NCT′s reaction to their S/O struggling to learn their native language
This is kind of long so I’ve put it behind a cut for everyone - Lilly x
TAEIL
Taeil really loved you, even if most of the time he had to try really, really hard to understand what you are saying. He was always supportive of you, though, and he always did what he could to help you learn Korean, as well as trying to learn your own language himself.
One night, he walked over to your flat after practice, just because he wanted to see you. He knew where you hid your spare key, and let himself in, but you weren’t anywhere to be seen. He checked around for a while until he heard sniffling coming from your room. As soon as he opened your bedroom door and saw you sat on your bed, a Korean book on your lap, he knew why you were crying.
“Are you okay?” As soon as you heard Taeil speak in your language, you looked up, giving him a full look at your tear stained face. “Oh, (Y/N).” His voice was filled with sympathy as he opened his arms, inviting you for a hug.
“Its so hard, Taeil.” You cried, trying to get your words across in Korean.
“I know, baby.”
JOHNNY
He thought that you learning English for him was the most romantic thing anyone could ever do. Even though you two were already able to communicate in Korean, you wanted to impress him by learning his other language. He knew you were doing it, and tried to help as much as he could, but he had to admit he found it so cute when you struggled.
That was until one day he’d found you at the dorms, sat down with Mark practising. For a few moments everything was going well, and Johnny’s heart swelled with pride. That was until you made a mistake, and then another, and then another. Mark could see you were getting upset and tried to console you with an awkward hug, but it didn’t work.
“Baby, its okay.” Johnny spoke from behind you, making you jump and look at him. “Listen, I really appreciate your effort, but if you’re finding it too hard, you don’t have to learn English.” You just nodded at him, taking in what he’d just said.
“I want to Johnny. For you.”
TAEYONG
He’d find it so sweet that you were trying to learn Korean for him. Every time you spoke it, no matter how bad it was, his heart would be so full of love and he’d just listen to whatever you were trying to say. He always hated correcting you because he didn’t want to make you feel upset about getting things wrong, even though you’d told him on multiple occasions that that is the only way you were going to learn.
You were speaking to him his once, concentrating on what you were saying to the point where it was the only thing you were thinking about. The words came out slow so you didn’t make a mistake, but Taeyong listened carefully to everything you said, taking it all in. It reached the point where you knew what you wanted to say, you just couldn’t say it, and you began fumbling over your words. Taeyong watched as tears came to your eyes and you began to pull on your hair in frustration.
“Hey, it doesn’t matter, baby.” His voice was soft and soothing, and his words were said slowly enough for you to understand them. “We can translate it together, okay?” You nodded slowly, still upset with yourself for messing up.
“Thank you.”
YUTA
When he first heard you practising Japanese, he would be so excited. It would be so much easier for the two of you to communicate if you could speak Japanese. He gave you all the help he could by enrolling some of the other members who new small amounts of Japanese to help with your learning when he was busy. When he wasn’t busy, he’d sit with you for hours and help you with everything he could.
It was late at night and you sat on Yuta’s bed, ignoring Taeil’s presence as you read through a Japanese book Yuta bought you. Your eyes scanned over the words, trying to take in as much as you could, but you were finding it difficult. Reading the language was so much harder than speaking it, and the process of figuring it out was taking its toll on you. You had already complained to Taeil multiple times, but when you burst into tears, he had no idea what to do other than call Yuta and ask him to come home and see you.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Yuta ran into his room to find you exactly how Taeil had described. There were wet patches on the book he’d given you from where your tears had dripped onto it, and Yuta’s heart sank. He’d only meant to help, but he’d ended up making you upset. “I’m so sorry, (Y/N). I didn’t mean for you to feel forced to learn Japanese.” A small laugh left you mouth, surprising your boyfriend.
“It’s okay, Yuta. It’s just really, really hard.”
KUN
When he first learned you were teaching yourself his language, he was concerned. He knew that you liked getting things right first time, and he knew that for someone who didn’t speak Chinese, it was a hard language to learn. That being said, he also knew you were extremely stubborn and so let you get on with it, hoping that it didn’t upset you too much.
