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| K-pop girl group BLACKPINK / Courtesy of YG Entertainment |
'Metaverse Sejong Institute' launched to meet growing demand
By Dong Sun-hwa
The global popularity of Korean culture has boosted interest in diverse aspects of Korea, especially its language. A growing number of people are learning Korean to get a better grasp of the country's cultural content such as K-pop and K-dramas. In the past, the majority of them were found in Asia, but today, they are seen in almost every nook and cranny of the world.
According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Education, the total number of elementary, middle and high schools in France that offer Korean language classes stood at 60 in 2022 ― a 3.5-fold increase from 2018. The total number of students taking these courses reached 1,800, compared to 551 in 2018.
In 2021, 26 new Korean words, including "aegyo" (a cute display of affection), "daebak" (awesome) and "mukbang" (a binge-eating show), were added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The OED explained that the inclusion was a "recognition of a shift in language usage beyond the English-speaking world."
Enrollment in Korean classes at higher education institutions in the U.S. has also soared. The Modern Language Association recently revealed that the figure spiked from 5,211 in 2002 to almost 14,000 in 2016.
"This jump is striking given Korean isn't easy for non-native speakers to learn," U.S. broadcaster CNN noted in a report. "The U.S. State Department lists Korean as a 'super-hard language,' meaning it's 'exceptionally difficult' for English speakers and takes on average 88 weeks to achieve professional working proficiency."
According to the learning app, Duolingo, Korean was the seventh most-studied language on the platform in 2022. It outperformed Chinese ― the second most spoken language in the world ― which ranked eighth. Duolingo is a popular app used by some 500 million users worldwide.
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| The Metaverse King Sejong Institute / Courtesy of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism |
An increase in the number of students at the King Sejong Institute, a government-funded Korean language center for foreigners, is another testament to the interest in the Korean language. When the institute was established in 2007, it only ran 13 language centers in three countries. Last year, however, it operated 244 centers in 84 countries, with some 150,000 people around the world attending.
To meet the growing demand, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced in February that it will launch a metaverse version of the King Sejong Institute to allow users to take Korean courses remotely and virtually.
"The users of the Metaverse King Sejong Institute can practice the Korean language and virtually experience the everyday lives of Koreans and their culture," the ministry said. "The new service is expected to help raise the total number of students at the King Sejong Institute by 500,000 by 2027."
