EP224: Cross-Cultural Storytelling with Da Eun Yoon

Da Eun Yoon on Names, Voice Work, and Living Between Cultures

Christine interviews multilingual actor, voice artist, and audiobook narrator Da Eun Yoon, announcing her as the narrator of the middle grade novel in verse Love Language (out August 4). Da Eun shares the meaning of her Korean name and her  changing English names, describing challenges introducing “Da Eun” at Northwestern and eventually embracing it. She recounts moving to New York after graduating from Northwestern (2023), being encouraged to try voiceover, and discovering audiobook narration as a career. The conversation explores her upbringing in Korea speaking English at home, identity crises and accent work in both languages, the “shadowing” method for learning pronunciation, and feeling different across Korea and the U.S. She discusses passion as acting despite fear, her work as storyteller/translator bridging cultures, uncertainty about where to live, and how narrating Love Language resonated with her.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:07 The Story Behind Her Name

01:55 English Names and Identity

04:06 Announcing Love Language

04:37 Career Path to Audiobooks

06:34 Living Between Cultures

09:27 Relearning Korean and Shadowing

11:32 Northwestern and Family Talk

12:24 Finding Passion and Fear

14:10 Where to Live Next

15:18 Final Thoughts on Love Language

16:14 Thanks and Goodbye

Transcript

Christine Ko: [00:00:00] Welcome back to The Girl Doc Survival Guide. Today, I'm very pleased to be with Da Eun Yoon. Da Eun Yoon is a multilingual actor and voice artist with training in theater, screen acting, voiceover performance, and classical speech. She earned her BA in theater from Northwestern University and has studied with acclaimed instructors across stage, screen, Shakespearean speech, and mezzo-soprano vocal performance. Fluent in both English and Korean with additional proficiency in Mandarin and Spanish, she brings versatility to her work through a wide range of accents and cross-cultural storytelling. Beyond performing on stage, screen, and in her home studio, Da Eun is passionate about language learning, visual art, psychology, and creative writing inspired by dreams and human connection. Whether traveling the world, sketching on her iPad, or searching for the perfect hot chocolate with her mother, she approaches life and art with [00:01:00] curiosity, warmth, and imagination. Welcome to Da Eun. 

Da Eun Yoon: Hi. Thank you for having me here. I'm very excited to be here. 

Christine Ko: Can you first share a personal anecdote- 

Da Eun Yoon: Sure. I wanna talk about my name. So Da Eun is Korean; da is many, and eun is grace. And so Da Eun basically means full of grace. But in Korea, especially when you go to school and learn English, have English classes, it's very typical for us to pick up an English name. So throughout my life I've had various English names, and most of the time I've identified with those various English names. So my very first English name was Charlie. I got that from this Australian TV show called Hi-5! And I really loved the actress there. I went with Charlie for a while, and then I got tired of it. I went with Sam from Totally Spies, this American show, and Genevieve because I wanted to try something different. By the time I I got accepted to Northwestern University, it [00:02:00] was my first time ever moving to the States. And I thought, "Okay, what name am I gonna choose?" Because it was really fun for me to play around with all these names. But there's also this aspect of me using this English name to people who are from countries who mostly speak English because I think they would have a hard time pronouncing my name. When I went to the States freshman year, there was this thing called Wildcat Welcome. It's a very overwhelming environment where you meet a lot of people for the first time, and you have to introduce yourself. I started using my Korean name, Da Eun. And when we meet it's very loud and everybody's talking at the same time, and so I use the name, "Hi, I'm Da Eun." The second response would be like, " Sorry, what?" And then we would do- have this like back and forth of Da Eun. And they're like, "Would you repeat it again?" And I would be, "Da Eun," right? And then at some point I'm like, "Okay, so it's Dawn, but you break it into two syllables, so it's Da Eun," right? So I tried developing these strategies. But at some point, [00:03:00] maybe I would just say Alexia or Diana or Diane just because I wanna keep the conversation going. And there were these very interesting moments where then somebody called me across the hall, " Alexia ," and I did not turn back. And then there are also incidences where I would meet the same person again, but then I would introduce myself as Da Eun instead of Alexia or Diane, and they would get really confused. So those are some of the stories related to my name.

I think at some point in my life in the States, I've come to terms with my name being slightly different and unique from a lot of people who are around me taking the same class with me, and I am okay with it now. But yeah, that was just a very interesting journey that I went through with my name throughout my life.

Christine Ko: That's cool. So you don't have a English name that you use right now? 

Da Eun Yoon: Not at all, except when I go to Starbucks, then I would go with a lot of names.

Christine Ko: My daughter's name actually has the second, has the Eun, same as you. Her Korean name is Yae Eun. Yae for [00:04:00] Jesus, and then Eun, grace, as you said. Together my parents and my husband's parents chose the name. 

Da Eun Yoon: That's beautiful. 

Christine Ko: I didn't say this yet, but you are the narrator for Love Language. Love Language is the middle grade novel in verse that I have coming out August 4th. I haven't heard your narration yet. I realized in searching Amazon that you were listed as the narrator. I found your website and contacted you, and asked you if you could appear, and I could announce to the world that you're the narrator for Love Language, and also get to know you a little bit. So can you talk a little bit about your career journey and how you became all the things that you do, including narrating audiobooks?

Da Eun Yoon: Yeah, absolutely. I was very excited to receive this book and be a part of this. Thank you for reaching out. After graduation, I moved to New York for about a year, and that's where I took a couple of acting classes, and one of my acting coaches told me that I should try out voiceover, [00:05:00] and I took a workshop regarding audiobooks, and I was really surprised 'cause I never really knew audiobook narration was a career that I could have, especially 'cause growing up in Korea, I learned English through audiobooks.

I never really thought of it as a career or a job. It seemed so distant. So when I took this workshop, I was so inspired, and I really loved the art of storytelling, and that's basically what I've been doing since I was a child, reading stories to people and my dolls. That's how I got into audiobook narration, and I'm still navigating this journey.

And also besides audiobook narration, I'm still trying to figure out who I am. I'm figuring out my life; have a lot of questions about what my next steps would be, but I think I do know that throughout my career, in my future career, I would love to continue telling beautiful stories. I hope to do that with different mediums. But yeah, that's [00:06:00] basically where I am right now. 

Christine Ko: Cool. Trying to figure out who you are and what your next steps are relate to the book because Love Language is about a Korean American girl, younger than you, probably around age 12 or something like that. A Korean American girl whose family moves back to Korea, and she tries to find a place to belong since she realizes she doesn't really feel Korean and maybe wasn't really American.

You've lived in the US, Singapore, and Korea, and you just shared a little bit about when you were at Northwestern. Can you talk about being between cultures? 

Da Eun Yoon: Absolutely. I have a bit of a unique background because I was born and raised in Korea. I've lived here for about 20 years, and I moved to the States later. So technically speaking, English is supposed to be the second language I learned, but both of my parents, first of all, do not speak fluent English. I'm the only person in my family who speaks fluent English. My mom had this passion where she really wanted [00:07:00] me to have more opportunities, and she wanted me to learn English quickly, starting from a young age. And so she basically started surrounding me in an English immersive environment where I would listen to English audiobooks, Disney Channel, and basically I would speak English to my parents. So that was a bit of an interesting experience growing up because none of the people around me spoke English, and so there was this language barrier when I was in Korea, even though I knew how to speak Korean because I was strictly told to speak English -- I would basically communicate in English to everybody around me. For me at that time, it was like a superpower. As a kid, I was like, "I can speak a language that no one can speak in around me," and I was very excited about it. But over the years when I went to elementary school and middle school and started meeting friends from Korea and speaking in Korean, I think that's when I had my first identity crisis because I was so used to speaking in English, my Korean pronunciation [00:08:00] was all muddled up, and people would think that I was from the States, but I was not. So there was this really big identity crisis that I was going through, especially through middle school to high school because I am Korean. I was born here. I have Korean family. But why do I feel more comfortable speaking in English at some point? So I think that's when I started really navigating my identity as a Korean, as somebody who grew up in Korea. Going to the States, there was another second crisis. Back in Korea, especially after spending more time in the States, when I come back to Korea, I feel very vocal and outgoing and extroverted. But when I go to the States, I feel like sometimes the quietest person in the room. So there's this big discrepancy that I feel. That's something what I would call between cultures, because now I don't think I'm Korean-Korean enough, but I'm not American either, and so then who am I? , Even though I was [00:09:00] born and raised in Korea, there is this really inexplicable discrepancy that I feel, and I'm still confused with.

Part of the reason I moved around the world is also because I've been trying to figure out what home is and where I belong. Reading the story of Love Language, I related to a lot of points the character Cassie was going through. It's a very beautiful written story as well.

Christine Ko: Oh. Thank you. I'm glad that you like it and that it resonated with you. Since you grew up in Korea but you were made to speak English, you said your Korean did have an American or English accent then? 

Da Eun Yoon: Yeah. When I was in elementary school, it definitely sounded more like I had a "crooked tongue".

Christine Ko: Yeah. And then did you conquer that at some point? 

Da Eun Yoon: Definitely. Middle school, high school, I was really doing all these pronunciation exercises. I was kinda learning Korean again, which was a very interesting experience. So now I speak fluent Korean. I can say my pronunciation is great. But yeah in elementary [00:10:00] school it was definitely a challenge.

Christine Ko: I've always actually been interested in language and from the standpoint of... I don't know if people know. Love Language is fictional, but my older sister and I were born in the US to Korean parents, and then when we were in elementary school, we moved back to South Korea. My sister and I had never lived there, and we ended up going to an American school there, an English-speaking school. English was our first language. When we moved to South Korea when we were in elementary school, we basically knew no Korean. So we started from zero. We got better, and we learned Korean, but at first especially, we really didn't know anything, and we didn't understand very much at all.

