K-Pop Power: Indian Millennials’ Growing Interest in Korean Language

ACN NEWS On Feb 16, 2021

By Anukrati Mehta

MUMBAI: While watching The Running Man, a popular Korean game show, Hyderabad-based Sanjana can often be found cheering the celebrity participants on with words that leave her sister confused.

The 24-year-old Journalism student says, “I have the habit of saying 좋아! (Jo-haa!) when my favourite participant wins around. It means nice or good, but I never had to search for the translation. It’s a very commonly-spoken word that appears in K-dramas a lot.”

Sanjana has been consuming K-dramas for a little over five years now. She says it was the wish to enjoy the shows she likes without the obstruction of subtitles that made her want to enroll in a Korean learning course. She is not unique in this, though, and is one of many Indian millennials whose K-drama journey led them to adopt the Korean language.

And K-dramas aren’t the only motivators. Korea’s other cultural exports like K-pop, Korean food, and K-beauty also have had a massive influence as parts of the Korean cultural wave, Hallyu. From the International Film Festival of Kerala’s introduction of Korean movies to the Indian public to the viral ‘Gangnam Style’ that brought K-pop to Indian households, Hallyu has enjoyed massive encouragement from Indians, especially the youth.

In fact, it was the youngsters of North-Eastern states like Manipur who were the first to indulge in Korean culture at scale by bingeing on Korean movies in the 2000s. While several different factors contributed to that, it’s the acceptance that Korean content gained there more than a decade ago, and in the rest of the country later, that made it possible for it to become mainstream.

As the most recent leg of Hallyu, the 2020 lockdown gave people the time and inclination required to consume content in a foreign language and made Korean content available to people of all ages and types. Last year, the viewership of K-dramas increased by more than 370% on Netflix India and Korean bands and albums became one of the most streamed on Spotify India.

Delhi-based Rohit S. says he stumbled upon K-pop at the right time. Unable to do much else last year, he spent most of his time preparing for the civil service exams.

“I was studying for hours on stretch daily. Having been thrown in the middle of a global pandemic, on top of that, made things much worse. That is when I discovered K-pop. I fell in love with it and started rewarding myself with a song for each section of reading I completed,” he adds. He plans to take the Korean language up after he clears his exam.

Rohit’s desire to understand the lyrics of his favourite K-pop songs is shared by many K-pop enthusiasts.

Encouraged by the rising demand for the learning of the Korean language by the Indian youths, the Korean Cultural Center in India (KCCI) has decided to increase the number of seats for “Online Korean Language Hobby Classes – Starter Level” from 300 (in 2020) to 4,200 during the year 2021.

“Online Korean Language Hobby Class” is a real-time non-face-to-face Korean language course using the ZOOM platform, first opened by the Korean Cultural Center India in August 2020 in the pandemic situation.

In the same period of the pandemic, the consumption of Korean content increased manifold. The language-learning platform, Duolingo, enjoyed a 256% increase in Korean learners in India.

This isn’t surprising given that many other countries also witnessed a spike in Korean learners as Korean culture’s popularity increased in their nation. In fact, tapping into the global acceptance of the Korean wave, last year, South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced an expenditure budget of €63.96 million (a whopping €17 million more than before) to promote Korea’s “hangul” alphabet.

Moreover, K-pop stars have started producing Korean-language educational courses like “Learn Korean with BTS” which offers fans a chance to not only celebrate their favourite stars but also enjoy an immersive Korean learning experience. With the increase in Hallyu enthusiasts, easy availability of Korean content, and Korean influencers becoming a medium of learning Korean, it is no surprise that the Indian teenagers that embraced other K-trends are also equally enthusiastic about mastering the Korean language.

The ever-increasing popularity of the Korean language amongst Indian youths can be gauged from the fact that the registration for 600 seats in KCCI Online Korean Language Hobby Classes was completed within two minutes of these being thrown open in January 2021.

Hwang, Il-yong, the director of Korean Cultural Center India says, “We are in discussion with CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) for the best ways to expand Korean language education in Indian schools in 2021 as the Korean language has been solidified by India’s New Education Policy in 2020 as recommended foreign language.”

“Also, Korean language education for the general public will accelerate the expansion of the base of Korean language through the integrated operation of face-to-face and non-face-to-face courses by King Sejong Institutes located in major different cities in India including Korean Cultural Center India Institutes in New Delhi,” he added.