JJH really has a different appeal compared to other actresses. She's not that drop-dead gorgeous, but she's got this aura that makes me like her. And she's a pretty good actress too. I hope she makes it far in hollywood. I hope so.

did she grow up in korea?
i was actually impressed when i saw a clip of her being interviewed in english. she's nowhere as fluent as a native speaker but her pronounciation is really good.
if i have to compare, she is soo much better than rain, and boa, etc.

actually, this had been on my mind already. i like snsd/ girls' generation so i watch some of their videos. i've actually watched some of the non-native english speakers speak english and there's also a huge difference. for example, seo hyun speaks english more like jessica (and jun ji hyun). she has good pronounciation and the korean accent is almost non-existent. on the other hand yu ri and soo young have poor pronounciation and their korean accent is very obvious. all of them grew up in korea and was in the same educational system so i wonder why the big difference. at the moment, the only way i can explain it is because seo hyun shares a room with tiffany so her exposure to the english language helped her. but somehow that explanation falls short.

can anyone explain this? jun ji hyun, boa and rain all studied english. but how come jun ji hyun has managed to learn it well while boa and rain are still struggling with it? jun ji hyun managed to do away with her korean accent when speaking english (more or less) but boa and rain still has that accent? the same way that seo hyun, yu ri, and soo young are all exposed to english (because tiffany and jessica are their housemates) but seo hyun managed to do away with her accent but the other two didnt?

um, excuse me? "not drop dead gorgeous" ?!?!!
did you NOT see those pictures above?
she is a GODDESSSS

i'm not discounting the others' effort in learning and mastering the english language. i'm just really curious and i really hope a language specialist can offer some answers.

for someone who is really interested in learning languages, insights on how to learn languages would be very much appreciated.

hmmm...her hair in the cover (where she's wearing white top) is really weird..it kinda seems like she got bad split end problem! haha! the tips are brown and kinda experiencing breakage...is it just lighting? or highlights that lasted til the tips of her hair?! haha!

but overall her hair doesn't look as shiny as before..she's still pretty and looks very young..

hope she'll land more hollywood movies after blood!

#3, wow, sorry. Did you read my whole comment? I was saying, for me, as a personal opinion, she's not that pretty (when you look at her face the first time), BUT, she has this different aura and appeal that makes her (as you say), a goddess.

#2 christine,
I grew up in the Philippines my whole life, but we have english as a second language (more like our mother tongue and english as both our first languages). We study english since preschool, and everyone speaks english.

I think you're talking about a non-english speaker's pronunciation, am I right? I think it depends on a person if their tongues are (how do I say this) soft enough to make english sound as normal as possible. Sure, for a person who would grow up in an english-speaking country but with a different heritage, they would sound and speak english perfectly without their origin's accent. But, for a person who speaks both languages (like a Filipino), sometimes, they still have that 'Filipino accent' when you speak english. And I'm talking about a person who has studied english since preschool. Unless, a person lives in Canada (for example) for years, then they would be able to adapt the country's accent.

It's not really a person's fault if they speak english with his own accent (meaning his ethnicity), it just takes time to develop it (like Rain, maybe). While some are just lucky enough to be able to speak english without their accent.

Schools are a big influence, too, especially if they teach them english in their early years. Like, if a school implements a 'Speak English' campaign, or the English departments would have programs like class speeches, declamations and others, students would be able to hone their english and improve their skills.

I hope this helped a bit, because this is just what I think growing up in a Southeast asian country and having english as a second language.

To Christine:

I think a lot of it might also have to do with different abilities to learn a language. Just think about your peers learning secondary languages in middle/high school. Even though everyone goes through the same curriculum, not everybody has the same ability to get the pronunciation, grammar, or comprehension of the language down pat.

i saw these pictures and read about this on another site long time ago..this is old news. Why r u so behind on this??

Gosh, it feels like ages since i saw her in anything, even a CF. I'd nearly forgotten about her. She is playing a 16 yr old? How old is she currently?

JB, I apologize for my post (#s 1 and 6)if I have offended you (and made you crankier). Is there any other way that you can delete them? (and this too, if you find it worthless)

But I gotta say for #9 though, that was harsh. This is her blog, not yours. She can post anything no matter how old it is.

