영국식 영어 발음의 달인 Korean Billy 인터뷰

Hey, everyone, it's Josh here. Today I interviewed the master of British accents, Billy. Billy, check it out. Hello and welcome to Splash English podcast. Wait, let me do that again because my voice was really strange.

No problem.

Hello and welcome to Splash English podcast. My name is Josh.

Splash.

Splash English. We have a special guest today. He is a YouTube star and the master of regional British accents. How are you, Billy?

Hello. How are you? I'm great, thank you. How are you?

Okay. Awesome. So Billy runs two YouTube channels. YouTube channel. Korean Billy. Korean Billy is English. Billy has been on major media, for example, jtbc, BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, and also on a British game show. Game show Virtual famous on a E4 network. How was the. The virtual fame? How did you get that Virtual Famous thing? Did they email you?

Yeah, so it's actually called Virtually Famous. And yeah, so they usually just, you know, bring some special guests who are quite well known on the Internet, not offline. So they just. Yeah, so, yeah, that's right. So they just sent me an email and they just wanted to, you know, have me as a guest. So I. Yeah, I appeared. So I used Skype because I couldn't actually go there, and at that time I lived in Korea and I am now living in Korea as well. So, yeah, I used Skype and, you know, my face, you know, just appeared at their studio and had a great time.

That's wonderful. Too bad they didn't buy you a plane ticket to Britain, but at least you were there through Skype. So, Billy, can you tell us your background? So where did you grow up? When did you start learning English? What's your favorite color? What's your bank account number and password?

Oh. Oh, my God. Even my bank account. Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. So my Korean name is. But I'm more known as Korean Billy, and obviously my English name is Billy. And I was actually born in Busan, which is a port city of South Korea. So I was just born and raised in South Korea and now I'm living in Seoul. And yeah, I just got really interested in English language, just English itself, when I was very, very young. Like when I was like 6, 7 years old. So since then I have been studying English for a long time. And when I was a high school student, I got really fascinated by British English. So since then, I've been studying British English like over eight years up to now. So I didn't actually go to the UK very often. So I only lived in the UK for about six as an exchange student when I was a university student. So that was all so I'm really hoping to visit the UK again. So that's why I'm studying British English really hard as well.

So of course you got influenced by all these, you know, dramas, TV series. But what about speaking? You're teaching English in English in a way. So when did you start to feel very comfortable teaching in English?

So even now I don't think my English is like, perfect. I don't think so, because, yes, still sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable because my. Because English is not my mother tongue. But I really tried hard to speak in English just as many times as possible, just as much as possible. And for doing that, I just tried to listen as many native speakers as possible and just try to copy their lips, their just mouth movements and how they. Their mouths look, you know, I just tried to copy them and I just try to listen to the native speakers and just try to find out how they, you know, make the pronunciation like certain pronunciations. So I just tried to watch just as many British TV shows and films as possible because that was the only way I could just hear their accents and pronunciation. So I just tried to copy just everyone, like a kid trying to learn a first language.

So, Right, you mentioned that you copy proactively. So what does it look like? You're sitting at home in front of a computer. Maybe you play a scene from a drama or movie and then you just stop and you just repeat right afterwards. Is that how it works?

Yes. So I think, like, enjoying learning a language is also really important. So I just watched what I liked. So I just watched some British films or TV shows I was, I was interested in.

But the question I'm asking is you're like sitting at home and you're actually speaking out loud.

Right? Right. So just while watching my favorite TV shows.

Okay, okay. So. Because what I tell many of my students is that they don't do enough of that, right? So many of my students, right, I teach them a phrase, a word, and then, okay, apple means. And they are very happy that they got to know the meaning of the word or phrase. But what my students don't do is they don't take it to the next step, which is you have to speak out loud. And that's something you were about to gloss over. And so I wanted to stop you because for those of you who are listening to this podcast right now, like, if you, if you learn the phrase I eat an apple, don't just understand and be happy. You have to repeat afterwards. Say it out loud. Many times, couple times. How many times do you say you repeat after a word or phrase or sentence?

