Since the center of the story in HIGH CLASS was an international school, the Korean actors had to speak English which they all did pretty well.

The older you get, the harder it is to learn a second language (unless you have an instinctive gift for it). It is because we learn language sounds at a very early age, then learn to read and write the symbols for those sounds to create complex meanings.

In a recent YT video, RobWords was set on updating the English alphabet. He was looking for one symbol for the "ng" sound, and I knew write away Korean had it - - the batchim O! Korean alphabet is easy to learn but the language is hard to master.

Yoo Teo’s English in Money Game is very natural I think. I know he’s fluent in English but it’s very difficult to make your English lines sound good in Korean dramas (side eye to Ahn Hyo-seop and Taecyeon). Oh and he’s also really hot speaking gibberish in Arthdal Chronicles.

Tiffany was also really good in Reborn Rich.
The worst use of English in Korean drama for me is still Lee Min-ho’s in the beginning of Heirs lol.

There are so many!

Vincenzo feels like an obvious choice here. I can't speak to Song Joong-ki's pronunciation of Italian, but I heard he thought it was the hardest part!

Half of Memories of the Alhambra is set in Spain, so there is a good amount of Spanish spoken by some of the main characters.

Morgan in Search WWW was adopted by Australian parents, so he speaks English with them a good amount.

Ahn Hyo-seop got to show off the 10 years he lived in Canada with a business trip he took in Business Proposal, and I think I've seen a clip of him in Abyss speaking English also, though I know enough not to watch that drama in its entirety.

There are so many little instances, I look forward to reading what other Beanies remember! I'll just close by mentioning You Drive Me Crazy, which I just watched recently, and the FL is a translator between Korean and French in it - so tons of French spoken!

I remember being surprised by hearing Hindi spoken in Just Between Lovers. It was a bit part by Anupam Tripathi who'd become famous later for Squid Game.

Another memorable one was French being spoken by Ye Ji-won in Another Miss Oh, which everyone assumes is gibberish but only Kim Ji-seok's character understands and he ultimately converses with her in French as well.

🎵🎶✨ K-Drama Treasure Hunt 👀…💥💃🏻 K-Drama Treasure Hunt 🔍…💥🕺 K-Drama Treeeeaaaasure Hunt🎁…💓🙋‍♀️ wootyWOOTWOOT! ✨🎶🎵 It's my favorite time of the week!

For me, I remember a French example. In You Drive Me Crazy the FL is a Korean-French translator, and her French is, well, not awesomely pronounced. But hey, my Korean isn’t either!

_ I think it was Mandarin Chinese in "Misaeng". Kang So Ra's character seemed to speak it fluently but I really don't know because I have no idea of Mandarin Chinese.

_ Spanish in "Flower Boy Next Door". Spanish is my first language and it was quite weird to hear it in a K-drama. It was far from perfect but I don't take it into account, I love Enrique no matter how bad his Spanish is.

_ Spanish in "Memories of Alhambra". Some extras talked in what it seemed more American Spanish than European Spanish. Park Shin Hye had a weird accent too.

_ Japanese in "Nokdu Flower".

_ French in 25-21 (Na Hee Do was fluent in French).

_ English in "Rooftop Prince" (Female lead lived in New York).

_ Italian in "Vincenzo" and "Saimdang".

It's a vast theme!

Some actors who are good in English often are given some English dialogues like Ahn Hyo-Seop, Kim Ji-Seok, Steve Sanghyun Noh, Son Seok-Gu, Yoo Teo, etc.

So for English, there are too many like Run On where the FL is a translator.

As a French speaker, I remember some attempts :

- Another Miss Oh with the ML's sister talking in French when she's drunk
- You Drive Me Crazy! : The FL is a translator for French
- 25-21 : the FL has lived in France with her parents and she surprises the ML
- She was Pretty : a very excentrique character was speaking French
- Healer : The FL was singing I think... The poor ML didn't understand anything.
-The Package : The FL is a tour guide in France
- Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryun and Mr Sunshine : with Fabien Yoon, who is French, playing a French guy mocking the Prince or teaching fencing

The most of the time, I don't really undertand what they're saying. 😅

In Business Proposal, Young Seo's (SFL) cousin Yoo Jung (played by Seo Hye Won) keeps sprinkling in English in her lines. The "You KNOW I have no 친구(chingu)!!" Line is ICONIC.😁

One that sticks out in my mind is Henry Lau's character in Oh My Venus. Loved his great English and his accented Korean and how he switched back and forth between the two languages. Loved him in this drama.

