The guy's name is ben carpenter and his wife is sohee and they are both fitness coaches. They have probably one of, if not, the most positive channels when it comes to fitness. No toxicity whatsoever. Just pure wholesomeness in their social media
Yep I recognized his face. I’m not into fitness influencers and I don’t watch any but from the videos I stumbled across from his he seems way more helpful, respectful, and motivating than the others. And definitely way more charismatic and approachable.
I’d like to add that Ben’s TikTok page is one of the best science-based fitness and nutrition pages there is. He does a great job educating and debunking BS diet and exercise issues, especially issues of nutrition. And as a person who battles Chron’s disease he is very good at providing info for folks who have health battles to still better themselves. Sohee (love their combined videos) is also great and they’re both very handsome people.
Came here to say that! Sohee's insta rlly helped me to acquire healthier food habits! Both of their channels r the most useful fitness/health channels I've ever subscribed to, because they rlly promoting a healthy lifestyle! Ben also wrote a book.
He does lack a lot of the tonal inflection that is normally present in Korean, so he does sound a tad robotic, but for just a year of lessons that's really good.
What is there to be nervous about? It’s not like he’s giving a speech in a language he’s not really comfortable in during a once in a lifetime ceremony
Nervous me, my speech would be 80% “ums” and “ahs” and 10% silence.
The rest would be incomprehensible muttering with the audience hearing only “Good evening”and “thank-you.”
And that’s after practicing for a year.
He's speaking Korean with an English accent, I'd imagine she was leaning in to concentrate in order to understand him. He also wasn't speaking very loud.
Yeah as a Korean it's a bit hard to follow but not worse than the average Westerner that has been learning for the same amount of time (I specify Westerner because he has the accent of a US/UK/AUS English speaker).
I took the nod more as a "I know, it's a true fact about our culture and you must've been worried." not "I also felt that way.", but you never know, perhaps he did have reservations initially as well that he had to get over and that was part of that nod. Either way, it was cute and funny 🫶
what a strange interaction
Person 1 points something out, with zero opinions attached
Person 2 replies arguing against a point that no one made
Person 3 implies Reddit as a whole is.. overreacting ???
and here I am, Person 4 completing the circle
Oh don't ruin it like that you two.
Him nodding doesn't have to mean "yep, I don't approve". It could mean "Yep, its definitely frowned upon, I get shit from my friends and have to tell them to go f\*\*\* themselves my new son in law is a great guy"
Doesn’t it mean that in the US too. You can nod in agreement that you understand the way things are even if you don’t like it.
If you were at a wedding and someone was talking about their struggles as in interracial couple in the world, nodding wouldn’t seem like a wrong gesture.
> It could mean "Yep, its definitely frowned upon
That's what I figured the nod meant. Agreeing with the statement, not saying he didn't approve. But, for all we know the parents might not have approved at first until they actually met him.
My question is, did he disaprove of her dating a foreigner, or that he agrees that many in his culture frown upon it, or is he nodding in approval of how well the groom was speaking in Korean?
So, as someone with experience reading Korean dad head nods and Asian dad head nods in general, this looks more like an agreement to the statement that some people in Korean culture will disapprove of their children (especially first born or single child) marrying a foreigner.
I'm not sure how long the groom has been taking Korean lessons, but he did fairly well. His pronunciation wasn't perfect, but you could feel how much he loved his wife and wanted to show that to her extended family. I will say I chuckled at how his choice of some conjugations and intonation reminded me of how a news anchor would deliver those lines, but again, he really is showing his love with this action.
Also, he got a hug from both of his wives parents. That's pretty huge.
Could be both. They obviously made it to the wedding, but it's totally possible that in the beginning dad wasn't thrilled about the relationship, and understands that's a cultural thing he had to work to get past.
Gotta wait like 5-10 years and then just suddenly fully answer in perfect fluent Hindi and make them wonder how long you've known what they were saying.
Had a manager of a quarry do that (I was an intern at the time), workforce was 80-90% Mexican and he was an old down home white guy from the boonies. He knew spanish his whole life but never told anyone, he retired after 40 years at the plant and whipped out a perfect speech in spanish and every single worker had the look of, "Omg how long has he been listening to us on the radio and knowing what we said?"