@Christing: I guess everyone is different ^^ I have a friend learning French whose really doing well, but when I see it I have such a hard time pronouncing. Yet Korean is much easier for me, and she tells me that Korean is just so hard and confusing XD

She was born in 81, so I guess she's 28 (29 Korean age I suppose) and acting nearly half her age. She looks very natural look that's pretty ^^

@9: I never saw these and I'm happy Javabeans posted them ^o^

@Christine,

Like rora and Grace mentioned above, I think it really has a lot to do with each individual's inborn ability. Some people are just more gifted linguistically than others, and it isn't necessarily the amount of time they have spent on the language, although that helps tremendously.

There are also a lot of other reasons for someone to speak a foreign language well, such as early exposure. I once read in a report that the best age to learn a foreign language is from 10-14. I think having good teachers and being interested in a certain language are also important.

Another thing, which I'm sure many of you have noticed, is how a person's mother tongue affects their pronunciation and/or ability to learn another language, because of the pronunciation patterns (yeah... can't remember the professional term for that).

@hmmm... seriously, even if you read it somewhere else, there's no need for you to be posting a comment like that. JB posts anything she wants whenever she wants on HER blog.

ANYWAY, i hope that JJH gets more exposure internationally :) she's a pretty good actress and she's gorgeous <3

her english is pretty good, but i hope she gets more practice and exposure so she loses her korean accent a little more hehe and i REFUSE to call her gianna jun. that's just....weird. lol

@ 14 Biscuit, thanks for the age info. I just checked out some of the movie pics. Yeah, she looks fine even playing half her age. (Can't say that for many actresses pushing 30)

I wish she didn't have to change her name though. I know it's difficult for Asian actors to break into Hollywood but I doubt a name change greatly facilitates that process. Is it really necessary? Zhang Ziyi kept hers.

WOW! She's so pretty and to be able to still play a highschool student at her age. That's pretty awesome huh! I haven't seen any of her movies so i'm looking forward to seeing this one though...question......is this movie part of a series? would i ruin it by watching this one first? hmmmm...take my chances shall i?! hehehe...

Anyways,

@2, Christine, i don't know anything at all about languages or learning them but (to put in my 2 cents....) i have always felt that when it comes to languages people start out with different abilities and some just.....how shall i say it.....have a naturally ability for learning new languages (and then ofcourse comes the amount of time, effort and exposure that goes into the learning). For instance, Rain i don't think has a naturally ability for learning languages where as Se7en i think does. Ok, so that comment probably doesn't help but...interesting topic to consider......am currently thinking of taking up a language myself. My company has recently had a lot to do with a new Japanese shareholder....am thinking Japanese might be one to consider.......though i hear its quite hard to learn. oh well......'fightin!'

If she does continue her career in Hollywood I really hope she'll choose wisely and refuse to do any stereotypical roles.

A good explanation to why some have better english pronunciation then others is how they were raised and how they learned it.

The problem with many foreign countries is they get people to teach english when they have very little english experience. If your teacher has a bad accent and won't correct you on yours, you learn it with the accent. I take spanish and every year my pronunciation changes because of my teachers. One of my teachers never corrected me and I had to relearn have of my pronunciation the next year.

I find that being a very large reason why many japanese cannot speak very good english. I heard about their english systems and they are not very good. The teachers hardly know how to speak english. (my friend was a foreign exchange student for a year and the teachers were always asking her for pronunciation help)

Also practice makes perfect :)

Jeon Ji Hyun looks lovely in these pics. I'm waiting for Blood and hope it'll be good!

I kinda get what rora is saying, tho I'm going to amend what she stated.

JJH doesn't have near-perfect features like a Song Hye Kyo, Kim Tae Hee or Shin Min Hee and can look a little weird at certain angles, but she, nonetheless, is a gorgeous girl (having near perfect facial symmetry, as well as eyes/brows and lips that few women can match).

What makes JJH even more appealing is her charisma/"it" factor that only a few other Korean actresses have.

As for her having better English skills than Rain, etc. - JJH may very well be more talented at languages, but she also spent a few months in the States prior to filming "Blood" in order to improve her English (in the 2007 commercials for Samsung Anycall, JJH spoke English w/ a Korean accent which isn't as pronounced now; in the same commercial, Go Ara impressively spoke English w/ hardly a hint of the Korean accent).

it is written . .. I will be watching her movie.. there is no other choice

Regarding the accents, I heard that those who are musically-inclined are better off when speaking another language coz they say that speaking is similar to singing (tones & stuff). But strangely, this does not hold true for Rain...or Boa...