I don't speak Japanese, but I've been impressed by actors' Japanese in the dramas that take place during the Japanese Occupation. In Mr. Sunshine, Kim Nam-hee and Lee Jung-hyun sound native, and in Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938, the way Yuki (Kim Seung-hwa) of the Shinigami switches to a kawaii, high-pitched voice whenever she speaks Japanese.

I do speak Mandarin, and sometimes I need to have the subs turned on when actors speak Mandarin like chief eunuch Park Ki-woong in The King's Affection, but sometimes I can understand their pronunciation like Ming envoy Kim Sung-kang in Joseon Attorney. Then we have Ahn Hyo-seop whose Mandarin was dubbed in Abyss.

My favorite is Seon Seok Gu speaking English! I just love it.

Matrimonial chaos comes to mind.

Some solid English one-liners (more than one somtimes) in Kdramas:

- Obligatory Gong Yoo 'play store' mention (again!)
- Lee Soo-hyuks' mind melting deep voice correcting the spelling of manner (M-A-N-N-E-R, swooon) in Doom at Your Service
- Lee Min-ho's "deesgustingg sheeit" from Legend of the Blue Mermaid
- Everytime Kim Jung-hyun's character pretended to be a foreigner in Crash Landing On You
- The scene in Sound of Your Heart where the mum says they can only speak in english from now on in the household

Oh. How did I forget the epic ‘F# You’ from Run on. And Im bb quietly giving the thumbs up! 😅

Jung Ryeo Won speaks lovely English. She has lived in Australia for 8 years so it is expected but it is still lovely to hear.

That one place in SWDBS where Min Hyuk corrected Bon Soon's English - attitude was the word - it took me a couple of seconds to understand what HE was saying. That was ironically funny.

I’m pretty sure Lee Je-hoon spoke fluent English in WHERE STARS LAND

Ryoo Joon-yeol also spoke English to a German reporter in the film TAXI DRIVER

Cha Eun Woo's Italian in Island! I have zero Italian, but so many say it was perfect.

In Misaeng, I think Kang Sora spoke English, German, Russian and Chinese?

And then there's Lee Min Ho speaking Japanese in Pachinko
Everybody saying "Let's git it!" And "ah streeeeesssss" in Fiery Priest (does rgis even count?! Lol)
Im Shi Wan speaking English in the opening scene of Misaeng, and peppered throughout the movie Emergency Declaration

Lee Yeon Hee, plays the guide in The Package. Not sure how good the French was but I liked that drama coz it's like I had a mini vacation in France!

This is such a fun read!
Brings back lots of fun memories of different dramas!

Oooh, ooh! Just thought of another: Chief Hong in Hometown Cha^3 speaks Russian (and offers tea) to that Russian dockworker in the first episode. I do believe it’s supposed to show his support for, and desire to help, other people no matter what, but given the socio-economic-political reasons that this foreigner is working on a Korean dock, it’s also sort of just a sad reminder of what the twenty-first century is like.

In “Shopaholic Louis” there’s the scene in the market where Louis reads snippets from books in Japanese, Spanish, German and French before he and Bok-sil confess their feelings.

Mr. Sunshine has characters speaking English, Japanese, Mandarin, and French.
The noona in Another Miss Oh spoke hilarious French.
FL in Nokdu Flower speaks Japanese.

Not a drama, but a movie. There is a hilarious scene in the Japanese movie Linda Linda Linda in which a Japanese student tries to express his feelings to the Korean exchange student in Korean, and the exchange student (Bae Doo Na) responds in Japanese.

Yeo Jin-goo and Gong Seung-yeon have a brief conversation in English in Circle episode 2 - both have excellent pronunciation, although it isn’t demanding dialogue. YJG also speaks readily with people in New Zealand during Bros on Foot and it looks like he understands the conversations, but who knows with editing magic. 😂

The younger sister in One Spring Night has returned from studying in France and drops a lot of French phrases into her conversation, but the grammar is rough and I struggled to understand them without subtitles.

On the flip side, Lee Min-ki barks out some English in The Beauty Inside like he memorized it phonetically and has no idea what he’s saying. It sounds like a truck grinding its gears. (Which is probably how I’d sound if i tried to speak a memorized phrase in most languages, so no criticism intended!)

This is going to be so much fun.

Joo Dante and Oh Yoon-hee tried speaking English in Penthouse 2 while canvassing with an English client and...
Lee Ji-ah and Park Eun-sook however had a flawless command, with Lee Ji-ah basically accentless.

And then, there's Yoo Teo speaking some English in the movie Vertigo. Some 30 seconds but damn, he has a nice command of English, I wouldn't call it perfect though. There's also some springled Yoo Teo speaking English in Love To Hate You.