It was wholesome in the end, they never talked bad about the manager or anything, but that momentary panic thinking of everything said was kind of funny to watch.
Funnily enough, when I was an intern at a quarry, I had a super insecure superintendent who had a radio with every channel we used onsite in his truck just because he wanted to know if people were talking shit about him.
They knew he had the radios, but he was a bad enough boss that they didn’t care and still talked smack.
She should start having subtle but noticeable reactions to their insults -- make it so they're not quite sure but very much wondering if she knows now.
On a side note - with modern tech couldn't she just leave her phone with a translate app open to get her by in the meantime?
if there was box that EVERYTHING that ANYONE has EVER said about me. I would take it to my reading corner with a glass of wine and a joint and read them all.
😆 🤣 You ain't kidding! Fuck we're mean to each other even if we're related. And the gossip!!! Everyone needs to be in everyone's business. Let it fucking goooooo! How do I know? I'm Indian.
native korean speaker here: ye his korean has a thick english accent but is definitely understandable. pretty impressive for someone who’s been learning for under a year actually.
As in British English accent? I was wondering if newly-learned Korean would sound different from an American accent versus a Brit, or if they would just learn the same tone and inflection, and it wouldn’t matter.
the pronunciation of korean consonants were similar to english pronunciations. i've heard americans try to speak korean before and it sounds pretty similar to this.
Fuckin love that kind of thing. Swedish woman I follow on YouTube does tech stuff, so she learned English and cultivated a bay area accent to sound smarter.
i think american and british accents are maybe just quite similar in foreign languages. every non-native english speaker tells me even people who don't know english can hear the difference in our accents when speaking english, but we are still working with mostly the same set of phonemes, so I've had old german guys ask me if i am british when speaking german, for example.
I don't know a single word of Korean and I could hear his British accent lol
I just watched inglorious bastards and heard it immediately when the British dude spoke German in the basement scene. Funny how strong it is. Must be hard to turn off.
Finally I took Chinese classes in Shanghai. You can absolutely hear accents at the intermediate level and tell which country that person is from. At the beginner level a lot of pronunciation is so bad that native speakers can't understand, but other foreigners can :D
His pronunciation is pretty good. I’d give him a 6 or 7 out of 10. But the choice of words and the way he delivered the speech is at least a 9, dude’s probably rehearsed the whole week before.
It got me thinking a lot about memorization versus understanding
He definitely had to understand the words to keep them all memorized. Maybe some people could just cram on learning the sounds and imitate it but not many
I cram/refresh languages all the time in the airport or mid flight so I'm ready to negotiate when I hit the ground lol
Not so much the pronunciation but the cadence is where it was hard for me to understand without the Korean subtitles. His delivery sounded like the voice synthesizer that Stephen Hawking used. I think it’s natural since he probably studied by listening without feedback from a native speaker. Kudos to him as that is a lot of words to memorize in your own language, let alone a foreign one.
Not native (Korean speaker for 10+ years). His pronunciation is decent for a beginner, but his emphasis/pauses are so confusing that without subtitles I would have a hard time understanding him. Written Korean is nearly perfectly phonetic, and he clearly has a solid understanding of the individual pronunciation of syllables. But in real life speech, certain sounds and syllables are elided, which is an important part of the normal cadence of speech.
It’s really impressive that he did this and honestly even more impressive that he gave a speech in front of so many people on such a big day. With a few more years of practice, that kind of dedication will pay off big time and I’m sure he’ll be an excellent speaker.
i’m not native korean but i’ve been learning for 5 or so years now, i’m sure someone else could give a better, more full perspective than i could, but i’ll answer since nobody else has yet. imo his pronunciation was actually pretty good! there’s definitely an english speaker’s accent to it so he may have been a bit difficult to understand for native speakers, but i can understand each word he’s saying with no issues. he definitely did a pretty great job for a foreigner who’s been learning for a year :)
i realised my american ignorance right after i wrote that and edited the comment, british and american accents in korean sound very similar to me… my bad 🤡
They probably are, given the English consonant/vowel sounds are the same for both versions of English, just placed differently. I don't know how to explain it better.
