Jakarta (ANTARA) – Interest in learning Korean has increased since the release of Netflix’s “Squid Game” series, according to the language learning service, one of the phenomena of the growing global obsession with language. South Korean culture, from entertainment to beauty products.
Language learning app Duolingo Inc says the series, in which cash-hungry contestants play high-stakes childhood games for cash prizes, encourages beginners and other students to improve their skills. language skills.
Quoted by Reuters, Duolingo reported that there had been a 76% increase in the number of new users wishing to learn Korean in the UK and 40% in the US in the two weeks following the broadcast of “Squid Game “.
South Korea has established itself as a global entertainment hub with popular culture from BTS to the Oscar-winning film “Parasite” and the film “Minari”.
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This week, the Oxford English Dictionary added 26 new words of Korean origin, including “hallyu” or Korean wave, a term that describes the global success of music, film, television, fashion and fashion. South Korean food.
“Language and culture are intrinsically linked and what happens in popular culture and the media often influences linguistic and language learning trends,” said Duolingo spokesperson Sam Dalsimer in an e- mail.
“The growing worldwide popularity of Korean music, film and television is increasing the demand for learning Korean.”
There are around 77 million Koreans in the world, according to data from the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange.
Duolingo says there are over 7.9 million active users learning Korean, the second fastest growing language after Hindi.
The King Sejong Institute, headed by South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, had around 76,000 students in 82 countries last year, a rapid development from just 740 students in three countries in 2007.
Milica Martinovic, a student at the Sejong Institute in Russia, says she wants to master the language so that she can watch K dramas without subtitles and listen to K-pop without needing to translate the lyrics.
Catarina Costa from Portugal who lives in Toronto, Canada, says Korean has become more popular since she started learning it two years ago, when most of her friends couldn’t understand why she was learning it .
“People are blown away when I say I’m learning Korean,” said Costa, who learned via the platform. e-learning TalkToMeInKorean.
The program has 1.2 million members who study in 190 countries, learning words such as kimbap, a dish of rice wrapped in seaweed; mukbang, a video often broadcast live, showing a person eating a large meal, and; manhwa, a Korean genre of cartoon and comic books.
“There were thousands of people who wanted to learn Korean even before the Squid game or the BTS craze, but they often studied on their own,” said Sun Hyun-woo, founder of Talk To Me In Korean, a platform -Local online learning form with 1.2 million people. members learning the Korean language in 190 countries.
“Now that they are part of the ‘global phenomenon’, learning Korean has become a much cooler activity,” he said.
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Translator: Nanien Yuniar
Editor: Maria Rosari Dwi Putri
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