Founded in 1954, the Department of Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Mongolian Languages is one of the oldest departments in MGIMO. Throughout its history the Department has been the working place for many an outstanding specialist in Oriental Studies, among them authors of benchmark Japanese dictionaries and textbooks — Sergey Neverov, Sergey Zarubin, Boris Lavrentiev, as well as such prominent figures of Korean studies as Khvan Yun Dyun, Khan Dyk Pon and Valentina Dmitrieva, while the Indonesian section has seen the excellent work of Gavriil Kesselbrenner and Lyudmila Ushakova, and Mongolean has been taught by the renowned Vissarion Bildushkinov.
Presently we offer first foreign language courses in all four languages, including yearly courses in the school of international relations in Japanese and Korean. Groups in Mongolean and Indonesian for future diplomats, Japanese and Korean courses for economists, and Japanese for journalists are launched on a regular basis. Each language is available for third language groups or as a second foreign language on the individual basis, including post-graduate programs, courses for school graduates (Japanese and Korean only) and evening courses for learners outside the university.
The department is active in the development of innovation-based learning materials and textbooks. A significant part of what we use in class is locally designed and tailor-made for the purposes of education in MGIMO. Some of our textbooks, such as the Beginning and Intermediate Corse in Korean, are widely used in various schools in Russia.
A special stress in all of our curricula is being made on introducing maximum relevant information on the target countries, their society, economy and culture. Extensive knowledge on the two variants of the Korean language is presented in the auditorium, while a special course on the linguistic ambiance in Malaysia is offered to the students of Indonesian. Several of our teaching faculty have the experience of diplomatic service. Many of the teaching staff are in high demand as qualified interpreters. We are keen that this entire practical expertise enrich our teaching.
The Department provides broad support for extracurricular activities of the students, such as the Japan club of MGIMO. Students of each language make wide use of the existing network of academic cooperation between MGIMO and our overseas partners.
The department has a strong basis in scientific research. The majority of our teachers are candidates of sciences (PhD) in linguistics, history and economy. We score dozens of publications every year in leading editions in Russia and abroad. Our traditional field is dictionaries, phrasebooks and reference editions, with recent contributions from Sergey Chironov. A comparatively new area of language studies concerns linguo-cultural phenomena, where a team of researchers, including post-graduate students, has congregated around Professor Tatiana Gurevich, herself an author of a series of books and articles on the subject, formerly the head of the Deparment.
The deparment is currently headed by Sergey Chironov, PhD in linguistics from Moscow University.
Sergey Chironov
