As the share of the Korean Wave in global culture has increased, the Korean language has ranked 7th in the global language learning market last year.



Recently, CNN reported that "there is no better time to learn Korean than now," and that Korean ranked 7th in the global language learning application 'Duolingo' in 2022.



'Duolingo' is a language learning platform with more than 500 million users worldwide.



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According to published reports, Korean is particularly popular in West and Southeast Asia, and is registered as the most studied foreign language in four countries, including the Philippines and Brunei.



In addition, Duolingo said that Korean ranked second among Asian languages ​​after Japanese, saying, "The popularity of the two languages ​​is very small."



On the other hand, Chinese, which has been used as an international business language after English for many years, has been steadily popular, but users who want to learn it are said to have lagged behind Korean for a decade.



In fact, the number of Korean students taking language courses at US higher education institutions increased from 5,221 in 2002 to 14,000 in 2016, and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2021 added 20 Korean words, proving the popularity of the Korean language.




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CNN emphasized the 'Korean Wave' as the secret to the popularity of the Korean language and said, "It is a phenomenon that has been steadily loved for music, dramas, movies, cosmetics, fashion, and food over the past 20 years."



CNN also said, "For the past few decades, Asian languages ​​have been dominated by Chinese and Japanese. However, Korean idols BTS, Psy's 'Gangnam Style', the movie 'Parasite', and the drama 'Squid Game' have shown great success, and Korean has been noticed,” he added.



Professor Seo Joo-won of Columbia University's Department of Korean Language said, "Compared to when I first started, the perception of Korea as a country, culture, society, and language has changed quite positively." It is recognized," he said.



Meanwhile, Korean ranks higher than Chinese, Russian, Hindi, and Italian on Duolingo.

Also, the languages ​​with the most learners worldwide are English and Spanish, which firmly occupy the first and second positions.



(Photo = Duolingo official blog, BTS Twitter, YouTube 'officialpsy', still cuts from the movie 'Parasite' and drama 'Squid Game')