South Korea 10

Listen to South Korea 10, a 33-year-old woman from Daejeon, South Korea. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 33

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/02/1992

PLACE OF BIRTH: Busan, South Korea

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Korean

OCCUPATION: professor

EDUCATION: master of fine arts (MFA) degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has spent extensive time away from South Korea, including in China and the United States. In this regard, she is a good subject to study if one is seeking a mild Korean-American dialect.

She was born in Busan, South Korea, and spent the first two and a half years of her life there and in Incheon, South Korea. She and her family then moved to Daejeon, South Korea, and lived there for eight years before moving to Shanghai, China. After seven years there, she moved back to South Korea (to Seoul) and lived there for three years.

She then moved to the United States and has been there ever since, spending four years in Chicago, three and a half years in Los Angeles, one year in Saratoga, New York, and the last two years in East Lansing, Michigan.

Despite time away from her native South Korea, she still identifies as Korean, as do her parents.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject learned English while in Daejeon, South Korea. When she first moved to China, she attended a public school, where the British accent was prevalent. She then transferred to an American international school in Shanghai. In total, she spent seven years in China through her middle and high school years.

During her time in the United States, she has become more fluent in English and less self-conscious. She now speaks more English because of her career and because she is married to an American.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Matt Durland

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/10/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Like, so, back in when I was in college, I took the stage-management class by accident, and that’s how I got into theatre directing, which I’m doing now. Um, I thought that stage-management class, by just title, I thought it was a, uh, some kind of a business class, business-management class in like art industry. So, hoping, ’cause like that’s what my mom wanted me to do, like, um, nothing related to arts, but like either business or like medical school, like lawyer or whatever. Um, so yeah, like I walked into that class only to find that it was nothing like a business class. But it was, uh, it was like really about how to make theatre happen.

So, yeah, like I really enjoyed the class, and I ended up like taking a lot of like theatre courses from that, uh, from then. And I started, um, I took actually more theatre courses than my, uh, major class, which was, um, neuroscience back then. So, yeah, like I ended up switching my major to theatre, and, um, yeah, and that’s how I am here [laughs] right now.

[Subject speaks Korean]: 저는 한국에서 태어나서 어…저희 부모님이 주재원으로 인해서 중국에 가게 되었는데 한 여섯살때.. 아 여섯살이 아니라 6학년때 중국으로 가게 되서 상해에서 한 7년을 살게 되었어요. 그러다가 이제 넘어왔죠.

[English translation: I was born in Korea, and … my parents were assigned overseas for work, so we ended up moving to China. When I was about six — oh, not six years old, in sixth grade — I moved to China and lived in Shanghai for about seven years. Then I eventually moved here.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Matt Durland (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/11/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.