Students at King Sejong Institute of the Korean Cultural Center in Sao Paolo, Brazil, take a class in a pilot course in interpretation and translation.
By Wu Jinhua
Photos = King Sejong Institute Foundation
The King Sejong Institute Foundation will develop promising staff in translation and interpretation in French- and Arabic-speaking regions.
The foundation on May 9 said it will run its newly developed pilot course in translation and interpretation at eight branches in eight countries including France and Saudi Arabia to meet growing demand for intermediate- and advanced-level courses in Korean in such areas.
The course’s development was launched in 2021 given the growing global popularity of Hallyu (Korean Wave) and aggressive advances abroad by Korean companies.
As of last year, the foundation completed the textbook series Sejong Translation and Interpretation in 12 languages – English, Russian, Hindi, Uzbek, Kyrgiz, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, Mongolian, Myanmar and Kazakh – and pilot operation of the related curriculum. Four languages — French, Arabic, Spanish and Brazilian-style Portuguese — were also added to the project.
From April to August, the pilot course will use four new textbooks at eight institutes in eight countries including in places like France, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Bogota, Colombia.
Within the first half of next year, the foundation will finalize the textbooks for the pilot program by reflecting the opinions of institute students and teachers and announce the results on its website (https://nuri.iksi.or.kr).
Foundation President Lee Hae-young said, “We will continue steady efforts to set the King Sejong Institute Interpretation and Translation Course as the curriculum for mid- to advanced-level students of Korean at King Sejong Institutes in each country.”
Shown are the covers of the textbooks developed last year by the King Sejong Institute Foundation for use in a pilot course in translation and interpretation. From left to right are the covers of the textbooks in Spanish, Brazilian-style Portuguese, French and Arabic.
jane0614@korea.kr
