K-pop = Multilingual

Why do people tend to judge K-pop just from a few examples?!? Arghhh it makes me so mad *(>_<)* I understand that there are a few ... quite shocking examples of bad English in the K-pop industry, but what do you expect? It’s not their first language and they don’t use it, so give them some credit for at least trying. I would like to see some American idols try and sing in Korean, bet they won’t sound exactly sugar and spices either. Plus, some K-pop idols speak English perfectly~ well! There is this saying that in every K-pop band, there is always at least one member who can speak perfect English and the others all speak another language at an acceptable level. Oh you talented humans!!!

I’m a K-pop girl, so when the song ‘Call Me Maybe’ first came out, I did not nor had the urge, to listen to it. Of course I heard bits and pieces of it playing in random stores, but I never heard the full song until Tiffany—a member of the K-pop girl band ‘Girls Generation’ sang a cover of it. Hold your horses, I’m not trying to compare singing skills or anything, so don’t get defensive. Now, the original singer speaks English (duh) so no way am I going to go as far as saying Tiffany’s English was better. I just want you guys to give it the whole of K-pop a chance before judging the whole industry as ‘Messed up English users’. Can’t you see that they are trying to sing songs in English so that their international fans feel more of a connection to them? Why else would you think most idols spend their time trying to learn different languages? 

Click me to listen to the song Call Me Maybe !!!  

Ok, I know I’m getting off-track, lets stick to English. I know singers have a whole team of people to back them up and teach them how to sing and stuff so it may not be extremely impressive to hear Tiffany sing in PERFECT ENGLISH; K-pop idols speak English perfectly fine in interviews too. Just to prove they didn’t have the script beforehand and stuff I picked an interview that was done by a pretty famous Youtube channel. It doesn’t go on TV, so no backup helpers here. The K-pop boy band called U-Kiss showed off their, not one, but TWO English speaking members and revealed that they have already considering themselves ‘losing their English’. Those humble talented people!!! Not only that but you can see the others are trying very hard to improve their English ! As if they are already not busy enough, they are trying so hard to reach out to international fans and trust me, being one myself, it is one of the sweetest things ever to know that they are putting so much effort just so they can exchange a few words with you.

Click me to see the interview with U-Kiss !!!  

English ? More like 'Engrish' ...

Lets have a 1 minute silence for the English Language. Why ? Cause I just discovered that that the majority of K-pop singers suck at English ! So what if they sing in a language we all know, we still wont be able to understand a thing ! Those who like K-pop are gonna spend their time listening to incorrect English with horrible pronunciation. Not long until they are going to be saying ‘I lub you’ to their partner instead of ‘I love you’ and correct me if I am wrong but the last time I checked, that wouldn’t be considered romantic. Not at all.

I still remember that moment I first listened to ‘Uncommitted’ by Xia (Junsu). I thought it was pretty good and was happy with being able to just sing along to the very few lines of English just like other K-pop songs; until I discovered the whole song was actually in English. Now it wasn’t the most horrible thing I have ever heard in my life but even knowing it was English, I still had to go and Google the lyrics just so I could sing along. Ok. I got the lyrics, now what ? Do I follow his accent for the song or should I use my own Aussie accent which would then sound nothing like the song ?!? Look Xia, you had a whole team of people to help you with this and lets be honest, you cant possibly tell me you don’t make enough money to hire a English teacher. If this is what is released to the public as a studio song AFTER getting help, then ... I duno, I love you and all that but maybe you should just stick to singing Korean.

Click me to listen to the song Uncommitted !!!  

If you thought the English in K-pop music was bad, wait till you see them attempt to use it without a bunch of people teaching them beforehand. I know this was years ago but do you want to see the famous boy band Super Junior try and play an English game on a show ? The idea was that they change from English to Korean, trying to pass along a sentence. Now from 0:24 onwards, you can see they have already failed at this game; because from a Princess having a little snowball fight, they had somehow managed to make her fight a snowboard. Beautiful fairytale you guys got there ... But I don’t really blame you guys for stuffing up, the English from the beginning was already stuffed up ! At 2:30 the paper reads ‘Park pd has very good looking, nice manner and foot smell’ ... Someone remind me what language that is... Still I do wonder how they can make that (horrible and incorrect) sentence into ‘see good ... us’ and ‘his foot smell ... danger’. Again the point is; I’m cool with K-pop going international and all but even so, they should stick to their own language. Why not present to us a new language instead of try and act all English because trust me, the most that’s going to get you is an embarrassing name change like from ‘Yesung’ to ‘Yeh Sex’. Again, not romantic.

Click me to see the English game show with Super Junior !!!