Netflix’s hit series “Squid Game” conveys South Korean “soft power”

Published on : 10/12/2021 – 12:37

Netflix is increasing the profile of a country whose culture was already on the rise: South Korea. The broadcast of the series “Squid Game” since mid-September, by the streaming giant, has been accompanied by a craze for learning Korean in the world.

The success of the “Squid Game” series broadcast on Netflix has rekindled interest in learning Korean. An enthusiasm which illustrates the growing global influence of South Korean culture which – from music to beauty to gastronomy – is becoming for Seoul an instrument of its “soft power”.

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According to the online learning service Duolingo, “Squid Game” led, in the two weeks following its first broadcast, on September 17, on the American streaming platform, a 76% increase in new registrants in Korean in Great Britain and 40% in the United States, while pushing older students to improve their level.

The enthusiasm for the series confirms the growing weight of South Korea, Asia’s fourth largest economy, on the world cultural scene, after the musical success of the K-pop or cinematographic groups of “Parasite”, Palme d’or at the Cannes Film Festival and the first foreign feature film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, or “Minari”, six Oscar nominations this year.

The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language recently added 26 words of Korean origin to its latest edition, including “hallyu”, which aptly reflects the “wave” of success in South Korean culture. Reacting to the announcement, President Moon Jae-in called the Korean an instrument of “soft power”.

“Language and culture are intrinsically linked and major trends in popular and media culture often have an influence on language learning and languages themselves,” responded a spokesperson for Duolingo in an email to Reuters.

According to data from the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, 77 million people speak Korean in the world, which corresponds to the populations of the two Koreas.

The King Sejong Institute, the South Korean equivalent of the Alliance Française, managed by the Ministry of Culture, has 76,000 students in 82 countries, where it had only 740 in three countries in 2007.

Duolingo, for its part, says it has 7.9 million Korean students active on its app, a language that shows the second highest growth after Hindi.

With AFP

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