7 Times NCT Proved They're Multilingual Kings

Being a boy group of 21 (with the potential for many more), NCT represents a colorful range of nationalities. With members from Canada, Japan, Macau, and more, NCT boasts an impressive range of native languages; and they don’t just stop there. Many members are multilingual or have several dialects under their belts, skill sets ranging from Thai to German. Their language abilities are almost as diverse as their fanbase — and here’s the proof!

1. NCT 127’s first V Live

In NCT 127’s very first V Live, leader Taeyong has the foreign members Mark, Yuta, and WinWin introduce the group in their native languages (English, Japanese, and Chinese, respectively) for the international fans. With the addition of Johnny, Doyoung, and Jungwoo to the unit later, that brings the total number of spoken languages for this sub-unit to five! You can also see some of WinWin’s Korean struggles in this video, and it’s admirable to see how much his skills have improved since his early post-debut days. It shows how much his hard work has really paid off!

2. NCT 127 says “I love you” in four different languages

This video is impressive because it’s not just one or two members that can speak multiple languages — it’s all nine! Granted, they’re only saying one phrase, but four languages without even breaking a sweat is amazing nonetheless. I’m also shocked by how much English they use in this video, and how much English they learned for the American leg of their tour in general. Even as a native speaker English stumps me sometimes, so definite kudos to these guys.

3. NCT 127’s “Global Greeting Relay”

NCT 127 started this promotional interview for their EP “Cherry Bomb” by introducing themselves in four languages, and it just got better from there! They played a hilarious round of “Global Greeting Relay,” members holding a ready-to-burst balloon until they could come up with a greeting in a language that hadn’t already been used. Their repertoire of greetings has probably expanded a lot since their world tour began in April, and it’d be great to see them try this game again with their expanded language base after their tour is over!

4. The China Line explains all of their different dialects

In this V Live from last year, NCT 2018’s Chinese members came together for their very first China line V Live. This livestream was held in Mandarin, but all of the members possess varying levels of Korean as well as several other Chinese dialects. They talked in particular about WinWin’s dialect when he’s on the phone with his parents, and Lucas’s native Cantonese. They even joked about how Lucas’s Mandarin has improved more than his Korean since he moved to Seoul! Renjun then paused the discussion at 11:30 to remind non-Chinese speaking fans about V Live’s subtitling feature — something I definitely needed to keep up with their lightning-fast language discourse.

5. Ten and Hendery show off their Mandarin and English skills

Surprisingly, this video doesn’t even scratch the surface of these two WayV members’ endless linguistic capabilities. Ten is originally from Thailand and his native language is Thai, but his Korean is impressively fluent as well. Both idols can speak English (even more so than what’s shown here), and Hendery’s native language is Cantonese. (Fun fact: He’s also Ten’s Mandarin teacher, and you can see from this video that he’s done a pretty good job.) Totaling them all up between them, that’s a dizzying five languages! It’s hard to even keep track of them all, much less speak them.

6. YangYang and WinWin the multilingual icons

Now for the real linguistic flex, courtesy of WayV members WinWin and YangYang: in this “Research Note” video, YangYang told fans that he can speak German, English, Mandarin, Korean, and even a little bit of Spanish! He introduced himself in all five, and WinWin revealed that he can also introduce himself in five different languages (though, admittedly, not quite as fluently as YangYang). We’re impressed nonetheless; these two are definitely polyglot goals!

7. The English speakers ft. Doyoung

Part 2 of “A Cup of Coffee (ft. Johnny’s Fashion Evaluation)” in Thailand featured the usual suspects (Mark, Jaehyun, Johnny, and Ten) plus a surprise guest: Doyoung! The episode took place in a head-spinning mix of Korean and English, the members bouncing effortlessly between the two languages with non-native English speaker Doyoung doing a pretty impressive job of keeping up. (There was even some Thai from Ten thrown in when the waiter came to take their order.) Fluent AND fashionable — NCT does not disappoint!

Did we miss any languages that NCT members can speak? How many can you speak? Tell us in the comments!