Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies
The Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies is a five-year university in Pyongyang, North Korea, specializing in language education. History. The university was split off from Kim Il-sung University in 1964. North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency gives its foundation date as 1949. It does not have as high a reputation as those of Kim Il-sung University's foreign languages division, which trains members of the political elite; most graduates go on to become working-level diplomats or work in the intelligence service. Structure. The university has separate colleges for  students of English, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese; the so-called "Ethnic Languages College" offers instruction in a further 18 languages, including French, Spanish, Arabic, Thai, Urdu, Khmer, and, as of July 2007, Polish and Italian. In total, 22 languages are taught at PUFS: Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Hungarian, Arabic, Malay, Khmer, Thai, Lao, Persian, Hindi, Urdu, English, German, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish.