He came from the Goryeong Shin clan (고령 신씨; 高靈 申氏).

Shin was an accomplished polyglot, and was particularly well educated in the Chinese language.

[1] He served as a personal linguistic expert to King Sejong, and was intimately involved in the creation and application of the Korean alphabet known in modern times as Hangul.

[1] Shin used the newly created hangul system to create an accurate transcription of spoken Mandarin Chinese in 15th century Ming dynasty China.

[1][2] These transcriptions haven proven accurate and reliable, and his transcriptions are now "an invaluable source of information on the pronunciations of Ming-era [Mandarin].