Koreans
generally speak a combination of American and British English
and sometimes this is combined with Konglish. Confused? If
we are talking about telephones for example, the following
is generally true:
Mobile phone (British) = Cellphone
or cellular phone (American) = Hand-phone (Konglish and used
in some other Asian countries including Malaysia and Singapore).
Pronunciation, in Korean English, sometimes follows the American
English style and other times British style English. In Korean
English, the words ‘vitamins’, ‘aluminium’,
‘data’ and ‘leisure’ for example,
are said in the British way.
Vitamins: (Pronounced vit-a-mins with a soft ‘t’
sound in the ‘vit’) -British/Konglish
(Pronounced vied-a-mins with a hard ‘t’ sound
in the ‘vit’) - American
Aluminium: (Pronounced a-lum-in-um)
- British/Konglish
(Pronounced a-lume-in-um) - American
The majority of Korean English
though, is American English, with the accentuated rolling
‘r-r-r-r’ sound and dropped definition of many
letters i.e. the ‘t’ sound, which is stronger
in British English. In Korean English ‘went’ will
be pronounced ‘wen’, in the American 
style.
As a British person and having travelled and lived in the
U.S for 5 years, I am interested in both British and American
English. It is heart breaking though, when students read some
words absolutely perfectly, but are then told by an American
teacher that their pronunciation is wrong.
The student then tries to
learn the word the American way and then struggles to get
the American pronunciation correct and the word becomes difficult
to understand in any form of English.
I always taught students that
the correct form of English, whether American or British,
is the form with which they feel most comfortable. There is
no doubting the American influence in Korea and the desire
to learn the American style of English, is understandable.
Nevertheless, many countries in Asia use British English i.e.
Hong Kong, India, China and Singapore. Hence, understanding
what we call ‘International English’ is perhaps
the best English to learn. By International English we mean
a form of English whereby we understand the different accents
and differences and learn a combination of British and American
English. British English is the dominant world English, except
for Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines, with Japan also having
a strong usage of British English.
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