It turns out his worst fears came true. When he heard a cry of frustration from his dorm room, he instantly got up from where he was sat with the rest of WAYV and went to see if you were alright. When he found you, you were sat on his bed with your back to the wall, breathing heavily through your nose in frustration. Kun couldn’t deny that he felt bad for you, even though he had warned you that is was a difficult language to learn. Next thing you knew, he was sat next to you, his arms wrapped around your waist, hugging you as tight as he could.
“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I might have to.” You let out a heavy sigh in response, making him laugh, finding you cute. “I know it’s hard, but I can help if you want. I’d suggest Hendery, but I think he was enoguh on his hands with teaching Ten.” The two of you laughed at this.
“I’d rather you teach me anyway.”
DOYOUNG
He felt so honoured to hear you speaking Korean for the first time, so much so that he almost barged in on you and your teacher to express hi love and gratitude. He understood that neither you nor Johnny would appreciate you disrupting the lesson, though, so he just left it and decided to tell you another day, when the two of you were less busy and he had time to properly thank you.
This day didn’t come for a few weeks, due to you having work and him having practice, but the one day that you did manage to see him, you couldn’t hold back your excitement to tell him your not-so-secret secret. When you saw him, you greeted him in Korean, making him grin wider than you think you’d ever seen before, and he began to thank you. You appreciated it very much, but you couldn't help but get confused with how quick he was speaking. All the words began to merge into one making you sigh. You’d clearly not practised enough.
“What’s wrong?” His voice was soft as he scanned you face for any indication of why your mood suddenly dropped. “Was I talking too fast?” You nodded.
“I just need a bit more practice, that’s all.”
TEN
Ten amazed you; he could speak five languages whereas you were struggling to speak two. When he first heard that you were trying to learn Thai for him, he was so thankful, but for you it seemed like something you simply had to do. He spoke your native language so why shouldn’t you speak his? Quite often, thoughts ran through your head, telling you that you were selfish for making him be the one who had to work hard to communicate with you.
When he arrived at your lat one night, he hadn’t expected to see you speaking broken Thai to yourself in the kitchen whilst you cooked. He almost laughed at how cute you were until he heard a shout come from the kitchen. He walked over to you, only to hear you cursing yourself out in your native language. He felt awful, as if in someway he’d been the one to force you to learn Thai.
“I hope you don’t mean everything you just said about yourself, baby.” His voice shocked you, making you jump and spin around to look at him. “You don’t have to learn Thai, you know. It’s not like we can’t already speak to each other.”You smiled at him, understanding what he was saying, but not agreeing with it.
“You speak five languages, Ten. At least let me try to learn this one for you.”
JAEHYUN
He loved helping you learn Korean. Of course he loved it when you spoke in your native language, or English, but there was something about hearing you speak Korean that made him weak at the knees. That was why he was so desperate to help you learn his language, even though you could communicate with each other perfectly fine already.
He was sat with you, going through your Korean book with you, although ‘going through’ is a bit of an overstatement. He chose this time instead to stare at you whilst he listened to the beautiful way you spoke. That was until a sniffle broke him out of his trance. He noticed a tear making it’s way down your cheek and gently wiped it away, shushing you gently.
“I’m never going to get it right, Jae.” you spoke, trying to hold back the sob that was pushing its way up your throat. “I should just give up now.” He shook his head, taking you in his arms and swaying from side to side.
“You can’t give up now. You speaking Korean is my favourite sound of all time, baby.”
WINWIN
In Winwin’s opinion, you were the most adorable person on the planet, especially when you tried to speak Chinese to him. He would always listen carefully to what you were trying to say, trying to decipher the what the words you were saying were supposed to mean. Sometimes he would tease you about it, making the both of you laugh before you got back to work with trying to improve.
What Winwin didn’t know was how upset you get whenever he made a comment about you not being able to speak Chinese very well. You were trying your hardest, and you knew that Winwin knew that, but you couldn’t help but take it to heart. Every time he made a comment, you would immediately get back to work, trying to improve so maybe next time, you wouldn’t feel so bad when you tried to speak to him.
“That was cute, baby, but what did you say?” He laughed slightly, expecting to hear you laugh too, but instead all he got was a sigh and a nod before you tried to head back to your books to practice some more. “What’s wrong?” He asked, making you stop and turn to him, shaking you head. You didn’t want to speak, afraid that the sob you were holding back would decide to break free.