This list won't be complete without our polyglot Lee Ha-nee in One The Woman. She plays two characters here. With the prosecutor, she effortlessly belted 4 languages(Korean, French, English and Vietnamese) without any error. In comparison to her In-law household who were struggling with English, she freaking bested all of them, and with great fluency. If you get to watch the vietnamese part, prepare to laugh out your tummy. Her whole family(husband's) were basically lost. If she wanted to sell them to the Vietnamese help, all it takes is one conversation.

And then, there's the recent Jang Hyuk speaking was it German...? in Family: The Indestructible Bond. It took reading the recaps/comments to know that it was German. All I knew was that Jang Hyuk was speaking Korean as at time.
Jang Hyuk also spoke English I think in episode 5&6.

And...the very introductory episode of 20th Century Boy and Girl has the FL(Han Ye-seul) who goes by Sa Jin-jin deliver a very lengthy part of her salutations to the audience (they were having a conference/launch of some sort) and she spoke in very clear English.

And, to the very first time I heard a Korean speak English, that will be Vivian Castle played by Han Go-eun in A Man Called God. According to her citation she has 5 languages under her belt and yes, her English command during the hotel opening in Hawaii was very good.

Im Jung-han and Eric Mun in The Spies Who Loved Me(Ep 5-6). While Eric Mun spoke in very clear English, Im Jung-han spoke in a less clearer manner but was still intelligible to the ears. Plus, I'm sure they both coached Yoo Inna cause her command of English here is way better than her command in Bora!

The one person I expected will have a good command is Park Min-young. But somehow her command falters sometimes. On the male side it's Lee Seo-jin. He falters as well. I don't know, maybe because the internet oversold their fluency in English for me but hearing them talk in English, it is a bit of a letdown. I'm very sorry if I'm coming hard on this two.

I'm very sure I've watched a kdrama where they tried speaking in Chinese but I can't really point out where.

And please🤣🤣🤣, there is the comical Choi Chi-yeol's "Pride makes Mess". It never gets old.

Vincenzo directly comes to mind. I don't speak Italian but Song Joon-gi made great effort, that's clear. Also, Taecyeon's sprinkled Konglish was delightful.

In The Three Musketeers, Kim Sung-Min was among the actors speaking in what I believe was Manchu. I have absolutely no idea whether his accent was any good or not.

In Encounter, Park Bo-Gum and Song Hye-Kyo spoke some so-so Spanish during the scenes set in Cuba.

The movie Decision to Leave was really interesting in that the Chinese actress Tang Wei, who played the wife of a Korean man, spoke an old-fashioned Korean that was meant to sound as if she learned it from studying classic books or watching a lot of sageuks. Not understanding Korean myself, I wasn’t able to pick up on that nuance, but from what I read, native Korean speakers would have noticed it and made certain assumptions about her character.

In King2Hearts there’s a fair amount of language hopping - mostly English from the villain - but also there’s a bit when Lee Seung gi is speaking French. In my memory his accent was pretty good but I might just be judging against my terrible French accent 😅

In the drama 'She Was Pretty' Choi Se-won's character face-timed with his adoptive parents in English. I recall not only was his American English spot-on but he was also *acting* instead of merely reciting dialog.

Son Suk-ku speaks quite a bit of English in Big Bet

MAD DOG (2017) (Viki US). Woo Do-hwan’s character was Jan Gebauer and he spoke German and English I believe.

I think Kim Jae Wook's Japanese in Coffee Prince is still the best among all the actors who spoke or memorized Japanese in Kdrama. (I'm Japanese, so I know)
His Japanese was soooo good and he was so hot🧡

There was quite a lot of English in Descendants of the Sun, spoken both by first-language/proficient English speakers (David Lee McGinnis; Cho Tae-Kwan) and by first-language Korean speakers (Song Joong-ki, most obviously)...and while I recall reading that Song Joong-ki stated that he found some lines difficult, I remember thinking that his diction was perfectly intelligible and also matched the character's backstory in proficiency.

I’m rewatching QUEEN SEON DEOK. One of my favorite scenes of all time is in Episode 1, where Nam Ji-Hyun plays the young Deokman living in the Taklamakan Desert in the 7th century. She speaks Korean, Chinese, and Latin.

My current obsession: Son Seok-goo speaking in great English pronunciation in Big Bet, having been in school in Canada and Chicago. Although the Filipino actor Nico Antonio did better since English is one of the Philippines' official languages.

In My Girl, Lee Da Hae is a guide for Chinese tourists and speaks Mandarin. According to wikipedia, she's fluent in Japanese, English, and Chinese.

