Description

Korean is the official language of North and South Korea and there are currently about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. Korean has a unique script called Han'g l, developed in the fifteenth century at the order of the king. It is a highly sophisticated alphabet that is remarkably easy to learn. As Australia’s future is increasingly tied to the countries in Asia, the importance of a language such as Korean will continue to grow. Knowledge of Korean is not only invaluable for understanding Korean society and culture but it is also a skill valued in a wide range of professions, both in Australia and internationally. 

Students in this major are encouraged to spend time studying at a tertiary institution in Korea through a year of study in the Year in Asia program (Graduate Diploma in Asia Pacific Studies). Competitive scholarships are available to qualified students.

A student may not take a course if that course is a prerequisite for another course which they have already passed.

Students with prior knowledge of the language will be required to take a placement test and may be exempted from the compulsory course.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the Korean language major students should be able to:

1. express themselves confidently in a polite, neutral or informal register, appropriate to the genre and the audience;
2. read, comprehend and infer authors’ meaning in newspapers, magazines, and literary texts in Korean;
3. engage with authentic media such as television news broadcasts, movies, short stories and novels by summarizing, analyzing, evaluating and criticizing their content;
4. write texts in Korean in the appropriate genre, with correct grammatical structures and thematic vocabulary relevant to the level of the student;
5. Write, perform and record presentations or interviews in Korean either individually or in cooperative groups, and answer questions based on those performances or interviews

Course Lists

The course lists in the "Requirements" section below is a definitive list and includes all courses that can be counted towards the major, whether or not they are offered in the current year. For a list of courses that will be offered in the current year, please see the Summary of Courses page.