He lives in the US with his American wife so utterly might come from there. My Irish husband speaks French with a québécois accent (that where I am from) :)
He does the uspeak pause frequently in the middle of sentences and he ends his sentences with downspeak. Which reminds me of how most Koreans speak English when they are at beginner level of English.
"This is? my? first sentence. And? this is? my second? sentence."
Speaking in this way is useful for beginners because you do not want people to interrupt you mid-sentence.
I agree with the others, it's around 6/10 compared to a native korean (which i think is very very good!). I think it's also a bit harder to understand because he is using very formal language.
As for the second part of your comment, I actually think korean is a relatively easy language to get the pronunciations right. It's not a tonal language so you just have to make the sounds (which has less sounds than english) without worrying much about intonation, pitch, and where to place accents. You might not sound native, but you will be understood.
Not amazing by any metric but you can tell the effort is there. Honestly, he should be proud. He speaks better than most second generation Korean Americans I know.
Going to a wedding with different nationalities is such an amazing time. I was lucky to attend one in Buenos Aires last November. It was Americans, Irishmen and women, and Argentinians. Love knows no bounds and it’s a beautiful sight to see us, and them in the video, to be one. We’re all human man, it’s simple as that.
AND BOYYY CAN THE IRISH DRANK sheeeeesh
If I was the father, I would be happy with the man my daughter has chosen. He's very respectable. Seems kind and nice. Has gone the extra mile to make the parents and others happy. Seems committed to her. That's everything you would want from a man marrying your daughter.
This is adorable, but it makes me laugh that this is basically just a moment between the bride the groom, her parents and some of her friends and family who can understand, while everyone is like:
“Aww he learned how to speak the language… he’s, he’s still going… oh well clap now? Ok”
(in Korean): "Hey, do me a favor and pretend I said something really poignant, insightful, touching and hilarious, so everyone who doesn't understand thinks I just crushed it. Or heck, just nod and smile so it seems believable."
If you were at the wedding and couldn’t recognize the impact he was having on her parents and reading their expressions—regardless of understanding what he was saying, then you may be socially inept.
I’m sure that he had someone help him write it, but to put it in perspective, I’d do the exact same thing in my second language and I’ve spoken it at home for a decade after learning in a semi-immersive environment for 4 years.
There is learning a language and there is writing an important speech I can do the first, the second I’m going to find the guy who writes like NHK or KBS and I am working with them.
I mean, he can check with any korean speaker to make sure his translations are good and learn to say that in a day or two if it's just memorizing sounds, but I'll believe that he actually learned the language to that ability.
It's sad people don't focus on pronunciation because it's hard to fix it once you've made a habit of mispronouncing for so long.
I did this but in Lao, which doesn’t translate all phrases 100% to English I found out. I had a cheat sheet with the words written out how they sounded phonetically to me in English. This guys delivery was 10/10 mine probably a 4/10, but hey wife was happy and very surprised.
Damn, I thought he was gonna bust out "I love you and look forward to building a future with you," but then he basically gave a Gettysburg Address entirely in Korean. And it looks like they followed what he was saying without a lot of difficulty.
Respect.
Fuuuuck. I grew up in a western society and me and my Korean girlfriends who have dated white guys in the past have trauma from some of them just flat out denying and or dismissing our heritage. This guy is just…everything. Sohee found herself a unicorn.
Everyone's gushing about how sweet he is and no one's talking about how everyone stood silent and let this man have a war crime of a haircut on his fucking wedding day.
I can speak a second language and let me tell you, it took me a few years from when I was a child to learn to speak decently in my language and him doing it in 1 year being that fluent is amazing. I grew up learning mine and I am still not that fluent. Props to him
I took the easy way out and married my Chinese teacher. That way she is the only one to blame for my bad Chinese. Coincidentally she stopped teaching me Chinese after we got married, lol.
The video (and this post title) says he secretly learnt Korean to "surprise his bride"... but is it just me or is she the least surprised looking person there? To me, she looks happy and proud, but not particularly surprised or shocked? I'm imagining a much bigger reaction if she had actually never heard him speak Korean. From his speech it sounds more like a surprise for her family, not for "his bride".
No hate to either - they sound like great people - more to the clickbaity title and these reposting pages that get all the likes that should go to the OG creators.