In any case, thanks for this update, dramabeans!
I am looking forward to JJH's movie ^^;

I really like Jeon Ji Hyun - I see her as extremely hard-working. She draws you in in sort of a dark, solid way. As for her American name for her debut, I've come around to it. Gianna is an Italian name, isn't it? I suddenly have this image of JJH interacting with the ancient, royal, Italian vampires. Blame it on the vampire theme going around plus Twilight craze).

About her accent - the accent I heard in the previews is perfect. It's not the cringe-type of Asian accent, but the somewhat softened accent that gives the character it's Asian voice. Does anyone know what I mean by this? Like when you watch a French movie, but the dialogue is in English. You hear that French accent that sets the whole feel of the movie.... The little bit of accent JJH retains is perfect for her role as Saya.

I was born in Iowa, raised later in life in Connecticut, living recently in NY and CT. My Korean, from my brutally honest wife who loves me so much she can say this, "is... not so good." I am more than a little interested in knowing why this is. I want to know how some people speak Korean so well, and how come it is so difficult for me to speak like a native.

A native Korean can say, "Hi! I'm back from work." And, then I can say, "Hi, I'm back from work." And to me, honestly and with no hubris, I cannot tell the difference in pronunciation. To me, I have said it identically. But to my wife, who was born in Korea, the difference is obvious. But it's just a simple sentence and I can say it without stuttering or pausing in the wrong places, and so on. What's the difference?

I'm guessing these things are related. Whatever I say, I think I am saying it perfectly, and to my ears, it sounds the same. But I guess not. Maybe accents is about how we hear things, rather than how we say things, because if my ears were better at differentiating good Korean from messed up Korean, then I could speak without an "accent."

Maybe Koreans who have learned English from an early age, those Koreans cannot tell good English pronunciation from accented pronunciation, and so they can't correct their accents, even if they have had roughly the same training in English...

***

btw, Jeon Ji Hyun is pretty much my fav Korean actress. I sort of dislike it when she gets a lot of attention, because now, other guys probably like her more too, and I feel like I saw her first, whenever it was that I first saw her, and so everybody else better back off.

Another comment.

Isn't this sort of like an extremely large K-drama? LOL. One person likes Kim Rae Won. Person A. And then Person B ALSO likes Kim Rae Won. And then, Persons C, D and E also start to like Kim Rae Won. Person A feels a little bit uncomfortable, since it was just her and Kim Rae Won in the beginning. And then, Insadong Scandal comes out and more and more people are like, "oh, I really like Kim Rae Won." Hey! I liked Kim Rae Won since My Love Patzzi, which most of you hated! So leave My Love Raewon alone!

Isn't there enough of Kim Rae Won to go around? Apparently, there isn't. There is only one, and to be honest, most of the time, I don't feel like sharing.

I think every star that I like should just be friends with me and my family and close friends, and we should all just hang out every 3rd or 4th saturday afternoon, eating and playing scrabble, maybe going to the driving range to hit some balls or playing miniature golf. How fun would that be if KMM, YEH, KRW, Jeon Ji Hyun and a few others just hung out and played scrabble with me and my family/friends. I'd send pics to Dramabeans for her to post, but mostly just to make all y'all jealous. LOL.

i'm from malaysia where we speak...(*cough) a plethora of languages and dialects. okay, maybe not a plethora, but we definitely speak more than one language in one sitting. thanks to malaysia's multicultural society, we end up speaking very much mixed language which we malaysians call it 'bahasa rojak' (roughly translated from malay as 'mixed language'...rojak is a mixed fruit dish in some dark paste...something like bibimbap but not eaten as a proper food. :P)

anywayz, back to the point. so I end up learning English, Malay, Chinese, Cantonese, Hokkien thanks to my environment. Then it's up to me whether I bother practicing them. my malay, cantonese and hokkien is horrid, often distinguishable by more native speakers. But we generally pick up languages through watching tv and stuff like that. I pick up Korean through dramas, books, websites and songs.

and the other way to do it is to go speak to natives all the time using only that language. I think that's the best way.

But I must have not made any point here. Haha.

@ hsinya

Brain research has shown that children who learn a second language before the brain begins its "pruning" process (getting rid of extra connections), which starts at around at 3-4, use a different part of the [language center of the] brain than adults who learn a second language. And those adults never end up using that part of the brain. So, for those of you who wish their children to be bilingual, teach them the second language from the beginning. Also, the best way is for one parent to speak exclusively to the child in one language, and the other parent to speak exclusively to the child in the other language.

