On the memorial to the Qing government, Prince Gong and others clarified the intention of establishing Shi Jing Wentong Museum: "If you want to understand the situation of various countries, you must first be familiar with their words and expressions, and then you will not be bullied." In that era when the country was forced to open, the Qing government responded to the international situation at that time by setting up schools in addition to shipping administration. Shi Jing Wentong Museum is the first modern university founded by the Qing government. 1898, Shi Jing University Hall, the direct predecessor of Peking University, was established. At the beginning of its establishment, Shi Jing University offered courses in five languages: English, French, German, Russian and Japanese. 1900, the auditorium of Shi Jing University was temporarily closed. 1902, Shi Jing University resumed its studies, then merged with Shi Jing Wentong Museum, and the following year it was renamed Translation College. The earliest two predecessors of Peking University of Foreign Studies have since merged into one.

19 19, Peking University abandoned the school gate to form the 13 department, including three foreign literature departments: English Literature Department, French Literature Department and German Literature Department. 1920 set up the department of Russian literature, making foreign literature departments account for four in the whole school 18 department. In the discipline structure at that time, the foreign literature department occupied a large proportion, indicating that the foreign literature discipline had an important position in Peking University. 1924, Peking University decided to "add the Department of Oriental Literature", but the so-called Department of Oriental Literature actually only specializes in Japanese, and Zhou Zuoren is the head of the department. Later, the Russian language department was abolished, and the foreign language department established in 193 1 was composed of English, French, German and Japanese. During his stay at National Southwest Associated University, he also maintained the establishment of the Foreign Languages Department.

For a long time, western language and literature has been the main subject of foreign language and literature in Peking University. In addition to English, French, German and Russian majors, Latin and ancient Greek courses are also offered. Peking University has always attached great importance to the teaching of oriental languages and literature. In addition to offering Japanese majors very early, Sanskrit courses were also taught at 19 19. However, due to the limited conditions, it was not until 1946 that Mr. Ji Xianlin returned from German that the multilingual Oriental Language Department was established. At the beginning of the establishment of the department, the East Department with six teachers could teach Sanskrit, Arabic, Mongolian, Tibetan and other languages. Since then, the Oriental discipline in Peking University and even China has been formally established and developed by leaps and bounds.

After the establishment of the Oriental Language Department, the rest of the original foreign language department was renamed the Western Language Department. After the founding of New China, the East Language Department developed rapidly, and the number of teachers and students increased greatly. From June 65438 to June 0949, Nanjing Institute of Oriental Languages merged with the teachers of the Department of Border Politics of Central University to form the Department of Oriental Languages. By 1952, before the adjustment of departments in Beijing-Tianjin colleges and universities, the Oriental Language Department had 12 enrollment language, with 50 teachers and about 500 students, making it the largest department in Peking University.

1952 during the adjustment of departments, the departments of western language and literature, Russian language and literature and oriental language and literature were re-established. Among them, the Department of Western Language and Literature includes English, French and German, with 95 teachers from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Yanda University, Fu Jen Catholic University, Normal University and other universities. The Department of Russian Language and Literature has 22 teachers from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Yanda University and other universities. The Department of Oriental Languages and Literature transferred the original Tibetan, Uygur and Southwest minority languages to the Central University for Nationalities, and retained Mongolian, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Siam, Indonesian, Burmese, Hindi and Arabic, with 42 teachers.

1952 The adjusted three-department system continued until the establishment of 1983 English Department. Today, Peking University Foreign Studies University consists of four departments: English, Oriental, Spanish and Russian. At the end of 2008, Peking University Foreign Studies University was reorganized, including English, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish (Portuguese), German, French, Korean (Korean), South Asian languages, Southeast Asian languages, Asian and African languages and West Asian languages.