In terms of their function, sinology departments at German universities focus mainly on academic research, with language study being of only secondary importance. At some universities, Chinese is grouped with Japanese or Korean into departments of "oriental" or "asiatic" languages.
就功能而言，基本上，德國的漢學系主要以學術研究為主，語言反而是其次，某些大學與日本或韓國合併在一起，稱之為「東方」或「亞洲」之類的語言學系。