Just as you taught yourself English, did you teach yourself how to have perfect Korean?

Da Eun Yoon: Yeah, it's basically shadowing. I would shadow Korean TV shows, their pronunciation especially, and that's also how I learned English, basically shadowing a lot of TV shows. So I think for [00:11:00] me, for a while English had like a Californian accent for a while, and then it moved to different accents, so I don't even know what my main primary accent would be. I can do like a British accent 'cause I shadowed British shows too. And so basically with Korean I would shadow these Korean shows. That's how I learned Korean as well. 

Christine Ko: Is shadow a specific term? 

Da Eun Yoon: Oh, yeah. Basically in Korea, Koreans call it shadowing something. It's basically following, repeating after certain actors or actresses. We actually mimic their pronunciation. We call it a shadowing method in Korea, especially when people wanna learn English. 

Christine Ko: You went to a Korean school?

Da Eun Yoon: I did, yes. 

Christine Ko: Was it hard to apply to Northwestern from a Korean school? 

Da Eun Yoon: I would say half and half because I went to a private school for high school, and it was a dorm where there was this international division, and it was a program where they helped us prepare for AP courses and basically apply to colleges in the United States. The application process itself is always difficult, but it wasn't [00:12:00] particularly challenging because of lack of information. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. And it sounds like you don't have any siblings.

Da Eun Yoon: Oh, I do not. I wish I had. I've always wanted an older brother.

Christine Ko: Yeah, I actually always wanted an older brother too. I had this thought that he would look out for me and protect me.

Da Eun Yoon: Exactly.

Christine Ko: I have an older sister. She looks out for me too, but I just thought it would be like plus, plus with like an older brother.

Da Eun Yoon: I agree.

Christine Ko: Do you have any advice on finding a passion? 

Da Eun Yoon: Ooh. Finding passion. I think it's something that I struggle every day to find something that I'm passionate about. I have a lot of fear about everything. I'm an over thinker. When I get passionate about something, I think the fear grows because I like it and love it so much, I'm so afraid that I'm gonna get hurt by it at some point. I think in order to find passion, you also need to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself a lot. I've been doing that, and I think passion is something that makes you do things despite the fear. That's what passion [00:13:00] is for me. Finding passion, for me at least, is just you really need to try out everything. Going to the States, being there in an environment where I did not have family, I didn't know anybody, and I was in a very different culture, that's where I started asking these difficult questions about myself, and who I am, what I like, what color I like, what food do I not, right? These really small questions,, and I think that's how I slowly started to find what I'm passionate about and the bigger picture.

Christine Ko: Yeah, that's cool. You do a lot of different things now. Is there one that you like more than other things? 

Da Eun Yoon: I think they balance out because there are times where you get tired of certain things, and you can jump to the next one. You balance it out. So I think it's a great balance of things. But I do think that the overarching theme is me being a storyteller, whether it's as an actor or an audiobook narrator, or even, I do also work as a translator and interpreter. It's like me [00:14:00] telling the stories of people and acting as a bridge between cultures and languages. That's just the overarching theme that I have. I do like this balance of it.

Christine Ko: Cool. Do you think you'll continue to live in Korea? 

Da Eun Yoon: That is a very good question. I don't know. I really wanna still explore the world. Part of me was thinking of going to all these different countries because I really love living in various countries, and there's a certain perk to being a foreigner in a country because nobody knows you, so it's like a fresh start. And so I feel more liberated sometimes. Versus when I come to Korea, it's great, it's home, I'm so comfortable, everything's beautiful here. But at the same time, people know you, and I think there's a certain expectation of who you have to be and what you have to be. So sometimes I think going abroad is also a great experience where you can just be just you. So I don't know. I hope to stay here for a while, but, [00:15:00] if there is a great opportunity, maybe I might explore a different place as well. 

Christine Ko: Cool. Yeah. May I ask how long has it been since you finished college? 

Da Eun Yoon: I graduated 2023, June, so it's actually been exactly three years. Wow.

Christine Ko: Not that long. 

Da Eun Yoon: Yeah. Yeah. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. This has been great. Do you have any final thoughts? 

Da Eun Yoon: I was really honored to narrate your lovely story, Love Language. When I was first reading the text and also narrating it out loud the way it's written it's so beautifully written, it's like poetry, and within these spaces of the pauses, I think there is just so much emotion and unspoken things that are going on within the text, and while I was narrating it. It's definitely a story about finding who you are, right? I hope that a lot of people get to listen it and also relate to it. But also thank you for writing the story. It really meant a lot to me as well, as a narrator. Every time I come across [00:16:00] stories that are related to my heritage or just in general these beautiful stories written about Korea, I'm very 

Christine Ko: excited 

Da Eun Yoon: to narrate them.

So yeah. Yeah, I'm very excited to meet you and connect with you and tell my story. 

Christine Ko: Awesome. Yes. Thank you, and thank you so much for narrating, and for doing this as well. 

Da Eun Yoon: Thank you.