English is the current lingua franca and without doubt the most popular language among non-native speakers but, spoken by almost 80 million people worldwide, Korean is the largest language isolate in the world. Although Hangul was invented way back in 1443, it became an international rage and gained worldwide recognition in the 21st century, thanks to Hallyu and BTS.

Being one of the first K-Pop acts to dominate the Western music market since PSY, this group of 7 members piqued the interest of their international fans to know more about their language. As a result, the demand for Korean language among non-native speakers exponentially multiplied over the span of a couple years and reached heights one could not imagine was possible.

According to The Korea Herald, around 3.3 million people were taking the Korean course on Duolingo, the most downloaded language-learning app, and it was the 6th most popular course on the platform in 2019. The course was introduced in September 2017 to satisfy the interests of its users and attracted around 200,000 pupils at its launch. The number of Indians opting for their Korean course increased by 11% before the pandemic. “Through the month of March, the increase is 98%. But between March and now, we've seen a 256% increase in Korean learners in India,” says Michaela Kron, lead PR and social media manager at the company (The Economic Times, 2020).

There has been an influx of international students in Korea who have come to learn the language and their massive numbers have surpassed those who were in the nation to acquire an academic credential. The number of students studying Korean (30,000 people) outnumbered those working on a degree (28,000) for the first time in history, which, experts say, may be propelled by the success of K-pop (Korea Bizwire, 2018). The majority of the international migrants in Korea are young people in their 20s (154,000) and 12.8 percent of the visitors have come as students. In 2017, there were around 58,000 students training in the Korean language. The amount of students overseas who learned Korean in 2020 amounted to nearly 160,000. The “2021 basic plan on overseas Korean language education assistance” states that Korean language courses were introduced in 1,669 elementary, middle and high schools in over 39 countries in 2020. These numbers signify a gain of nearly 15000 students and 9 additional countries since 2019.

In 2017, the government funded a new institute for Korean Studies at George Washington University in the US. Professor Andre Schmid, who researches Korean history in the University of Toronto, is astonished to find 150 students and a never-ending waiting list for a Korean class at his university which previously attracted less than 30 students.

Based on a survey of K-pop followers in Algeria, most fans had incorporated Korean words and phrases into their daily conversations. In Vietnam, Korean was designated as a first foreign language in February, along with English and Chinese. Korean was adopted as a second foreign language in India in July, 2020.

In an interview with Yonhap News Agency in 2019, the French ambassador to South Korea, Philipe Lefort, mentioned that BTS’s popularity in France had spurred a huge demand for Korean language education in the country. He went on to reveal that he, himself uses a Korean-learning app to chat with some dedicated and interesting fans.

The Korea Times says that the number of organizations which run educational programs in Korean studies throughout the world has increased substantially in the last decade from 632 in 2007 to 1,348 in 2017 and attributes this phenomenon to BTS.

The South Korean Education Ministry has invested 23.6 billion won (around 20.7 million US dollars) which is almost double as of 2020 to promote and assist in Korean language education at 1800 schools in 43 countries including Jordan, Belgium, Ecuador, Laos and Cambodia where the demand is amazingly high, stating that in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, the popularity of the language has been increasing due to hallyu, especially K-pop. There has also been high demand for the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), the test that measures Korean proficiency, in recent years. In 1997, there were only 2,200 test-takers who registered to obtain the official certificate; that number is now almost 265,000. They plan to adopt a digital alternative of TOPIK by 2023 by implementing an Internet Based Test to meet the growing demands of the global test-takers. Nearly 132 Korean language teachers will be sent to 14 countries in Southeast and Central Asian regions like Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Russia and Kyrgyzstan to conduct training courses for interested teachers.

A new show called “K-Language School” was launched in August on WeeTv, a cable channel that airs at 11:00 am KST every Friday and is available online through YouTube and Naver TV. It features celebrity language coaches teaching about the Korean language and culture in 10 different languages: Chinese, Japanese, French, Khmer, Malay, Nepalese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Urdu. The vice president of TRA Media expressed his personal views during the promotions of the show and noted the connection between the popularity of K-pop and the ever-increasing interest in the Korean language.

TvN’s “ K-pop Cultural Center” which was released in February, used BTS songs to teach Korean expressions to its viewers. The King Sejong Institute operates 170 Korean language centers around the world and is on the way to expand through online courses and are making haste to translate textbooks and other study materials required to other languages.

BTS has taken part in many activities and programmes to promote Korean language and played a significant role in introducing their culture globally for which they received an “Order of Merit” from the President of South Korea on Hangul Day in 2018. In 2019, BTS celebrated Hangul Day by shooting a 2 part special episode for Run BTS! as episode 86 and 87 and played various games related to the special day including Hangul trivia.

Like artists, like fans. While BTS was busy shooting, ARMYs took part in the Hangeul Day Challenge for ARMY by @Bighit_Edu where they wrote the lyrics of Mikrokosmos and posted them on their social media which was then assembled and compiled into a video by BigHit.

In February, 2020 during the BigHit Corporate Briefing, CEO Bang Si Hyuk announced that they plan to release more content for the benefit of international fans so that they get better exposure to Korean language. BigHit released Learn! Korean with BTS on Weverse in March 2020, where they used old video media content and broke them down into 8 episodes which were 3 mins long to engage fans in a more immersive learning experience.

Shortly after BigHit Edu released a book package for beginners and medium level learners with the help of HanKuk University of Foreign Studies of the same name as the video series on Weverse, which revolves around a character named Bora who travels around Korea while learning the language. The package contains a “speaking pen” that reads the word aloud when it comes in contact with the study note and features various hidden voice messages from the BTS members for the entertainment of the learners. Various acclaimed institutes and universities including the University of Sheffield (UK), Middlebury College (Vermont), Ecole Normale Superieure and EDHEC Business School (France), Ain Shams University (Egypt) and the University of Languages & International Studies and Thang Long University (Vietnam) adopted the e-lecture series into their curriculum for teaching the Korean language. 

BigHit Edu still releases promotional videos under the name Bon BORAge (a pun on Bon Voyage, kudos!) to teach Korean through the adventures of Bora in Korea. Organizations like BangtanAcademy and ARMY Academy, who have a huge social media presence, have carefully engineered a Korean learning course for fans to interact and learn together through various means. BangtanAcademy has 7 different types of tailored courses for around 850 members, acting as a Korean learning community while ARMY Academy is a free tutoring service that caters to thousands of ARMYs and provides mentorship in not just Korean, but all aspects of education and art. It is apparent that BTS introduced the West to the wonders of this vernacular and left them marvelling at its intricacies and comprehensiveness.

Although it seems like a breeze when learning Hangul (or the Korean alphabet), mastering Korean is a daunting task for someone who has no knowledge about Chinese or Japanese speech. Korean comes under the top 5 hardest languages to learn because of its complex vocabulary and seven speech levels (based on the formality of the situation, whew!). After years of practice and hard work, people are only able to scratch the surface of this massive language. Adding cherry to the pie, there are nine different regional Korean dialects (satoori), as demonstrated in songs like “Paldogangsan”and “Where You From.”

Despite these challenges, the enthusiastic learners remain undeterred and keep believing in themselves, finally tasting the sweet success and satisfaction which comes naturally.

References

Lead Image: Big Hit Entertainment. (2020, August 24). Learn! KOREAN with BTS. [Photograph].  Showbiz Cheat Sheet. https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/everything-army-needs-to-know-about-learn-korean-with-bts.html/