She’s acquired Seoul!
South Koreans have discovered an obsession aside from Okay-Pop — White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Koreans are studying English by learning Leavitt’s day by day briefings, due to a wildly fashionable YouTube channel that slices up her appearances into free bite-sized English classes — translating her expressions and colloquialisms into their native tongue.
What drew lots of of hundreds of followers after final yr’s launch was her phrasing –delivered with a smile or occasional scowl — and the methodical tempo she retains whereas delivering President Trump’s messages for a TV viewers, say followers.
“Her pronunciation is actually clear. Her perspective can be the factor – she’s very assured on what she is saying,” stated Yeonju Hong, an anchor for Korea’s TV Chosun who’s incomes a grasp’s diploma at Georgetown College in DC. The New Hampshire-born Leavitt’s accent “could be very clear to non-native audio system,” she stated.
The positioning, known as dotdotenglish, seems on TikTok and YouTube, and pitches Leavitt’s briefings as providing “5 English expressions to spice up your talking expertise” by means of day by day dialog, together with “shadowing” and dictation.
One of many clips is from a March briefing and opens with Leavitt saying: “It’s nice to see all of you on this very newsy day, to say the least.” The road will get performed a number of occasions, permitting viewers to be taught by means of repetition, whereas Korean language characters and voice-over translate the that means of “to say the least.”
That clip of the in any other case uneventful briefing has been been considered 160,000 occasions on YouTube, and Leavitt clips from final March-April topped 500,000 views.
“The Korean folks like her,” stated one US-based Korean reporter. “They are saying she’s Trump’s mouth.”
Leavitt’s bond with Korea started when she posted about “South Korea skincare finds” whereas attending the annual APEC summit with President Trump in Gyeongju in late October 2025. Her journey to a dessert store within the South Korean metropolis close to Busan with glamorous White Home aide Margo Martin acquired picked up within the Korean press.
Even a late look on the White Home podium by Leavitt, 28, a Trump advisor who joined the White Home workers in 2019, is a teachable second.
“I apologize for my tardiness. It’s fairly the newsy day,” she defined in one other clip-turned-lesson from final yr. That supplied the chance for a definition: “Tardiness, the standard or behavior of being late or delayed,” based on the video tutorial.
Viewers get to be taught a few of Leavitt’s favourite turns of phrase, as when she says Trump “degree set” with the American folks. Additionally, there was an occasion of direct translation in Korean when Leavitt stated it confirmed “how badly Joe Biden screwed it up” when speaking in regards to the US economic system.
Even the struggle with Iran is an opportunity to spice up vocabulary.
“Turning to the continuing navy operations in Iran,” Leavitt says in a lesson posted March 4. The video teaches the pronunciation and definition of the phrase “decimate” – what the US navy is doing to Iran’s defenses.
The White Home didn’t remark, in English or Korean.