In My Girl, Lee Da-hae's character spoke some Japanese and Mandarin Chinese for her unlicensed tour business and was hired by Lee Dong-wook's character to be a translator for bit. This was before she started squatting at his house and before she ended up being the fake cousin. I'm not a native Mandarin Chinese speaker, but I thought she sounded pretty good.

I just remembered in Secret Garden the 2FL had supposedly been educated in the US so she sometimes used English, badly. At one point she yelled at the 1FL “you a lie-ah!” which cracked me up. I still yell it at politicians on tv all the time.

- If kdrama has gangsters from Busan's docks or somewhere similar, high chances are that at some point there will be Russian spoken, ranging from fluent (TIME BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF) to decent (Heo Sung Tae's character in BEYOND EVIL) to atrocious (FIERY PRIEST).
- WELCOME TO WAIKIKI Season1 had a native Ukrainian girl (wouldn't go as far as to call her an actress lol) speaking perfectly fluent language as well.
- REBORN RICH Ep1 had some scenes in Turkey, I believe, but I don't remember how well extras were speaking there.
- back to TIME BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF - prologue occurred in Thailand, including both leads as kids and adults and main antagonist speaking a bit of language here and there at, from what I heard, not so terrible level.
- JOSEON GUNMAN had a lot of Japanese from both ML (who pretended to be Japanese for most of the show) and his assistant (native both in drama and real life). Former was passable with obvious Korean accent, latter fluent, of course.
- again from LJG's catalogue - teen romance movie VIRGIN SNOW was Korea-Japan co-production with him as Korean ML moving to Japan and Japanese actress as native FL, both taught each other their respective languages on screen and it was super cute.

Woo Do Hwan played a character who was raised in Germany in Mad Dog. He didn't say very much in German, just a few words here and there (at least I don't remember longer passages right now 🤔). It wasn't too bad! 😉 In fact in one case it was rather cute - and accurate to the spoken language. The polite way to apologize is to say "Entschuldigung", but in a more casual setting this word gets scrunched and shortened a bit so it becomes something like "Shullyung". That's some real-life spoken German he was saying to the female character once - someone had consulted somebody who knew something! Very cute and well pronounced! 👍

Many people may have forgotten Lee Jung-jin as a law student in Love Story in Harvard (2004) , but I haven't. He argues – at great length - cases in what must be English, but sounds like Gibberish.

On the other hand, Jeong Ryeo-won in My Name Is Kim Sam-soon (2005) and Han Ye-seul in Fantasy Couple (2006) speak English like natives. By the way, isn't there a scene in MNIKSS with Kim Sun-ah speaking French and Daniel Henney speaking English?

I wish I can take finnish and estonian into kdramas asnd say some cheesy pointless line.

Ghost Doctor, UEE speaks something thats supposed to be english but it sounds like cardboard.

Welcome to waikiki had something but I cannot point out the scene

Kudos to one of my favorite actors, Kang Sora for her linguistic skills in Misaeng. Her English accent is perfect and she speaks Mandarin well. I am not sure about the other languages but they sound about right to my ears, especially her Russian.

Kim Tae Hee appeared in a Japanese drama Boku to Star no 99 Nichi and she speaks Japanese with a slight Korean accent. I know she also can speak Mandarin.

How about Lee Honey attempt to speak Vietnamese (alongside other languages) in One The Woman
I can't really commend her pronunciation, but it's a funny feeling hearing my native language spoken in a K-drama!

Flying the flag for Family: The Unbreakable Bond here 👋 - Jang Hyuk speaks German with his friend Wolfe on the phone, and Jang Na Ra speaks Thai because her most wonderful adoptive parents are Thai (and she grows up there). I have no idea whether the accents were any good, but a fellow beanie said that they didn’t realise Jang Hyuk was even speaking in German, so perhaps it was not mind-blowing.😁 There may also have been some English at some point? I never notice English anymore because I’m reading subtitles anyway, and it kind of passes me by!😅

In Dali and the Cocky Prince, Dali speaks French in one of the early episodes, I want to say 1 or 2.

Also, Son Ye Jin speaking mandarin in Crash landing on you (when she is negotiating with chinese men).

I just rewatched the scene in episode 1 of Shopping King Louis that takes place in the luxury store in France. The conversation between Louis and the salesperson is truly bizarre! Seo In-Guk speaks a few brief words and phrases in passable French, while the salesperson switches between excellent French (I think he's a native speaker) and what sounds to me like horrible Korean. Does anyone know the name of the actor playing the salesperson? He's not credited, but he looks like Fabien Yoon, the actor who appeared in Mr. Sunshine, The King 2Hearts, et al.

Kim Dali spoke English in Ep 1 of Dali & the Cocky Prince