@ samsooki

Did you grow up speaking Korean with your parents? I mean, really speaking, not just listening to their Korean and just answering in English? Also, can you differentiate between hearing a native Korean speaker and a non-native Korean speaker (other than yourself)...for example, foreigners in Korea like the ladies on that talk show (can't remember the name)?

I grew up speaking Korean without an American accent and used to snicker at friends who spoke Korean with thick accents....but alas, after living away from the rest of my family for so long (which were also pre-kdrama-watching years), my Korean has unfortunately developed that dreaded Am. accent. I don't know how or when it happened exactly. The horror, the horror...aigoo...

@29, hjkomo -

I grew up speaking only American english, and so my Korean is really just reading and writing and listening. I can translate into English, but I can't speak it because I can only translate in one direction. I can read Korean and my vocab is growing, and writing is fine too (penmanship - pretty good). But when I try to speak, I lose it.

Can I differentiate? I guess so. I mean, I KNOW what good korean sounds like, and I turn red-faced when I hear other people butchering Korean with horrendous accents, but apparently, not when I speak.

If I had a choice between $10M and the ability to speak Korean fluently, I would choose the latter, and I'm pretty dead certain about that. Can you believe it? 10 years ago, I would not have believed I would make that choice, but if I had that choice right now, I would choose the latter in a heartbeat, no regrets ever.

@ samsooki

I hear you. There's nothing as embarrassing as knowing (from experience) what your accent's supposed to be, and then, not being able to do what used to be so easy. My accent's not as bad as, say, my husband's when he tries to say something in Korean ("tries" is the operative word), but it's still so frustrating.
Perhaps, if I couldn't hear my own accent like you, I'd be more inclined to use my Korean with people other than my immediate family. :)

Hey, at least, you have one up on me (and many others, I'm sure) with your penmanship. ;)

She's my 2nd fave korean actress! i think she's P-E-R-F-E-C-T!! I hope her movie will do good in hollywood, and I hope to watch her in big screen. (not straight to DVD. >_<)

I think she's gorgeous but in a more natural way.

For example, during the movie "A Man Who Was Superman" she wore hardly any makeup and her hair was a mess but I thought she was gorgeous.

However when I see her at events and her face is full of makeup? Not so much.

Re: the language thing.

I was very upset with my mother because apparently, until age 5 or 6 I spoke fluent Tagalog (actually Bisian, sp?). And then I returned to the States and my mother never spoke it to me and now all I know is English. :(

So I guess English was my 2nd language, but I consider it my ONLY language, because it is. I have no accent. I also think the accent stays a little longer depending on who you are hanging around with.

For example:
Like I said, I only know English and my English is perfect, with no accent at all. HOWEVER, when I go to the Philippines and stay with my cousins, I notice that by the end of the first week, I'm already starting to use their inflections in my vocab (even though I'm still speaking English). It's like I'm speaking English but with a Tagalog accent. But that's only because I'm surrounded by it and I guess I automatically start to imitate it. It's strange.

Cool discussion about language!

I speak two languages fluently, without any accent, and I understand two more (one badly, the other one not so badly). When I speak in English, people are amazed to hear that I was not born in America, didn't live here for most of my life, or even that I live between two countries (I move fluidly back and forth and have houses in both places -- that is, I switch between both languages on a professional as well as personal basis).

And for this, I credit my mother and father who introduced English songs into the house when I was pre-verbal and then later sent me to a bilingual school. At home, I also had to take special language classes (ah, overachieving Asian parents) in both my mother tongue and English -- all the way into my teens. I also took music lessons in both languages. I have no idea how my parents knew that there is a link between music and better learning skills but they did all this before all the Mozart Effect studies.

My parents, freaks that they were, introduced Arabic in to my repertoire when I was 8 or 9, and even took me on vacations to the Middle East so I could practice, and I ended up, amazingly enough, picking up Arabic really fast. I could converse effortlessly after only a couple of years. BUT, I also lost it very, very quickly. My Arabic accent was also horrendous. As soon as my lessons stopped and my exposure ended, bam!, it was gone! It was like I had never known the language. Very creepy.

So I think if language is introduced as a second language (after pre-verbal), it doesn't stick around and it is impossible to ever speak it fluently.

