Why study Korean

Learn Korean at the Institute and enjoy the challenge of discovering one of the world’s oldest living languages. Although the origins of the language are vague, scholars have proposed that Korean is a distant relative of the Ural-Altaic family of languages which includes Mongolian, Finnish and Hungarian. Linguistically, Korean is unrelated to Chinese and is similar to but distinct from Japanese; interestingly, Korean is linked to the Tibetan, Dravidian and Indo-European languages.

Korean is spoken by more than 72 million people living on the Korean peninsula. Although it differs slightly in spelling, alphabet, and vocabulary between the two regions, Korean is the official language of both South Korea and North Korea. About two million people in mainland China speak Korean as their first language. There are another two million Korean speakers in the United States of America, a further 700,000 in Japan, and 500,000 in the Russian regions of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The Korean language has five major dialects in South Korea and one in North Korea. Despite the geographical and socio-political dialect differences, Korean is relatively homogeneous, being mutually understandable among speakers from different areas.

The Korean language has changed throughout the centuries, mainly throughout the seventh, tenth and fourteenth centuries due to changes from the Silla, Koryo and Kaesong dynasties.

The language spoken in modern-day Korea is called Hanguk-mal, literally "Korean speech." The Korean language has adopted many words from the Chinese over the centuries and although it seems to resemble Japanese grammatically, its phonetic system differs completely. Korean is not a tonal language like Chinese and Vietnamese, where tonal inflection can change the meaning of words. In Korean, the form and meaning of root words remains essentially unchanged regardless of the tone of speech. There is little variation in accent and pitch. When speaking Korean, the general rule is to evenly stress phrases and sentences. When reading or speaking questions, the inflection is upward at end of the sentence, just as in English.

We integrate active communication skills with the grammatical structure of the language. Students develop proficiency in the language by using it in realistic situations and enjoyable activities. Awareness of cross-cultural communication is also addressed as this is an important factor in language learning.

Areas of study:

• Introductions, greetings, leave-taking etc
• Giving personal details such as address, phone/fax number, occupation
• Small talk, weather, health etc
• Basic telephone skills, ordering food and drinks
• Catching a taxi and using public transport
• Asking for and understanding directions
• Prices, quantification, booking a hotel
• Inviting guests home, dates, months etc
• General knowledge of common practices and customs
• The etiquette of social and formal functions
• Cross-cultural awareness skills