The Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies is a 5-year university

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 in Pyongyang

Pyongyang

Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...

, North Korea

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

, specialising in language education

Language education

Language education is the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language. Language education is a branch of applied linguistics.- Need for language education :...

.

History

The university was split off from Kim Il-sung University in 1964. North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency

Korean Central News Agency

The Korean Central News Agency is the state news agency of North Korea and has existed since December 5, 1946. KCNA is headquartered in the capital city of Pyongyang...

 gives its foundation date as 1949. It does not have as high a reputation as those of Kim Il-sung University's foreign languages division, which trains members of the political elite; most graduates go on to become working-level diplomats or work in the intelligence service.

Structure

The university has separate colleges for students of English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

, Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, and Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

; the so-called "Ethnic Languages College" offers instruction in a further 18 languages, including French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Arabic, Thai

Thai language

Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

, Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

, Khmer

Khmer language

Khmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...

, and, as of July 2007, Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 and Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

.

Notable students, faculty, and alumni

• Charles Robert Jenkins
  Charles Robert Jenkins
  Charles Robert Jenkins is a former United States Army soldier who lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004 after deserting his unit and crossing the Korean Demilitarized Zone.-Military service and desertion:...
  
  , American defector and former English teacher; his daughters Brinda and Mika formerly attended as students
• James Dresnok, son of American defector James Joseph Dresnok
  James Joseph Dresnok
  James Joseph Dresnok is an American defector to North Korea, one of six American soldiers to defect after the Korean War. He was featured on the CBS magazine program 60 Minutes on January 28, 2007, as the last United States defector alive in North Korea and was the subject of a documentary film...
  
  

External links

• Meeting North Korea's 'Generation next': a UK Wired News interview with a British Council ESL teacher at the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies
• Class Report from North Korea, another interview with a different British Council ESL teacher at the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies