영어 귀 뚫기, 리스닝이 폭발적으로 늘어요 | 미국인이 밥 먹듯이 쓰는 일상 대화 영어표현! 자기 전 틀어 놓으면 입에서 영어가 술술

I don't think I'm coming back to America. Okay, well, give me some grandbabies. On his profile, he had a picture of Madam Souk.

Hello everybody, welcome back to Lunch Hour English. Say hello to our very special guest today, Janay. Hello!

Hi, thanks for having me. Of course. So I'm Janay, I'm 33 years old, I'm from the USA, Atlanta, Georgia, which is in the southern part of the country. I'm just freelancing content creator, so YouTube, Instagram, and This is my 6th year living in Korea. So I first visited May 2019, and it was just eye-opening, just a whole different cultural experience. I wanted to experience it myself. When I got back to America, people were asking me, "How was Korea?" And my response was, "Oh, I'm going to move. I'm moving to Korea." I was just so confident that I needed to live here. And then 3 months after visiting, I ended up moving here. So it was a very spontaneous decision, not planned out, thought out. I didn't think about it. I just did it. I came August 2019. COVID happened 2020. 2020, and then I ended up meeting my husband, and now we're expecting.

She is pregnant right now, so congratulations!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Do you know what you're having?

We are having—

drum roll— a boy!

A boy! So we do have an English name picked out, and we were going back and forth about having a Korean name. My husband knows what he wants the name to mean, just has to find like Chinese characters and things like that.

I wanted to talk about your experience being pregnant here in Korea, especially as a foreigner. I'm hoping later I'll get the experience one day too. Not anytime soon. So I thought today we could try some weird pregnancy cravings.

Okay.

Like different foods. Should we get started?

Okay, sure.

Okay, let me get our first dish. Our first food combo is a chocolate milkshake and french fries. Okay, let's dig in.

Okay. Go for it. Cheers! It's not bad.

You can be honest.

But I just really like hot fries. The milkshake cools down the fries. It makes me not enjoy the fries as much.

The fries kind of suck this time. Like, they're a little cold. Anyways, I wanted to ask you, how did you and your husband meet?

We met on a dating app. Living abroad, you know, already by yourself, and a lot of times you're alone. This was like the first time feeling so lonely because Korea has like a strong couple culture. On his profile, he had a picture of Madam Seok, but I don't know if he spoke English because my Korean isn't where I would like it to be, but we're working on that. He actually lived in America for 5 years. We were able to connect the way that he was familiar with like American culture and I was familiar with Korean culture. My mom was like, "Yeah, I don't think I'm coming back to America." She's like, "Okay, well give me some grandbabies." How did you break the news that you were pregnant? I was 8 weeks at the time. I went home and then I was able to tell her in person, which was like the best thing. And so I gave her like this onesie that says, "You can stop asking now." So I had her open it up. She like screamed yelled and hollered, and she was so excited. My mom's actually going to come when I give birth, so she'll be staying here for like 2 months in Korea. So it's gonna be great to have so much support.

All right, taste test number 2. Okay, I think it'll be good though. Flaming Hot Cheetos and cream cheese.

Do you like spicy?

I do, depending on the degree of how spicy it is.

Okay, go for it, go for it.

We're about to have Cheeto fingers, aren't we?

We need our chopsticks.

Cheers!

I'm excited for your reaction.

Okay.

Yeah, I went back for a second.

I dig it. Pregnant or not, I recommend.

Yeah, because I crave spicy, you know, and I also sometimes crave cream cheese.

Flaming Hot Cheetos, get on this, guys. So good. I hear of like a lot of American expats, they always bring back Flaming Hot Cheetos and Takis.

Yeah, for sure.

The Cheeto fingers. How has your experience been being pregnant in Korea specifically? Being able to eat healthier.

Often getting ultrasounds. In America, I think it's like 3 or 4 times throughout their pregnancies, like more limited. But in Korea, every month I visit the doctor and we do ultrasound every visit as well. Healthcare is super affordable compared to the States.

