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Read on for English language tips from RM, how not to speak Mandarin at a press conference, and examples of the unique language and phrases BTS group members share with their fans.
RM speaks beautiful English
RM’s speech at the United Nations in September 2018 not only garnered a strong response from his audience and fans around the world for its powerful message about being yourself and learning to speak out – and also showcased RM’s impressively fluent English.
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On The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2017, RM revealed that the secret to his brilliant English was the fact that he grew up watching the sitcom Friends. He said he owed a lot to the popular programme, since he went to more than 20 different English academies but none of them did as much for his vocabulary as watching episode after episode of Rachel, Ross, Chandler and the gang.
At a 2017 press conference reported on by DongA, he elaborated further, saying that studying English just through books had been meaningless for him. At first he said he would watch Friends with Korean subtitles, then with English subtitles, and then remove them completely.
At another press conference in 2015, RM said that his fellow group members “also study English and Chinese but leave English up to me, so I’m studying thinking that [I have] the English speaking role,” he explained. According to Dispatch, RM also speaks decent Japanese and Mandarin too.
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Several BTS members speak Japanese
In November 2018, BTS sold out 380,000 Tokyo Dome concert tickets as part of the Love Yourself World Tour and during its promotion, interacted with fans by speaking Japanese and even joking back and forth with each other in the language. The septet are collectively proficient enough to appear in Japanese television programmes and fans even noticed that V and Jimin’s voices go a little deeper when they speak in Japanese.
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But can BTS speak Mandarin?
Fans are used to seeing clips of BTS members speaking the odd Mandarin phrase here and there, however it’s evidently not the group’s strongest language. For example in The Show, a programme launched in 2014 by Korean broadcasting company SBS Plus and China’s video sharing platform Tudou, Jin introduced the group in Mandarin, saying: “I love the Chinese language”, but then quickly passed the microphone off to J-Hope, who announced that he loved to speak Chinese too. The mic was then quickly passed to V, who inadvertently made fans laugh by answering the question, “What is your favourite food” with a mere “Thank you.”
Nevertheless, Jin, J-Hope and V did still manage to communicate a handful of other Mandarin phrases back and forth during the remainder of the interview.
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BTS’ secret language with its Army fans
Just as the words Facebook and Googling were added to the dictionary when they became universal enough, BTS have created a handful of phrases popular with its Army (BTS fans) that now form part of the lexicon when discussing the group. For example “AFOBANGFO” is an acronym Jungkook invented by shortening the sayings “Army Forever” and “Bangtan Forever”.
The term borahae (literally “purple I love you” in Korean) is also widely used by BTS and its Army fandom, and has become shorthand for “love you”. The phrase was coined at a 2016 fan meeting when BTS’ Army placed purple covers over their light sticks to create a sea of stunning purple lights inside the venue.
BTS’ V was so touched he created the term borahae (“purple you”) and the colour has become meaningful for fans. V elaborated further by saying, “Purple is the last colour of the rainbow’s colours and so it means I will trust and love you for a long time.”
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Now the term “I purple you” has even been added to Urban Dictionary and is recognisably a BTS phrase and also associated with the purple heart emoji. Even Unicef said “We purple you”, when thanking BTS and the group’s fans for their support.
Learn Korean with BTS
If you are a BTS fan and looking to learn Korean, look no further than BTS’ Korean language programme. This past August, Big Hit Edu (Big Hit Entertainment’s educational company) joined forces with the Korea Foundation and the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies to offer Learn! Korean with BTS, a language learning option through K-pop.
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The book features Korean phrases from BTS’ previous variety shows Run BTS! and Bangtan Bomb,and are greatfor people that are starting their Korean language learning journey. What’s even more fun is the fact that you can hunt for BTS voice memos hidden inside the books.
No matter what language you speak, BTS and its fans will always find a way to communicate.
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