So, like, before speaking out loud, I had to go. I had to get familiar with, like, what they pronounced. So after getting familiar with just listening to them, I just tried to, like, speak out loud. I think at first I just watched the episode just without speaking out loud. But for the second time, I just tried to speak out and just repeat after the characters, British characters. So I just try to repeat and repeat again. And sometimes I also just recorded my voice and just played back. And that is, like, totally different because while just speaking out loud without recording, I just sometimes thought my pronunciation was okay. But with the audio file, I just found I could just find out a lot of mistakes, what I had missed. So I think recording my reading and my practicing pronunciation is also really helpful to learn pronunciation.

And how many hours did you spend doing that, this process?

Well, at least let me think at least two hours a day, I think. So I did that every day. So I think doing that every day is the most important.

So two hours every day. Two hours is how long a movie is. Billy, do you know what I do when I watch a movie on my computer? I double speed up. Movie. So I don't even spend two hours watching a movie. I spend, like, you know, maybe less than an hour. But anyway, that's not the point. The point is, everybody, if you're listening to this, like, Billy spent two hours every day just doing that, recording himself speaking out loud. So, you know, maybe you don't. You can't do two hours every day, but maybe you can do 10 minutes, 20 minutes a day. But try it, you know, because. And yeah, when you record yourself on a. On a voice recorder, of course, first you're gonna hate yourself because everybody hates their voice.

Right? Right.

But you went through that process every day. So I just again, once again, I just wanted to emphasize and, And. And let everybody know that you have to speak out loud. You know, you can copy, you can record yourself, whatever it might be. Okay, Billy, so my next question would be, you're, like, an expert in all this, like, weird regional British accents. Where do you find all this information? How do you do your research?

So, like, for the Liverpool dialect, I had a lot of, like, classmates from Liverpool while living in the UK as an exchange student. So I asked a lot about Liverpool dialect from my classmates, but I am now in Korea, and I don't have any classmates around me at the moment. So I sometimes just ask my classmates from other regions online, and they just teach me online sometimes. And I Also read a lot of, you know, local newspapers. Because local newspapers also feature their own dialect for their articles, and they're available online. Yeah, definitely. Just for free, you know, so I also watched. Also read a lot of, you know, news articles from local newspapers. And there are also different, you know, a lot of YouTubers from different regions. Like, there are definitely some British YouTubers who are from Newcastle or Manchester or just Wales, Irish. So I also try to just watch a lot of, you know, different YouTube videos from different YouTubers. And I also just try to get what they are, what. How their accents are.

I think what makes you an expert in this field, I think, are two qualities. Number one, you're very thorough. Like, you know, local newspaper, YouTube forums, online groups. You know, you just go find anywhere any way you can. And the second. And the second quality that I think is what makes you an effective learner is I think, your attention to details. I think you're able to pay attention to different accents and really study how their lips are moving, what kind of words they're using. So a segue to this is that, what advice do you have for Korean people who want to improve their accent, British or American, otherwise? Because I think even if we hear and we can tell it's kind of different, but we don't know why it's different.

Right.

So how can we become better at paying attention to details and how can we learn to improve our accent?

So I think, like, for Koreans, they just tend to write every English word into Korean letters. But the way Koreans pronounce Korean and pronounce English and the way people pronounce English is totally different because, like, in Korean letters, we can't really pronounce English very well because it's like Korean accent English. So I think just for learning English accent, we just get out of the Korean letters and just Korean accents, and we just need to just start from the beginning for just totally different accent. And as I said before, I think listening a lot is the most important because just by listening, we have to get used to, you know, that accent, and by getting used to the accent, we can finally just imitate that, you know, accent. So for me, still, listening is the most important, and we need to get out of the Korean accent or, you know, the accent of the first language.

I see. Yeah. Because if you rewrite it using Korean letters, then, like, you're interpreting those letters, and when you look at the Korean letters, like, you're hearing the Korean sound. So I think the first step is if you are using Hangul, you know, put it aside, and the second step would be listen a lot. And that kind of ties into. If accent is what you're trying to improve, then maybe don't rely on visual medium, but instead focus on the sound. Just listen a lot and speak a lot.

