This study starts with the premise that another name for Korean language education -the ‘national language’ education- has to be labelled as the ‘Korean language education’ in this multicultural era. I also presuppose that Korean language education as a first language, as a second language, or as a foreign language, all fall under the discipline of language education. Some researchers may specialise in Korean language education as a first language and some as a foreign language. Researchers should be able to access all types of language learners regardless of their specialism for more meaningful outcomes of research. With this premise, I seek to categorise Korean language learners who face varied linguistic contexts as a useful and insightful grouping to researchers. As a result, Korean language learners in Korea or abroad face 3 different family literacy environments, 2 different institution literacy environments, and 2 different social literacy environments. Therefore Korean language learners can face 12 types of different literacy environments based on family, school, and society. I suggest that a lot of and extensive empirical research should be conducted, at times comparing different types of learners. I also generate research topics to be dealt with in accordance with learners’ literate environment.