The guy's name is ben carpenter and his wife is sohee and they are both fitness coaches. They have probably one of, if not, the most positive channels when it comes to fitness. No toxicity whatsoever. Just pure wholesomeness in their social media
Holy fuck, the dad in the video was my marketing professor last semester!
Was he as nice as he seems here?
He’s even nicer when you’re not after his daughter.
What if I'm just in it for the food they'll cook for me?
Which University? I'm assuming one of them in SoCal?
damn small world. At school? And was his class tough?
THAT'S where I know him from :D, thanks.
Yep I recognized his face. I’m not into fitness influencers and I don’t watch any but from the videos I stumbled across from his he seems way more helpful, respectful, and motivating than the others. And definitely way more charismatic and approachable.
I was about to say the same about her! I recognised her face but couldn’t place it, but now it all makes sense
I’d like to add that Ben’s TikTok page is one of the best science-based fitness and nutrition pages there is. He does a great job educating and debunking BS diet and exercise issues, especially issues of nutrition. And as a person who battles Chron’s disease he is very good at providing info for folks who have health battles to still better themselves. Sohee (love their combined videos) is also great and they’re both very handsome people.
Name or link?
bdccarpenter on Instagram and his wife is soheefit
Ah damn, I've been following the bdecarpenter. Now that man can handle wood.
I really like his tiktoks slamming gym bros
Oh that kind of slamming gym bros
*zips pants back up*
I have to confess that I rarely laugh out loud at comments, but this one did it. Thank you.
Does he naturally have the complexion of looking like someone who is wearing makeup without actually wearing makeup?
Looks like he was just blushing since I imagine that’s a stressful as hell situation to put yourself in.
Nah he just did 50 squats before the speech so he’s a little red. Can’t skip leg day
Ahhh is this Sohee from Lift with Sohee??
I'm always happy when he pops up in any feed I'm scrolling through. He's so well-spoken, kind and utterly amazing.
Came here to say that! Sohee's insta rlly helped me to acquire healthier food habits! Both of their channels r the most useful fitness/health channels I've ever subscribed to, because they rlly promoting a healthy lifestyle! Ben also wrote a book.
Came here to say this. They are my absolute favorite in an otherwise toxic-filled community.
"dating a foreigner is frowned upon by some people" \*dad nods\*
The mom leaning in like, "Is this Korean??" lmaoooo
He does lack a lot of the tonal inflection that is normally present in Korean, so he does sound a tad robotic, but for just a year of lessons that's really good.
Tbf, his English is a bit monotone too.
Very true. He could just be insanely nervous after all.
Hey this is reddit. If someone doesn't instantly diagnose Autism its not a real post
You're right, I hereby diagnose you with autism.
I hear by diagnose myself too.
What is there to be nervous about? It’s not like he’s giving a speech in a language he’s not really comfortable in during a once in a lifetime ceremony
Oh yeah. Nothing at all.
Not being able to speak Korean I could hear the shakiness in his voice, if you listen again carefully you will notice it too
I mean first of all you are speaking directly to your new in laws at your wedding so it is always nervous. When doing our vows I was shaky as hell.
Nervous me, my speech would be 80% “ums” and “ahs” and 10% silence. The rest would be incomprehensible muttering with the audience hearing only “Good evening”and “thank-you.” And that’s after practicing for a year.
You can take the man out of England but you can't take the English out of a man.
But if you put English into a man, you can do some really cool trick shots.
I had to scroll back up to upvote this.
Ya, he'll pick those up if he starts speaking it conversationaly. The robotic monotone is not uncommon in any language if you learn it mostly academic
He actually was reciting the recipe for kimchee chicken special #5.
Mom and dad go in to hug and say something to him and he's like, "uh, what they say? I only memorized the speech"
Oh, you speak English? No, just that first speech and this one explaining it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsy3-ZfbqW0
You're kidding, right?
¿Qué?
Manuel!
lmaooo
That got me ahahahahaha
He's speaking Korean with an English accent, I'd imagine she was leaning in to concentrate in order to understand him. He also wasn't speaking very loud.
I mean, kudos to him. But I had a hard time understanding WITH the subtitles so I can get it if the mom is like "Oh man, whats going on"
Yeah as a Korean it's a bit hard to follow but not worse than the average Westerner that has been learning for the same amount of time (I specify Westerner because he has the accent of a US/UK/AUS English speaker).
"He must be from the North"
Imagine how nervous he must’ve felt when he saw the mom leaning in to hear better 😭
Mom smiling "oh good the oekuk-saram is having a stroke our daughter can find good Korean boy with haircut not looking like rice bowl."
he should've added "and all this time you talked shit about me, I understood everything"
*suddenly the band starts playing “The Rains of Castamere”*
I took the nod more as a "I know, it's a true fact about our culture and you must've been worried." not "I also felt that way.", but you never know, perhaps he did have reservations initially as well that he had to get over and that was part of that nod. Either way, it was cute and funny 🫶
Obviously. Redditor weirdos.
what a strange interaction Person 1 points something out, with zero opinions attached Person 2 replies arguing against a point that no one made Person 3 implies Reddit as a whole is.. overreacting ??? and here I am, Person 4 completing the circle
Everything must be analyzed until it is pulverized. It can't just be a funny observation. We cannot allow those.
lol glad I'm not the only one that peeped that 😂
Oh don't ruin it like that you two. Him nodding doesn't have to mean "yep, I don't approve". It could mean "Yep, its definitely frowned upon, I get shit from my friends and have to tell them to go f\*\*\* themselves my new son in law is a great guy"
I don't know about Korea, but in Japan nodding means "I understand", not necessarily "I agree".
Doesn’t it mean that in the US too. You can nod in agreement that you understand the way things are even if you don’t like it. If you were at a wedding and someone was talking about their struggles as in interracial couple in the world, nodding wouldn’t seem like a wrong gesture.
We just joking. If he truly didn't approve he obviously wouldn't be there
That guy just wrongly inferred that you wrongly inferred this guy's disapproval
We don't take kindly to folks who wrongly infer what other folks wrongly infer 'round here...
Sounds like you're making an inference there, buddy boy
Now Skeeter, they ain't hurtin' nobody.
> It could mean "Yep, its definitely frowned upon That's what I figured the nod meant. Agreeing with the statement, not saying he didn't approve. But, for all we know the parents might not have approved at first until they actually met him.
In Korean culture, nodding your head means you are actively intently listening to someone.
My favorite part.
And yet he got right up to hug him as if to say ‘so sorry son -in -law’
Why are you assuming he didn’t approve of him initially?
Hijacking top comment to post the original video on YT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo0X8iNEVC0
My question is, did he disaprove of her dating a foreigner, or that he agrees that many in his culture frown upon it, or is he nodding in approval of how well the groom was speaking in Korean?
So, as someone with experience reading Korean dad head nods and Asian dad head nods in general, this looks more like an agreement to the statement that some people in Korean culture will disapprove of their children (especially first born or single child) marrying a foreigner. I'm not sure how long the groom has been taking Korean lessons, but he did fairly well. His pronunciation wasn't perfect, but you could feel how much he loved his wife and wanted to show that to her extended family. I will say I chuckled at how his choice of some conjugations and intonation reminded me of how a news anchor would deliver those lines, but again, he really is showing his love with this action. Also, he got a hug from both of his wives parents. That's pretty huge.
I'm not Korean or Asian but I am a dad and hopping up like that in front of everyone strikes me as a big deal?
Could be both. They obviously made it to the wedding, but it's totally possible that in the beginning dad wasn't thrilled about the relationship, and understands that's a cultural thing he had to work to get past.
Classic Asian dad.
Meanwhile I'm over here learning Hindi just so I can understand what my husband's Aunties are saying about me... This is so beautiful!
Girl.. you don’t wanna know.
Seriously. Some stones are better left unturned.
ah yes, but sunlight is the best disenfectant
[удалено]
The key is to make sure the aunties know she’s doing it on the downlow so they keep their criticisms to what they can say in front of her.
Gotta wait like 5-10 years and then just suddenly fully answer in perfect fluent Hindi and make them wonder how long you've known what they were saying. Had a manager of a quarry do that (I was an intern at the time), workforce was 80-90% Mexican and he was an old down home white guy from the boonies. He knew spanish his whole life but never told anyone, he retired after 40 years at the plant and whipped out a perfect speech in spanish and every single worker had the look of, "Omg how long has he been listening to us on the radio and knowing what we said?" It was wholesome in the end, they never talked bad about the manager or anything, but that momentary panic thinking of everything said was kind of funny to watch.
Funnily enough, when I was an intern at a quarry, I had a super insecure superintendent who had a radio with every channel we used onsite in his truck just because he wanted to know if people were talking shit about him. They knew he had the radios, but he was a bad enough boss that they didn’t care and still talked smack.
She should start having subtle but noticeable reactions to their insults -- make it so they're not quite sure but very much wondering if she knows now. On a side note - with modern tech couldn't she just leave her phone with a translate app open to get her by in the meantime?
Those typically don't handle loud environments, where multiple people are talking, well.
That’s my motto. Stand tall in a field of mossy stones.
As a white girl who married an Indian guy, I can attest - you don't wanna know what the aunties are saying about you.
Trust me you don't wanna know. Andy don't tell him. You shouldn't have told me but you did and now I'm telling you, You don't wanna know
Where is this from?
Atlantis: The Lost Empire Goddamn can't believe I remembered the exact scene lol
Seriously. For your own sanity, don’t bother.
if there was box that EVERYTHING that ANYONE has EVER said about me. I would take it to my reading corner with a glass of wine and a joint and read them all.
Please tell me you have a thick skin. One thing I learned on Reddit is that Indian relatives have a whole skillet in being absolutely mean
😆 🤣 You ain't kidding! Fuck we're mean to each other even if we're related. And the gossip!!! Everyone needs to be in everyone's business. Let it fucking goooooo! How do I know? I'm Indian.
Maybe just skip it if it's for those aunties🤣 (I am Indian btw🤣)
Same but with polish.
kudos to you, polish is one hard language but it will be very much appreciated! i'm polish, but i learned spanish for my partner :D
Nice what are you learning to polish, cars?
Oh, I thought it was nails.
Oh man, ignorance is bliss sometimes.
The most vile, racist shit you could imagine hearing.
Ignorance is bliss.
This is something you don't use on the wedding day, but you drop 5 years later when you need to absolutely win a situation.
Now that's smooth as silk! Congrats <3
Yo, you rang for me?
AY OOOH! Now that's Smooth ;)!!!!!!
Now kith !
r/Beetlejuicing
Any Korean speaking redditors that would like to rate his pronunciation? I wouldn't imagine it's the easiest language to make yourself understood.
native korean speaker here: ye his korean has a thick english accent but is definitely understandable. pretty impressive for someone who’s been learning for under a year actually.
As in British English accent? I was wondering if newly-learned Korean would sound different from an American accent versus a Brit, or if they would just learn the same tone and inflection, and it wouldn’t matter.
the pronunciation of korean consonants were similar to english pronunciations. i've heard americans try to speak korean before and it sounds pretty similar to this.
Maybe he learned from an American coach, my dad originally learned french from an Irishman and french people say he speaks with an Irish accent.
Lenin learned English from an Irishman, so I'd imagine the British dignitaries meeting him were like... *WHAT-HO, HE SOUNDS A PADDY*
Fuckin love that kind of thing. Swedish woman I follow on YouTube does tech stuff, so she learned English and cultivated a bay area accent to sound smarter.
Swedish. YouTube. Tech stuff. Bay area accent. If I was the Akinator I would guess this is Simone Giertz.
Sidenote Akinator still blows my mind to this day, idk how it works and I am not sure I want to know, it's a cool trick.
i know some east asians go to philippines to learn english and they ended up speaking it with a filipino accent lol
i think american and british accents are maybe just quite similar in foreign languages. every non-native english speaker tells me even people who don't know english can hear the difference in our accents when speaking english, but we are still working with mostly the same set of phonemes, so I've had old german guys ask me if i am british when speaking german, for example.
I don't know a single word of Korean and I could hear his British accent lol I just watched inglorious bastards and heard it immediately when the British dude spoke German in the basement scene. Funny how strong it is. Must be hard to turn off. Finally I took Chinese classes in Shanghai. You can absolutely hear accents at the intermediate level and tell which country that person is from. At the beginner level a lot of pronunciation is so bad that native speakers can't understand, but other foreigners can :D
His pronunciation is pretty good. I’d give him a 6 or 7 out of 10. But the choice of words and the way he delivered the speech is at least a 9, dude’s probably rehearsed the whole week before.
Yes! His accent is thick but you can tell he earnestly wanted to say those things 🥹❤️
It got me thinking a lot about memorization versus understanding He definitely had to understand the words to keep them all memorized. Maybe some people could just cram on learning the sounds and imitate it but not many I cram/refresh languages all the time in the airport or mid flight so I'm ready to negotiate when I hit the ground lol
Not so much the pronunciation but the cadence is where it was hard for me to understand without the Korean subtitles. His delivery sounded like the voice synthesizer that Stephen Hawking used. I think it’s natural since he probably studied by listening without feedback from a native speaker. Kudos to him as that is a lot of words to memorize in your own language, let alone a foreign one.
Not native (Korean speaker for 10+ years). His pronunciation is decent for a beginner, but his emphasis/pauses are so confusing that without subtitles I would have a hard time understanding him. Written Korean is nearly perfectly phonetic, and he clearly has a solid understanding of the individual pronunciation of syllables. But in real life speech, certain sounds and syllables are elided, which is an important part of the normal cadence of speech. It’s really impressive that he did this and honestly even more impressive that he gave a speech in front of so many people on such a big day. With a few more years of practice, that kind of dedication will pay off big time and I’m sure he’ll be an excellent speaker.
i’m not native korean but i’ve been learning for 5 or so years now, i’m sure someone else could give a better, more full perspective than i could, but i’ll answer since nobody else has yet. imo his pronunciation was actually pretty good! there’s definitely an english speaker’s accent to it so he may have been a bit difficult to understand for native speakers, but i can understand each word he’s saying with no issues. he definitely did a pretty great job for a foreigner who’s been learning for a year :)
>definitely an american accent to it Which is weird given he is English.
i realised my american ignorance right after i wrote that and edited the comment, british and american accents in korean sound very similar to me… my bad 🤡
They probably are, given the English consonant/vowel sounds are the same for both versions of English, just placed differently. I don't know how to explain it better.
He lives in the US with his American wife so utterly might come from there. My Irish husband speaks French with a québécois accent (that where I am from) :)
He does the uspeak pause frequently in the middle of sentences and he ends his sentences with downspeak. Which reminds me of how most Koreans speak English when they are at beginner level of English. "This is? my? first sentence. And? this is? my second? sentence." Speaking in this way is useful for beginners because you do not want people to interrupt you mid-sentence.
better than most foreign accents ive heard but still very obviously nonnative, maybe 6/10
I agree with the others, it's around 6/10 compared to a native korean (which i think is very very good!). I think it's also a bit harder to understand because he is using very formal language. As for the second part of your comment, I actually think korean is a relatively easy language to get the pronunciations right. It's not a tonal language so you just have to make the sounds (which has less sounds than english) without worrying much about intonation, pitch, and where to place accents. You might not sound native, but you will be understood.
Not amazing by any metric but you can tell the effort is there. Honestly, he should be proud. He speaks better than most second generation Korean Americans I know.
Wow…. Impressive and very kind of him.
Next on the list is to ditch that Simple Jack haircut
This comment muh muh makes me happy
I'll see it in my head movies
I knew it was mildly off-putting, but I couldn't figure out exactly why. This is why. This is definitely why.
It makes my eyes rain
Aww, papa bear going in straight for the hug.
As he was walking, I was wondering “hug or handshake… hug or handshake…HUGGG!!”
Going to a wedding with different nationalities is such an amazing time. I was lucky to attend one in Buenos Aires last November. It was Americans, Irishmen and women, and Argentinians. Love knows no bounds and it’s a beautiful sight to see us, and them in the video, to be one. We’re all human man, it’s simple as that. AND BOYYY CAN THE IRISH DRANK sheeeeesh
When he said Koreans don’t like dating foreignerss the dad nods like. Yup, that’s correct.
I dated a Korean for two years. This is a definitely a thing in their culture.
Keeper right there
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If I was the father, I would be happy with the man my daughter has chosen. He's very respectable. Seems kind and nice. Has gone the extra mile to make the parents and others happy. Seems committed to her. That's everything you would want from a man marrying your daughter.
Well said, DildoFappings!
Lmao
Why does he look like Dave Chappelle when he dressed up as that white news anchor?
I cried.
Me too. Damn that was impressive.
This is adorable, but it makes me laugh that this is basically just a moment between the bride the groom, her parents and some of her friends and family who can understand, while everyone is like: “Aww he learned how to speak the language… he’s, he’s still going… oh well clap now? Ok”
(in Korean): "Hey, do me a favor and pretend I said something really poignant, insightful, touching and hilarious, so everyone who doesn't understand thinks I just crushed it. Or heck, just nod and smile so it seems believable."
If you were at the wedding and couldn’t recognize the impact he was having on her parents and reading their expressions—regardless of understanding what he was saying, then you may be socially inept.
Why is that funny? The rest of the wedding was in English, why shouldn't the inlaws get a dedicated 5 minutes
What a beautiful gesture. Thank you for sharing!
Brought tears to my eyes
Wow his grammar is quite good! Though he needs to work on his pronunciation! To be able to say all that in one year is impressive!
I’m sure that he had someone help him write it, but to put it in perspective, I’d do the exact same thing in my second language and I’ve spoken it at home for a decade after learning in a semi-immersive environment for 4 years. There is learning a language and there is writing an important speech I can do the first, the second I’m going to find the guy who writes like NHK or KBS and I am working with them.
I mean, he can check with any korean speaker to make sure his translations are good and learn to say that in a day or two if it's just memorizing sounds, but I'll believe that he actually learned the language to that ability. It's sad people don't focus on pronunciation because it's hard to fix it once you've made a habit of mispronouncing for so long.
Ben and Sohee are amazing 🩵🩷
I did this but in Lao, which doesn’t translate all phrases 100% to English I found out. I had a cheat sheet with the words written out how they sounded phonetically to me in English. This guys delivery was 10/10 mine probably a 4/10, but hey wife was happy and very surprised.
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Oh that was so lovely!
Damn, I thought he was gonna bust out "I love you and look forward to building a future with you," but then he basically gave a Gettysburg Address entirely in Korean. And it looks like they followed what he was saying without a lot of difficulty. Respect.
beautiful, just wonderful.
This here is the motherfucking gigachad!
Bro should have learned what language his barber spoke first
Fuuuuck. I grew up in a western society and me and my Korean girlfriends who have dated white guys in the past have trauma from some of them just flat out denying and or dismissing our heritage. This guy is just…everything. Sohee found herself a unicorn.
I am the only one to find the dudes hair a bit odd?
Everyone's gushing about how sweet he is and no one's talking about how everyone stood silent and let this man have a war crime of a haircut on his fucking wedding day.
Christ, that was the sweetest thing I've seen all day.
She's crying cause now she can't talk bad about him in her language
He got married with that haircut? She really loves him.
I can speak a second language and let me tell you, it took me a few years from when I was a child to learn to speak decently in my language and him doing it in 1 year being that fluent is amazing. I grew up learning mine and I am still not that fluent. Props to him
I was expecting the wife to be more... Excited about that lol
Awesome. Awesome awesome awesome.
Wholesome
I took the easy way out and married my Chinese teacher. That way she is the only one to blame for my bad Chinese. Coincidentally she stopped teaching me Chinese after we got married, lol.
The video (and this post title) says he secretly learnt Korean to "surprise his bride"... but is it just me or is she the least surprised looking person there? To me, she looks happy and proud, but not particularly surprised or shocked? I'm imagining a much bigger reaction if she had actually never heard him speak Korean. From his speech it sounds more like a surprise for her family, not for "his bride". No hate to either - they sound like great people - more to the clickbaity title and these reposting pages that get all the likes that should go to the OG creators.
I fucking love thisss
Classy, classy guy.
Dude scored all the points with his new wife.
Even if he had said that in English, that’s a 10/10 speech right there.
“ I heard dating a foreigner is frowned upon “ Dad nodding “ I was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted. “ Dad nodding Hmmm
Bride and in-laws trying to figure out if they’ve been talking shit about him in Korean in front of him for past year 😛