I have noticed that I have the ability to pick up languages really fast, and I don't know if it is because my parents molded my brain to be this way or if I was naturally born with it. My sister knows at least 5 languages so maybe it is genetic or maybe it is the effect of growing up in our education-music-languages-heavy household.

I am learning Korean through You Tube right now. I would like to get Rosetta Stones but they are way too expensive for my blood. I think I only need to get by conversationally. It also helps that my friend is Korean. I am preparing for my trip to Korean this summer. Excited.

Now I only wish to learn Japanese before I head out to Tokyo in a few weeks! I am super excited!

@cecee

I'm learning nihongo. I have "My Japanese Coach" on my DS. There's too many memorization though, and I don't think that's the best way to learn. I practice by watching a lot of jdoramas. I get excited when I watch something w/ no subtitles and still get what they were saying. Eventually I'll have to take a class, before I deal with my Japanese suppliers (not drugs...I'm no Yoon Seol-hee).

JJH *sighs* my 1st girl crush. (LOL.)
she's still very pretty & just keeps getting more famous :)
world domination? haha.
keep it up gorgeous! :D

What's so wrong with having an accent? I don't hear my own, but have had other people remark on it. Northern people (American) ask if I'm southern and vice versa. I'm southern but apparently I speak faster than the average southerner in my region. Go figure.

It's a shame that a stigma is placed on people's speech patterns. I remember a Korean variety sketch starring HeeChul, where the punch line of the skit was that although his character was gorgeous, he was from the "back woods" (as said in America), and thus spoke with a country dialect. This was a complete embarressment to his girlfriend and everyone around him. Hilarity ensues. Yuk yuk.

I too have a problem with learning other languages, but it's a problem of poor pitch perception and nothing else. I can learn another language with ease, I just can't converse in it. I could write whole novels in Spanish, but try to speak it with me and I'd be like, "uhm, what?"

not being released in the states?

Hollywood sucks!!!! They say its going to be a blockbuster and yet not a single commercial has come out for this video. I believe small minded Hollywood would only release it in limited theaters.

Funnily enough, accent does matter in understanding language. My family was stationed in Alabama for six years when I was in my early teens. According to my friends (more so by my non-friends), I spoke like a "Yankee," but then we moved to Wisconsin and my accent was said to be very Southern. I didn't think so until I met my friend's cousin from Mexico. The cousin could understand (and speak) English, but she couldn't understand anything I said. My friend had to "translate" for me (in English). To my ear, it all sounded the same, but apparently the accent makes a big difference.

@chajjye
nice to meet a fellow Malaysian in this post.

Like Nom Kitteh, most Americans don't think my English has an accent. They are usually surprised that I am not born in the US. On the flipside, my parents and some of my friends said I've acquired an American accent - if there's such a thing.

I was fortunate that my parents spoke English with each other and to me from the time I was a toddler. I learned Cantonese from speaking to my grandmother. When I started school, I learned Malay from classroom instructions and Hokkien from my new friends. Then my mum decided I have to learn Mandarin - the mother tongue so I took Mandarin tutorial classes for most of my school life. Later, I learned some Hakka from listening to my dad converse with his siblings.

Despite the fact that I took all those years of Mandarin and spoke Cantonese at home with my family and relatives, I am ashamed to say my Chinese language needs improvement due to lack of practice now. My Malay is actually better than Chinese - at least I can translate it to English with no problem.

I know most experts believe children have to learn or be exposed to languages early in their life to be able to learn the language. I am not sure how true this is. I have several friends who are linguists in the military. They learn and master a foreign language i.e. Korean, Chinese in a year...yes, a year!! And for some of them, they've never heard the language in their life before taking the course.

Shaving the accent is a different story. It's hard for an English native speaker to try to speak Chinese or Korean with no accent whatsoever. After all, it is a foreign language no matter how fluent they now are in the language.

the thread is quite interestingm but first JJH. I saw the tyrailer of BLOOD, gosh she's fantastic. I hope she will make it to hollywood. then i also agree that there's no need to change her name. SHe already has a big following in Asia, with her new name, her fanbase wll get confused. Besides, there are other Koreans or asian stars who did not changed their name i hollywood, like the Korean actress in LOST. Her name is pretty enough.

regarding the accent and languages. I'm filipino and yes we've studied english since pre-school. BUt i'm worried that we are losing our mother tongue. We are now conversing more on Taglish (a mixture of tagalog and english) that i'm afraid that in the next twenty years, the Filipino language will just die like Latin and you will have to study for 4 years to relearn it =(. What aggravates the situation is the texting that we do every minute of the day. We are not the texting capital of the world for nothing.

