This research examines what motivates students to learning Korean, and how their motivation also affects their preferences for content of Korean culture and Korean popular culture/K-pop. For this study, I conducted surveys of 155 students and interviews with 30 students enrolled in the beginners` level Korean language course at The University of Queensland in 2014. The results show that students are motivated most by ‘K-pop’ and ‘Korean popular culture’, followed by Future job prospects, and Others. Regardless of their different motivations, students commonly showed high preferences for learning content related to ‘Daily life in Korean society’, ‘Greetings/etiquettes of Korean society and language’, while they showed lower preferences for topics such as ‘Fashion’ and ‘Housing’. The average mean score of culture content students wanted to learn for beginners` level of Korean is included in the paper. In addition, the results showed that K-pop did not significantly impact the students` preferences in cultural content, but that the influence of Korean popular culture was much more significant. There were strong/moderate positive correlations between interest in ‘Korean popular culture’ and culture content. However, the students` ultimate aim was not to learn Korean popular culture; rather, they want to understand the daily interactions of Korean people, greetings/etiquettes of Korean society and language, and Korean target culture including the different values and traditions embedded in Korean popular culture. This research focused on beginner level of Korean, in order to gain an understanding of the general trends of students` motivations. Further study of intermediate/advanced Korean learners is needed.