A Brief History

Chinese and Japanese language majors were established at Georgetown University in 1949. Today, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures includes majors and minors in Chinese and Japanese, as well as minors in Korean.  We offer some of the most rigorous Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language training in the country. In addition to three-year sequences of structured intensive instruction, the department has a large variety of advanced electives taught in the target languages. Many of our students, and all of our majors, spend a semester or a year abroad at one of our partner institutions in Japan, China, Taiwan, and Korea, where they receive further intensive language instruction and benefit from immersion in the culture.