performances with studio performance audio. It's important to keep this in mind, as the lip and tongue shape evidence is only circumstantial to what we are actually hearing, and visual information can easily bias us towards thinking we are hearing something that we aren't. I think this caused a slip up here in your analysis, as when I close my eyes I hear an unambiguous English 'v' sound. I think in the future, when analysing audio-visual media, it might be worthwhile to double check your first guess with slowed down audio and blind listens. Heck, I think you could even do a follow up on this video, as the influence that visual information has on what we hear is actually super interesting!

[@derek_williams]

At 3:08 I also hear in "The wait is over" that the "s" in "is" is not vocalised. I would say "The wait iz over", but he is saying "The wait iss ober" I think.

[@ikbintom]

6:18 I don't know, are you?

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

The "loving" is audibly pronounced as luvving, with a strong gemination, so it seems that the singer got it wrong only in the video take. As for "overload", I hear some of the layers of vocals pronuncing it with b and some with v. As for "cheap", I heard a lowered, but not retracted, i. Sort of like the i of modern Greek or Classical Latin

[@Kyropinesis]

get bts to recite eggman’s piss on the moon speech by writing it as “peace on the moon” /j

[@mjears]

Greetings and thanks for a great analysis! A few small details: 2:13 Your pronunciation of “Samsung” was just right. But your graphics person erroneously added another aspiration mid-word, when it should be only on the initial S. 4:15 In my experience Japanese has quite the same allophone situation with R/L as Korean ㄹ. Maybe it’s less clear because they don’t write alphabetically {らりるれろ}. E.g. Japanese 文楽 (bunraku) is typically pronounced with a big L-sound in the middle. I’d be interested to know if you have sources that explain a firm distinction. 6:34 A common problem with transliterated Korean: The first vowel in 정국 is spelled “u” but pronounced /ʌ/ or /ɔ/ like “Jong” rather than /ʊ/. (From an American with some years of in-person contact with urban Korean and Japanese.)

[@afr11235]

I’m just impressed by how far they’ve come. Only four-ish years ago, they released “Fake Love,” which is an enjoyable song, but completely bereft of a single “love” that is correctly pronounced.

[@raphaelnikolaus0486]

The _cheap_ sounded a bit like "chirp" to me, tbh 😄

[@linzzzanity]

4:37 my ugly laugh came out for this comment. 😂

[@jwave07]

Can you do One on Nigerian Accents Please

[@mattt.4395]

nigerian english would be an example of "native accent" just like a british or canadian or australian accent. they speak english in nigeria. for what i know, it is a native language for people born and raised there.

[@jwave07]

@@mattt.4395 Yes correct but i’m just curious about where we get our inflections from lol

[@lizzie7516]

Geoff you're so funny

[@chloelo6415]

How come no one comment on the amazing dance at the end?

[@sh4dowchas3r]

I know it's sort of exagerated pirate speak but "land lubber" must have come from somewhere that generally speaks English as a main/first language

[@Meevious]

"lubber" comes from "lobbi", probably from a "viking" root, as there are cognates in Scandinavia, also meaning, essentially "big lazy oaf" (incidentally, "oaf" is also from Scandinavia and was originally an accusation of being an elf). There's also a theory it comes from Old French "lobeor", referring to someone who cheats.

[@Jewdai]

what foreign languages do native english speakers struggle with speaking (other than the R in french)

[@BearBettermentSchool]

Korean! Korean has a ton of sounds (particularly vowels) that English doesn’t have. English speakers have a much easier time with Chinese and Japanese vowels. There is also a sound in Russian kind of in between “ch” and “sh” that English speakers can’t differentiate.

[@cinnamonteeth]

A lotttttt of foreign languages the list would be too long. Absolutely most would struggle with Korean, Chinese, Arabic, etc

[@kailara3342]

Love your analysis ! Just adding a quick note that referring to their mouth shape in the music video isn't accurate. When they shoot their music video, they are not singing really and so are not pronouncing clearly the lyrics. They are known for being bad at lip singing x)

[@generallyuninterested4956]

My mother in law named all three of her boys "R" names as in, "Ricky" but she pronounces them with the "R" completely dropped out..."icky".

[@marimaricopiko]

Kind of endearing

[@thisismycoolnickname]

It would be fantastic if you review English in some Japanese songs from anime openings. They love to insert English in their songs but it is often nearly incomprehensible. Compared to that, BTS are just gods at English.

[@sanchoodell6789]

But a lot of this is harder to hear or detect because of the heavy "auto tuning" on their voices. But anyway Geoff fascinating vid. To quote a famous Turkish military and political figure "P!ss at home, P!ss in the World"!

[@GroovingPict]

This is, to my knowledge, the first time hearing any music by BTS, and holy testicle tuesday, talk about abusing the crap out of the autotune. I mean, do they constantly sing a half tone, or even full tone, out of key or something?? At that point, why not just go the Milli Vanilli route and get someone else to do the studio singing

[@vladimirbaloyan440]

The problem ain't they changed "loving" to "rubbing" , but it's how many beautiful english words changed to misunderstandings just because of their horrible pronunciation. If one doesn't know The Korean English, then their English is hardly understandable

[@LobertERee]

But could you rap in Korean if you wanted to?

[@sani4894]

While I was watching bts live English songs, I noticed cute moment Korean have a letter kh, th, ph (ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ). Sometimes bts pronoun letters k, p, t with sound h

[@kindofkylie]

This video is my first time to hear or see this band although I have heard their name. If you hadn't analysed the lyrics I would not have realised they were singing in English.

[@Thanatos2996]

It might be because I'm American rather than English, but that "cheap" doesn't sound anything like "chip" to me.

[@EngliscMidEadwine]

I'm American and I definitely heard "chip", but I think it's just an affect of the singing style.

[@Thanatos2996]

@@gregoryford2532 it’s a slant rhyme on account of the different consonant at the end, but heat and cheap have precisely the same vowel to my ear.

[@alexxela8956]

Oberload😂

[@WreckItRolfe]

Cheap sounded like cheap to me.

[@szpoti]

I am not entirely convinced that songs about not being able to stop rubbing myself can do any good to the anti-anti-Asian movement.

[@JJJRRRJJJ]

Anyone listening with half-way decent headphones is clearly hearing them nail those V’s lol

[@crptpyr]

yeah I think there's just disconnect between the sound and mouth shape bc they might be more comfortable substituting that 'ㅂ' back in while lip-syncing for the MV recording, while in the studio they may have been coached more to make sure they definitely got the "v" sound in

[@thomasmills3934]

Sounds super gay...