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Korean has become the third most popular foreign language for Japanese students, after English and Chinese.
According to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper on Wednesday, Korean ranked number three among high school seniors choosing a foreign language elective course for the college entrance examination. French and German fell to fourth and fifth.
Japan first adopted English, French and German as choices for the foreign language elective. Chinese was added in 1997 and Korean in 2000.
According to a survey by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the number of high schools that teach Korean has grown from 73 in 1995 to 286 now.
That figure ranks Korean third after Chinese, beating out French and German, for high schools that teach the language. Currently 553 high schools offer Chinese, 248 offer French and 105 offer German.
The Korean elective course is taught once or twice a week in Japan's high schools.
Japan's Education Ministry said, "More and more students are studying the languages of neighboring countries against the backdrop of growing cultural and economic exchanges between Japan, Korea and China."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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