Can Top 1% Korean Students Speak English? | Street Interview

Thanks NaoNow for sponsoring this video! Get your free trial now and start sounding like a native English speaker! ► bit.ly/naonow_freetrial

learning a language should be 50% studying and 50% actually experiencing it through various media and conversations. you cant learn a language properly just from a textbook.

i think their grasp of English is much better than what they think. there only problem is the confidence that comes from using the language more.

These students are too hard on themselves, they did really well

Unfortunately for most people, learning a language is not something you can learn “only” from classes at school.

Some of the girls in particular really sounded like they had lived in the US for a while, even including filler words and sounds. Being interviewed can be stressful enough even in your native language; they all did really well.

Admittedly I think they underscored themselves. They did really well. I can’t speak any other languages and am always in awe of others who even speak basic languages. Amazing 👏

I lived in Korea, many speak english very well but underestimate their abilities. They feel the need to be perfect. Their brain overreacts and they freeze up or become shy. It's a confidence issue more than skill problem.

Well done to them all. Not only did they have to carry on a conversation on the spot, they were also being filmed at the same time. That is a LOT of pressure. They did well. ❤😊❤

The guy in the blue t-shirt wearing glasses has such an amazing English level, his calm and collected demeanour is also impressive and cool

Speaking from experience (people in Asia I've known and met personally), they are just humble and tend to underestimate themselves. A lot of them speak really well actually!

8:27 my man calculated every possible outcome in every parallel universe and determined it was not worth talking about lmfao

I have been living in North America for 30 years, every so often I visit Korea to see my family. I remember this one time I went to the local gym to work out in Korea near my parent's neighborhood. I got a personal trainer and my trainer was training 40-50 year old man, and a kid around 12-15 I think and me at the same time. This teenage kid was supposed to be some really smart kid that goes to some prestigious school in Korea. When this kid learned that I speak fluent English, he wanted to show off his English skills by communicating with me in English only. This is how the conversation went... Him: Hello. Me: Hey. Him: How are you? Me: Not too good, I am still trying to get used to the heat in South Korea, but other than that I guess I can't complain. Him: * pauses in confusion * Him: 왜 "I'm fine thank you. And you?" 하지않아 형? At this point my trainer smacked him on the head and said, that's just memorizing text book, not speaking English.

I used to think Korean students are able to speak much better English than their Chinese counterparts. After watching this video, I start to realize that the situation in Korea is quite similar to that in China, where most people studied English but never got a chance to apply it to a real-life context when they were students. Unless you have the opportunity to study abroad, English is not a medium of everyday communication.

This interviewer is really good at keeping the conversation moving forward with relevant follow up questions, as opposed to just asking another question from a prepared list that may not progress the subject matter further. Great job!

Everyone did a great job! Even their accents were really good. As a native English speaker, I could only wish to speak another language so well. I wish our language educational system wasn’t such a joke.

Japanse native here! Great piece! They're all good speakers bar a few grammatic mistakes. While I'm no top 1% or korean, I felt to share a short personal story here. I got into English much like this girl 11:32 by watching movies, YT, and media based in English-- It was Batman the animated series for me. I wanted to understand it. However, while practicing English I realised that a Language is a tool of basic human communication, it's not at all academic and necessitates books until you make it so. The only thing language needs to grow is a mouth willing to share and an ear willing to care. A mother does not use a book to teach a child, she simply communicates with sounds that seem interesting the the child. For me, I sucked major ass in English, got negative score two years in a row. Spelt words like a toddler. Spoke them like a dyslexic. Heard them like someone slurping Yakisoba with a freezing tongue. I was only able to speak and write well because I started played multiplayer video games in western lobbies. I made sure to use new words that I learned in following sentences. This practice took me a year to familiarise accents, dialects, and personal manners of speech. Did it consistantly by playing 3 hours everyday with my mic on and making sure there wasn't a quiet moment in the VC. If someone said I should stop talking I simply changed the squad, team, or the server. ( luckily this never transpired ) lmao I say anyone can, with a shamelessly willing desire to talk with other people from across the pond; it takes practice but I'm sure you can do it! If you read this here, then I thank you for coming to my unsolicited TED Talk.

They did an amazing job. They have good pronunciation and they definitely underscored themselves. It isn't easy to learn a foreign language. I love learning languages too. I'm learning Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Thai. In October, I'm actually moving to Japan to study Japanese more intensively. So I admire these young college students for speaking a second language so well. Especially when it's so different from Korean sentence structure and grammar. The woman in the black leather jacket and the other woman in the plaid shirt both sounded like native English speakers to be honest. The accent and pronunciation were like flawless.

As a 1st gen KoAM, I am very impressed with their speaking ability considering that they didn't really live or study abroad. Some didn't have a heavy K accent! Of course, interviewees would be considered "elite" students. My parents were both college educated and when they migrated to the USA, their biggest obstacle was verbal communication. But they probably had easier than other immigrants since they could read and write. I came over at elementary school age and I don't have K-accent. My cousins who came over at a slightly older age (middle and high school ages) generally kept their K-accent.

I have visited and had presented academic work in at least two top universities in South Korea and, comparing to top Japanese universities I’ve been, Korean students speaks much better English than Japanese. I was wondering why but seems like only people who aims to leave abroad really put some effort learning English