We easily learn english because we were first colonized by the Spanish vs. the Chinese, unlike our other neighboring Asian countries. Why did i say it? because the construction of sentences of the Spanish is basically the same as theat of English., Unlike the Chinese, where the words formation in sentences is a lot different. ANother that helped is that fact that we are also a Malay race. Hence, it is with this reason that we are like Malaysians, we can learn and speak several languages. Though here in the Philippines, only the rich can learn to speak Chinese or if you are already Chinese of race (chinese school are kinda expensive and limiting).

I'm a Filipino, but what i don't like about the FIlipinos is how they tend to correct accents of others when speaking english. Sometimes even to the point of laughing at your face, Bad, yes very bad. Coz when i was exposed in working to a global company where there are INdians, malaysians, chinese, singaporeans, british, americans, etc., it doesn't matter how you pronounced your english or how your english sentence is contructed. But if you talk to a Filipino, you have to be careful or you will be laughed at. IN fact, i heard that we are more grammatically correct in speaking and writing english vs. the Americans. Because we've been studying english since grade school. In fact, i am better in constructing perfect english sentences compared to my Filipino or Tagalog sentences. I think only the teachers who teach Filipino languages in school can do perfect Filipino. Let's face it, we tend to forget our mother tongue when we get exposed to another language.

So in short, unless we are blessed with multi-lingual tongue, we can only perfect 1 language.

By the way, i think some of the stars in KOrea (before they become stars) came here to study english. Most of them enrolled in Visayas, were the great beaches are located =). I also found our that there is a Englsh school for Korean Kids ages from 6 to 12 years old (somewhere in LAguna). They stay here for a year or 2. Let's say there's a group of 10 kids, 1 mom will stay to take care of them while the other Parents will remain in KOrea. I just don't know how many kids were accepted in that school, But when i talked to the kids, they are already speaking perfect english. Yeah, i think it's best to start young.

My father came to the U.S. in his early 20's and started learning in his first year here. He was in the U.S. Army and now he's in his 50's and he still speaks with an accent that leans towards thick. He says he sure it's because he didn't speak English enough. Not enough practice. See? Practice does make perfect. All his close friends are Chinese and he really only communicates in English at work and when he's running errands.

I grew up speaking Cantonese and Mandarin. My father refused to speak to me in English. He wanted me to learn it properly - from a teacher at school. He didn't want me speaking English with a Chinese accent.

I can relate to those people here that grew up knowing a language but lost it when they got older. It's sad! After we moved out of my grandparents' house, I stopped speaking Cantonese. I can still understand what people are saying but ...I cannot pronounce many words correctly. Literally, it's physically impossible. My tongue can't move the way it has to. The Cantonese dialect has more tones than Mandarin. Ah well. What's lost is lost.

And the best time to learn and absorb a language IS when you're very young. Preschool/kindergarten age. That's wha the studies report. Someone mentioned that above and they're absolutely right. My neighbor is Taiwanese and lived in Puerto Rico from elementary school on through junior high. She's fluent in Spanish and really wants to send her youngest (4) there over the summer. I really hope she does because she's stopped sprinkling Spanish phrases into her conversations with her daugther for about a year and a half now. The kid has forgotten everything. :(

Here's a weird story:
When I was 2-3, I had a Scottish neighbor that LOVED me. She was elderly and living alone so sometimes when everyone was busy, I got sent over there to hang out for a couple of hours and apparently she spoke to me a lot because I catch myself now and then speaking funny. Sometimes I say certain words or setences with a bit of a Scottish accent. People don't notice but I do and I find it very disconcerting.

i guess this has become more of a language discussion eh? hehe well.. for one, her english trainor must be good, and her capacity to imbibe the new language is better than the others. The secret to learning a new language especially with the Eng language is to practice and use it everyday. Use and converse in english confidently, don't be too insecure about ur grammar, because grammar is something u need to learn along the way. Watch as many english movies as u can and you will somehow adapt to the American accent. Koreans have problems with the R and the L sound since its non-existent in their alphabet, so u should also consider the first language when u teach someone a new language.
With regards to Gianna Jun, i think she is not the typically beautiful korean, but she has acting abilities, charisma and the celebrity look which makes her stand out.

your cute.