Jeongeun's accent?

[kzuraw]

Sorry if this was already covered in Jeongeun's audio blog, but I'm not advanced enough to understand those (yet!).

I'm just curious where Jeongeun is from because her accent seems very different from what I've heard from other speakers so far--her 아 especially (in phonetics terms, it sounds like the low back vowel [ɑ] instead of the usual low front vowel [a]). Or is this something widespread in the younger generation?

Thanks for any insights, and thanks to Jeongeun for adding some more variety to the accents!

-카이

[hyunwoo]

카이

정은 is from Seoul, (and btw she's now a university student! congratulations 정은! lol) and in Korean, there's no distinct difference between the two different "a" sounds that you mentioned any more, and no distinct difference between the two different "e" sounds (애 and 에) as well. So I think it really depends on the person. But she talks in a more casual situation, she also tends to say things really quickly so her "a" sounds aren't so clearly pronounced

Thanks for the question!!

[SiEd]

안녕하세요, 카이씨. 만나서 반갑습니다.

UCLA에서 가르치시는 Zuraw선생님이세요?

If so, welcome!

[kzuraw]

감사합니다, 현우씨. I will have to keep my ears open for how different people say 아 from now on.

And congratulations to 정은씨!

SiEd씨, 처음 뵙겠습니다. 네, 저는 Kie Zuraw 예요--UCLA 언어학 department에서 일해요. SiEd씨는 언어학자 이세요?

[SiEd]

SiEd씨, 처음 뵙겠습니다. 네, 저는 Kie Zuraw 예요--UCLA 언어학 department에서 일해요. SiEd씨는 언어학자 이세요?

처음 뵙겠습니다.

네, 그래요. 저는 UC Santa Barbara 다니는 언어학 대학생이고 사실은 지금 Balinese 공부하고 있어요...

[kzuraw]

Cool! Wow, Balinese은 어때요?