How have people reacted to you being pregnant?

I told my husband, I want to wear my belly out. I find in the gym, I think it's so empowering, like I'm building a baby and I'm building muscles at the same time. That's a flex. Like, what?

I've seen pictures of you at the gym with your belly out.

Total baddie.

I was like, "Janae's a baddie!" That is so cool.

Thank you. I try to be conscious, like, if I'm around like older people.

Food combo number 3, we've got chocolate and cheese. Okay. All right, let's do this.

Are you doing all together or one bite?

One bite. Okay, let's go for it.

It's not bad though.

I can stomach it. Not bad, not bad, not bad. So far, what's been your biggest challenge being pregnant in Korea?

A lot of times it does go back to the language barrier. I admire everyone who enjoys learning languages and it comes easily to them, but that's not everyone, and unfortunately that's not me. I think about in the future, oh, what if there's an emergency situation? Learning Korean is a priority as well for me. So many people have done it before, like raising the child and making sure it's a good human being, you know, the pressures of being parents and making the right decisions for your children.

You're gonna be such a cool mom. Yeah, you're gonna be cool mom. We are getting to a new level of disgusting.

Ooh, I won't make you drink the juice.

I think pickles with peanut butter is torture enough. How much are you putting? Oh, good job! Look at you go! I can't be a baby about it.

Done!

Mm-hmm. It just ruins the pickle.

It does. I just want the pickle. Same! These are the two things I love the most, but the combination I love the least.

With pregnancy comes a lot of big events, like the baby shower, gender reveal parties. Have you done any of those American traditions? Okay, yeah.

We did the gender reveal with his family, introduced him to some American traditions. So my husband, from the beginning, he was convinced that we were having a boy. So my idea was to buy a hanbok. We were just going to give his mom the gender and she would go buy a hanbok if it's a boy or girl, and then we will open it. But immediately after we got the gender, we went and bought a boy hanbok. That's how convinced my husband was. Instead of having his mom do it, he was like, we're just gonna buy this. So we took the gender and the hanbok hanbok to his mom, and then for the gender reveal, we opened it and it was the same hanbok we bought.

He manifested that boy! He did!

That's why I said he was so excited. He just knew. We're having our baby shower. I tell him we eat and we play games, like, okay, tell me what you need, what do we need to do. So now he's like taking it on.

Traditionally in the US, the women have a baby shower and then the men have a diaper party, right? Bring beer and a bag of diapers. Okay, this last one is diabolical. I like mustard, but On Oreos.

I'm excited to try this too though, because I really do love mustard.

Is that like enough, you think?

I'll let you know. More than enough. Oh, hold on, hold on. Let's do like a love shot thing. Yeah, this is our last one.

Okay, here we go. It's not as bad as I thought. I put a lot of mustard. No, it's doable. Okay. I'm sure you and your husband have had a lot of talks. Where are you gonna raise the kid? What language are they gonna schooling, like all of these things come into question. So I was just wondering if you guys have any plans.

We do plan to move back to the States because my husband, he's open to living in the States again. We'll go back to Atlanta. There is like a huge Korean population because we want our child to experience life in Korea and life in America. We're kind of considering what's the best time frame to do that so that they will be old enough to remember Korea but also not too old to where it's too much for like their development with making that transition. So we're trying I think like sometime in elementary school, before middle school.

Do you plan on them being bilingual? Like speaking Korean and English?

Yes, yes, yes, yes! So the plan is that my husband will speak to our children in Korean and then I'll be the one to speak in English. We'll do a mixture of Korean and English.

What's your MBTI?

E-N-F-J.

I'm not surprised by that. Are you an E? I'm an I. I'll say I'm a very social I.

Okay.

All right, well, good luck with everything coming up. You're gonna be busy next month.

Hey, thank you, thank you.

Yeah, thanks for coming here even with everything going on. Like, I really enjoyed listening to your story.

This was such a fun experience. Thank you for this opportunity.

See you next time, everybody. Goodbye!