“I’m fine, Winnie.” You spoke, hoping you’d be fine, but instead you felt your eyes getting teary and the sob broke free. Winwin instantly felt bad for teasing you; he didn’t mean to upset you.
“I’m so sorry, (Y/N)”
JUNGWOO
The most common sounds in your flat were your cries of frustration when you couldn't pronounce a word correctly, or remember a phrase you’d spent hours going over the day before. Jungwoo was used to this sound, and although he hated it, he knew that you wouldn’t listen to him if he told you that you didn’t need to learn Korean.
The truth was, you didn’t need to learn it. Jungwoo had been learning your language and was already really good at it. That didn’t stop you though. You wanted to prove to yourself that you were capable of learning another language, which was something you’d wanted to do for a while now. The Korean book you were reading was hard to get your head around, though, and you couldn’t help but let out a loud shout of frustration, making Jungwoo run towards the sound, relieved that it was frustration that caused it and not pain.
“If it makes you this angry, you really should stop. I don’t like seeing you so upset, (Y/N)” You just shook your head at him and picked the book up again, trying to read the words in front of you. “Fine, just take a break then. Come and watch a film with me and take your mind of of Korean all together.” He knew you couldn’t resist watching a film with him.
“As long as I get to chose the film.”
LUCAS
When you first tried speaking Chinese to him it was like his brain had stopped working. You sounded so cute the way you were speaking so slowly and trying so hard to say the words correctly. He loved the fact that you wanted to speak to him, but he was kind of upset that he never saw you when you were trying to teach yourself the language. That would be so cute, right?
Lucas could not have been further from the truth. The way you cried over text books at midnight and pulled your hair in frustration was most definitely not cute, and you did not want him to see that side of you. Unfortunately, you didn’t get what you wanted as one day, Lucas showed up to your home unannounced and you parents let him straight in. He walked up to your room, just in time to hear you let out a scream in frustration before you broke down into tears. Obviously your boyfriend panicked, storming into your room only to see you illuminated by the light of your computer screen.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He rushed over to you, trying to get a look at what was on your screen. When he saw that you were on Duolingo having a Chinese lesson, his heart sank. Why would you do something that made you so upset?
“It’s just so hard, Lucas.”
MARK
English was such a strange language to you. Why did read and read not sound the same? Why did red sound the same as read but not read? Mark was no help either. The word ‘like’ was dotted throughout his sentences making everything he said that bit more confusing for you. Every sentence that came out of his mouth required you to use your full concentration to work out what he was saying.
Mark had noticed this though, and tried to make what he was saying simpler for you, but that still wasn’t enough. It got easier for sure, but you still found it so much more difficult when listening to Mark than when you were listening to Jaehyun or Johnny. So much so that one day, you just stopped trying to understand what he was saying half way through his sentence and just broke down. Mark was shocked to say the least; this was completely unexpected.
“Um... baby?” He questioned, his voice sounding unsure. He’d switched back to Korean to make sure you understood what he was saying to you. “Are you okay?” You shook your head, making his sigh and just hold you tightly until you’d calmed down enough to speak to him.
“I just takes so much effort to understand what you’re saying.” He nodded, understanding where you were coming from; he was known for going on tangents.
“I’ll make it easier for you next time, baby.”
XIAOJUN
Xiaojun would tell you immediately that you really didn’t have to learn Chinese for him, even though he knew you’d ignore him. Once he realised that whatever he said wouldn’t stop you, he helped you as much as he could by finding whatever resources he could. He liked sitting with you whilst you were learning, just so he could help when you got things wrong.
He was sat next to you, both of you leaning over the book he’d bought you. Every so often, he’d point to a word and ask you to say it, and each time you’d get it slightly wrong, getting more and more upset with each word he pointed at. He pointed at another one. You tried saying it, knowing it was wrong the moment is left your mouth.
“No. I think you just need to work on your pronunciation a little bit.” You let out a heavy sigh at his words and slammed the book shut. His eyes were filled with worry and you hunched over the shut book with your head in you hands. “Are you okay?” His voice was quiet as he spoke.
“Not really. I’ll try to get better.” You said, voice equally as quiet, but you had a slight edge to yours when you spoke.
“You know it doesn’t matter to me whether you get better or not, don’t you.”
HENDERY
Hendery had no clue you were learning Chinese, but he was suspicious of why you were spending so much time with YangYang. He knew the two of you were close, but he found it strange that you’d always be with him when he came back to the dorms. He trusted you, so he tried not to jump to conclusions, but it was difficult, especially when he saw you coming out of YangYang and Xiaojun’s room one day.
He didn’t want to confront you about it, but he wanted closure and that was the only way to do it. One day he made his way back to the dorms earlier than usual so he could talk to you, only to walk in and see you and YangYang sat at the table speaking in Chinese. Yours obviously needed a lot of work, and suddenly it dawned on Hendery; YangYang was helping you.
“I’m back.” Hendery spoke, a certain cheerful tone in his voice. The sound made you jump. Hendery was never home this early.
“What are you doing home so early?” You spoke in your native language, not being that advanced in Chinese just yet. Hendery wandered over to you and looked at the book in front of you, smiling at how cute your handwriting was when you wrote in Chinese.
“I just wanted to see my girlfriend.”
RENJUN
When you first brought up learning Chinese to Renjun, he was over the moon. He would finally be able to speak to his girlfriend easily. It didn’t take him long, however, to realise that you absolutely hated it. In your eyes, Chinese was the hardest language to grasp, and you’d spent so long going over the same few words and phrases that you were close to the point of giving up.
When Renjun got back from practice, he didn’t expect to see you in tears, talking to Chenle about how hard it was. Chenle was very good at comforting people, so Renjun was glad that you were with him rather than another dreamie. As soon as Chenle noticed your boyfriend by the door, he left, leaving Renjun to comfort you instead.
“I’m sorry if you felt like you had to learn Chinese for me. I didn’t mean to force you into anything.” You shook your head, letting Renjun know that non of this was his fault, you were just struggling. “If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.” Once again, you shook your head and made eye contact with him.
“I’m fine. I just need a little bit more practice.”
JENO
His brain would just stop whenever he heard you speak Korean. He never thought you could get any more perfect than you already were, but then you started saying sentences in his native language and he died inside. How could you be so cute? Sometimes when you spoke Korean, he wouldn’t properly listen to what was being said, but instead he would listen to how the words sounded in your accent.
He’d even found it cute when you got frustrated about learning Korean. Normally you’d just sulk for a while, not minding when he giggled at you for being moody, but this time was different. You’d been sat for 3 hours straight, trying to get your head around something, and it just wasn’t going in. At first, you let out a few groans of frustration, but as soon as you heard Jeno begin to chuckle at your predicament. You slammed the book shut and left the room, going somewhere to cool off.
“Baby?” you heard the pitter patter of his feet before you heard his voice, making you aware of his presence before he even spoke. You didn’t reply to him, still upset. You heard a sigh from him, and he turned to walk away until he heard you speak.
“I’m sorry. I’ve just been working so hard on it and it kind of upset me when you laughed.” Jeno nodded, completely understanding what you were saying. Maybe he had been a bit insensitive.
“You don’t need to apologise, baby. I should be the one saying sorry.”
HAECHAN
He would be so loud about the fact that you were learning to speak Korean Soon enough every single member would know about how hard you were trying to be able to speak Korean, and some of the multilingual members would even offer to help. Every time, you would decline, feeling bad about taking up their time. Truth be told, you did need help, but you didn’t want to put unnecessary pressure on your friends.
One day, Haechan walked over to your house to pester you again about accepting his members’ help with learning his language, but as soon as he walked into your room and saw you crying at your desk, all his previous intentions went out of the window. His main priority now was comforting you, which he was incredibly good at.
“You okay?” His hand stroked your hair as he looked down at you, his eyes and voice soft. “Is it about learning Korean?” You nodded your head, knowing what was going to come next.
“I think you know what I’m going to say, but I really do think you should accept some help from my members. I don’t like seeing my girlfriend upset.”
JAEMIN
Learning a new language was hard, he knew that from trying to learn your language, but you seemed to be doing really well. You were improving by the day, and Jaemin assumed that soon you’d be almost fluent. However, he couldn’t work out how you found the time. You had school and work, and you spent every night studying until 8pm. He was confused to say the least.
