# University studies



## Cantiuka

Hi,
I would like to translate these degrees into Korean and I don't know how to do it:
- Degree in Spanish language and literature.
- Hispanic philology.
- Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Primary Education.

Thanks a lot


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## Superhero1

Hello Cantiuka

Degree in Spanish language and literature:  스페인어문학
Hispanic philology: literally 히스패닉 문헌학(it sounds fine to me) but we don't have the course 히스패닉문헌학과. It is similar to the degree of 스페인어중남미학 I guess.
Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Primary Education : 초등영어교육학

Hope this help.


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## Cantiuka

Thank you so much


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## 조금만

A couple of minor additions:

For what it's worth, Korea University Institute of Hispanic Studies renders its name officially as
스페인 라틴아메리카 연구수 and from a quick scan of campus sites, that does seem to be the way the term "Hispanic" is translated in Korean academic circles. 
See http://ihs.korea.ac.kr/

And from endless hours spent in a past life negotiating course credit equivalence between universities in various countries, I'd say that "Philology" in degree titles is very tricky, because it covers (and, from case to case, excludes) so many different things in different places and times. Nearly 45 years ago now, I was registered as a student of "Modern Philology (Neuphilologie)" at a German university, but that was as vague and comprehensive a term as "Modern Languages" in the UK. But elsewhere, "Philology" can specify strictly linguistic, as distinct from literary or cultural studies, and in some others, it has the even narrower sense of a focus on historical rather than synchronic-descriptive linguistics. 

If you need these translations for some sort of application where weight will be given to the specific fields  studied under these titles (as distinct from merely providing evidence of university education in a broad area) then it may be important to provide a brief gloss outlining the course content, otherwise there may be misunderstandings later if the expertise gained in "Philology" turns out to be very different from what Koreans understand by 문헌학.


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## Cantiuka

Thank you, it is very well explained. But 스페인 라틴아메리카 연구수 is related to Latin America, right? My degree is mainly for Spain and its kind of Spanish


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## 조금만

The point is, though, that "Hispanic Studies" is frequently deliberately used by universities as a portmanteau term to cover both the Spanish of the Iberian peninsula and that of South and Central America. In other words, Departments choose to use "Hispanic" rather than "Spanish" in their titles and course descriptions to indicate precisely that broader coverage. 

What strikes me as odd about the Korean use of 스페인 라틴아메리카 is that that formula would appear to include Brazil and hence Latin American Portuguese (and yet not the Portuguese of Portugal or Angola) but I don't think it always does, looking at the contents of the faculty websites. 

Departments in the UK and US that actually do want to clarify that they cover both Spanish and Portuguese in all their localities tend to use the term Iberio-Latin American Studies, or suchlike. If it's important that if your qualification is predominantly in Iberian Spanish, it might be advisable to term it Spanish Philology and translate it into Korean accordingly. "Hispanic Philology", in addition to the problems of what Philology involves which I've already raised, might create an assumption of philological expertise encompassing all the languages of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, with the exception of Basque. As I already said re the term "Philology", wherever the detailed contents of a study programme are of importance, it is always wise to accompany the degree title by an indication, however brief, of the exact field(s) in which you are qualified, to avoid later misunderstandings, but its best also to choose a translation that minimizes the chances for such misunderstanding from the very start.

This sort of thing can be very important when dealing with Korean administrators, in particular. Without wanting to cause offence, my admittedly limited experience of such people is that they can sometimes be slightly less well informed about the wider world than their counterparts in some other countries. (As a somewhat flippant, but nonetheless telling example, they assume that they can send out digital documents in hwp format despite the fact that virtually no-one outside Korea is able to open such documents, let alone fill in the forms they contain.) As a consequence, it is all too likely that they assume they know what a particular term means in European or US usage, only for it to emerge later that Koreans understand that same term in significantly different ways. So the more explicit you can be about exactly what is is you are qualified in, the better in the long term.


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## Cantiuka

Wow, I understood everything, thanks for answering me with such great explanation  it helped me a lot


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