Who won the contest?

Jantihuonglly, a 25-year-old Vietnamese master's student, took the grand prize at the 28th World Foreign Students Korean Speaking Contest, co-hosted by Kyung Hee University's International Education Institute and Yonhap News Agency. She said she never expected such a big award and had entered the contest mainly as a learning experience.

Why did her speech stand out?

Her speech focused on the Korean expression '~것 같다' (it seems), which she described as a "mild style" of Korean. According to her, Koreans use it to speak carefully so as not to hurt the listener. The judges gave her the highest score for explaining this nuance fluently.

Who is Jantihuonglly?

She grew up in Thai Nguyen province in northern Vietnam and became interested in Korean language and culture through K-pop and K-dramas. She first came to Korea in November 2019 to study at Daegu University, later entering its Korean Language Education department. She is now a graduate student at Yeungnam University and teaches at Kyungil University's Korean Language Education Center.

What topic inspired the speech?

The idea came from a question her students often ask: why Koreans use '~는 것 같다' so often, even when they seem to know the answer. She said the question made her search for the reasons behind it.

For international fans

Learners often find passive and causative forms in Korean especially difficult. Jantihuonglly noted that Vietnamese also has passive expressions, but they are not used as widely as in Korean.