One evening, he thought he would surprise you. It was 9pm, so he knew you weren’t studying and were probably lay in bed watching something you found on Netflix. When he reached the top of the stairs, though, he didn’t hear any sounds from your laptop, but instead heard a pencil scribbling away. That was strange; it was way after you’d stopped studying. He entered your room to see you sat at your desk with a Korean book on the table in front of you. Your eyes were burning as you tried to stop the tears from falling, but it wasn’t successful, as one landed on the page in front of you.
“I thought you’d stopped studying, (Y/N)?” You looked up at him and shook your head.
“I have. I’m studying Korean now.” You tried to hide the emotion in your voice and you turned back to the book to try and hide the fact that you were once again on the verge of tears.
“Right, you’re having a break tonight. You’re going to burn out if you don’t.”
YANGYANG
It was almost YangYang’s birthday, and you’d come up with the perfect present; you were going to finally show him your German skills, not that you had very many to show. You’d been learning behind his back for the past year or so, and you’d improved a little, but you had to admit, not as much as you would have liked to. You knew that learning languages took a long time, but you were taking lot longer than you should have been.
It reached the day of his birthday, and everything that you’d learned had for some reason gone missing from your head, making you begin to panic. You just wanted to make him happy, but now it seemed like you couldn’t give him his surprise like you’d wanted to. It was too late to turn back, though. You’d already rang the doorbell and were stood waiting for someone to answer the door. When they did, it was Kun, who immediately smiled when he spotted you. He let you in and you made your way to YangYang’s room, knocking on the door before making your way in.
“There she is!” YangYang beamed, taking you in his arms as soon as you stepped through the door. Your heart was beating so fast from nerves, that even YangYang could feel it through the hug. “What’s wrong?” he spoke, concerned about you.
“It’s nothing. I wanted to show you that I was learning German today as a present, but I can’t remember anything.” YangYang smiled, pulling you closer and kissing your head.
“That would have been great, but you know what would be even better?” You shook your head. “Me being your teacher.”
CHENLE
Chenle would be the most supportive person on the planet, mainly because of how hard he found it to learn Korean. Renjun was so much help for him, and so he is going to help you as much as he possibly can. He’d buy you books, pay for a tutor, give you feedback on your pronunciation. He just wants to help you like the amazingly sweet boyfriend that he is.
You were unhappy with your progress though, and so was your tutor. You felt so bad for Chenle, who refused to let you pay for your own tutor; he’d put so much money into helping you and you felt like you were just taking his money for the sake of it. That’s when you decided to talk to Chenle about how much you were struggling. You made your way to the dreamies’ dorm and sat down with Chenle, voicing your concerns. He was understanding and sweet, but he refused to take no for an answer.
“You know I’ll support you no matter what, (Y/N). It doesn’t matter to me how long it takes for you to learn Chinese. As long as you want to learn it, I’ll help you in every way.” You hugged him tight, refusing to let go. You loved him with all your heart.
“Thank you, Chenle. I’ll try my hardest.”
JISUNG
He knew you were learning Korean, but he was chill about it. He left you to get on with it because he knew he wouldn’t be much help at all. What he didn’t know was that you would have loved for him to help; you were finding it really hard to get your head around some of the concepts of the language. You spent hours every day locked away in your room, your head hanging over your Korean books, trying to force it go in.
Jisung was over at your house, lay on your bed as you sat and tried to pronounce a word. Jisung smiled every time you said it, finding it so sweet, but he wasn’t aware that you were on the verge of tears. You were never very good at holding in your tears, so they came pretty quickly, running down your cheeks and dropping onto the book in front of you. Jisung could see your shoulders sink, but he didn't think much of it until he heard you sniffle.
“Oh my god, (Y/N), whats wrong?” He rushed over to you, taking your face in his hands. He watched as the tears dribbled down your face. He glanced over to the book, realising that you were finding it hard.
“I’m just finding it difficult.” You spoke, our voice barely above a whisper. You afraid that if you spoke any louder, you’d have a full on meltdown. “Can you help?” Jisung nodded, a smile on his face.
“If that book ever makes you cry again, I’m burning it and you can’t stop me.”