Right.

So many Koreans are very concerned about their accent. They become embarrassed. Do you have any advice for those people?

Well, it is always nice to have, like, better pronunciation, but I think, like, Korean people are a little bit too obsessed with the perfect pronunciation. So, like, as long as, like, we can communicate with other people in English, like, that's not a big problem, actually, because we learn English to just, you know, talk to other people in English or just communicate with other people. We don't just, you know, we don't learn British English or just American English to get the perfect scores, like an athlete, like Olympic athletes. Right. So I think, like, my advice would be just, you know, to just enjoy learning, you know, the English language.

And what if I can't enjoy. I don't enjoy learning English.

Ah, right. So I'm not sure, because I. I always do enjoy learning English. Some people just try to learn just English to get a job or to, you know, for other reasons. But, yeah, I think just, you know, like, I would really like to say to Korean people that native speakers don't really care about, you know, pronunciation. I think. Yeah. So some people are really worried that the native speakers would just laugh at me like that because the pronunciation is not really great. But I think not any just native speaker would care about their accent or pronunciation as long as they can just communicate or, like, talk to them just in English. So just. I'd like to say you don't really need to worry that much about the pronunciation. So just, you know, focus on just talking to people in English or just how to communicate with people, other people in English. So that would, you know, that would, you know, reduce some burden for English learners.

All right, Billy, before I ask you the last question, I just want to do a little fun exercise. Coach me.

Okay.

Teach me some British accent.

Okay.

Just to pick one. One funny word or.

Okay, I will teach you some Liverpool accent.

Okay.

And the typical phrase would be this one. I'd like some chicken for my brachi.

Okay?

That's because of the, you know, K sound. They pronounce K like, that kind of sound. So they say Chechen and Brahe for breakfast. So you have to repeat after me. I'd like some Chechen for my Brahe.

I'd like some Chechen for Brech.

Very well. Well, Done. Well done.

Well done. A plus.

A a not plus but a but well done. Very good.

Thanks.

So like in Liverpool, like people say brahi for breakfast. They even use different wor words. So yeah, that's good.

Thanks. Okay, that was fun. All right, Ville. Just last, I want to do a very quick round of questions. I'm gonna ask you rapid fire questions. So just answer very quickly for me, please. Favorite color Blue. Favorite book?

Grammar news.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. If you are an English learner in Korea, then everybody reads that book at least once in their lifetime. Okay. How many hours of sleep do you get every day?

Six hours.

A leader or businessman or anybody that you respect or you admire?

I respect Anderson Cooper. He's a CNN journalist.

Okay. All right. So a word of encouragement to our Korean listeners.

I think Korean people are too getting too much stress to perfect their English skill. But the reason why we learn the English language is to meet new people and talk to various interesting other people in English. So what I really want to say is just to enjoy learning the English language and just imagine what you will do after being fluent in English and that will really encourage you to learn English more because you will like, after learning English, you know, very hard, you will be able to talk to many other people in English and you can see the world differently and you can just meet the new world. So keep up the good work and do enjoy learning English language.

Well, Billy, thank you for coming to our show today. Thank you so much. Good luck with the YouTube channel. Everyone, please check Billy's YouTube channel again. Just type Korean Billy on YouTube and you'll be able to find his channel. Great. All right, take care, Billy.

Thank you.

So what did you think about the podcast, everybody? So I just wanted to add something. So Billy said a couple of things. He said, well, enjoy learning English and many people have different reasons to learn English. Some people need English for job, for tests. I think he also said, you want to think about what you're going to do after you learned speak English well. So I have a couple of thoughts about this. So for example, I have my friend Juyeon. She is a foreign investor manager. I also have an HR consultant. I also have my friend Dunya time management software, splashenglish.com iTunes tro bogo yonga tarahagunaso negamosi. Anyway, thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next time. Bye bye.