Korean language course

Overview

Lately, Nepalese student and workers have begun considering South Korea as a viable location to expand the horizon of their opportunities. Students are looking for better education whereas workers are looking for jobs that would give them and their families a better quality of life. Independent of the reason of their visit, anyone looking to travel to South Korea for a longer duration should learn the Korean language.

There is an especially large language barrier for Nepalese people. The widely understood languages in Nepal are Nepali, English and Hindi, none of which is understood by the average Korean populace.

There are still universities in Korea that do not require you to take an official Korean language proficiency test, or accept an English proficiency test score for admissions. But then again, even a student will have to interact with people outside of class.
 

About Korean Language Course in Nepal

The Korean Language courses offered in Nepal are often in preparation for the TOPIK exam. TOPIK stands for Test of Proficiency in Korean. However, you will also find several institutions that cater to those students and workers who managed to bypass the TOPIK exam.

As per our survey of students and online forums, it would take about 6 months of dedicated practice for a person to become an intermediate level user of the Korean language. A student needs about three months to get the hang of the Korean language at the basic level. If they want to have a more comprehensive understanding and ability, they would have to invest about a year and half of diligent practice.

Talking about the classes, most of them start with the absolute beginner level of the language–right from the alphabet. Then build up to higher and higher levels of proficiencies.

However, just studying the classes does not formalize or verify one’s grasp of the Korean language. For that, the TOPIK test is mandatory. The test has been engineered to quantify the test takers’ understanding of the language and their ability to comprehend it in the realms of writing, reading, and listening. Depending on the type of test and the test takers’ performance on the same, they are placed in one of the six brackets of classification of proficiency.

TOPIK I is designed to check proficiency on the more rudimentary levels and the TOPIK II is for the more advanced users.
 

Breaking Down TOPIK

The TOPIK I only tests the reading and listening faculties of the language. The TOPIK II, being more advanced, adds a Writing segment to the mix.Each of these sections are worth a hundred points each. So, the full score for TOPIK I is 200 and the score for TOPIK II is 300. TOPIK I has a total of 70 objective style questions which one has to complete in 100 minutes. Reading has 40 questions and listening 30.

TOPIK II, in contrast, has 104 questions to be attempted in 180 minutes. The reading segment has 50 MCQs, Listening has 50 MCQs, and you have to write 4 short answers or essays.

Depending on how one scores in either of these tests, a level is assigned.

Beginner: (Level 1 & 2)

A level 1 student of the Korean language knows about 800 basic Korean words, just enough to survive in Korea. A level 2 student is a little more advanced and has a vocabulary of upto 2000 words. Students at this level don’t know enough of the language to hold a conversation, just enough to discern between a formal and informal conversation.

Intermediate (Level 3 & 4)

A student of intermediate caliber can maintain conversation in social settings in Korean and hence maintain some social relationships. They are also aware of the social and cultural implications of their speech and are capable enough to use some idioms. For the most part, a person at this level could very comfortably travel around Korea or live in the country for extended durations.

Advanced (Level 5 & 6)

The people that score this high on the TOPIK II have near-native command of the Korean language. At this level, one could conduct professional research in Korean. They could very comfortably have extended conversations and even describe abstract concepts in the language. Essentially, this is as much Korean that one can know without actually having the advantage of being born in the country.
 

The EPS-TOPIK

Under the administration of the Employment Permit Section (EPS) another test of Korean Language is available strictly for employment purposes. While the TOPIK I & TOPIK II are offered for academic use or assessment for employment purposes, the EPS-TOPIK is a mandatory step for those who want to get the E-9 working visa to Korea.

Again, because this is a test for people who wish to work in Korea, the EPS TOPIK is only applicable to people that are 18 to 39 years of age. The test format of the EPS TOPIK is quite similar to the TOPIK I test. The test comes with two sections Reading and Listening—a hundred points each.
 

Where to study Korean Language Course in Nepal?

Well, as we mentioned before, there are quite a few places around the country that hold Korean classes regularly. However, these are not as common as say a PTE class or an IELTS class. Still, students need to find the right place to learn these things. So, how does one pick out the right place to study? Well, through trial and error, of course!

A student should visit a few different instructors, take demo classes, and only then choose where they would like to study.

Apart from actual physical institutions, students can also make use of the resources available on the internet. Websites like Duolingo are especially designed to gamify learning a language. Students can take daily quizzes and expedite their learning. Then there is the content on YouTube! Weather it be watching Korean content creators or language instructors, learning the language on these platforms could be fun. With that being said, it is still advised that the students take the online resources as a secondary tool to the in-person classes where they have the option to communicate with peers in Korean and develop their conversational language further.

Unlike the European languages that have a similar base, linguistically speaking, most students have almost no exposure with the Asiatic dialects.