By Reporter Anna Kim

President Yoon Suk-yeol and First Lady Kim Keon-hee attended a conversation event with Korean language learners in Vietnam on June 22. The event was held at the National University of Hanoi.

Under the theme of "Nurturing Our Dreams in Korean," it was attended by more than 70 people, including students studying Korean in Vietnam and representatives from educational institutions.

As the Korean Presidential couple entered the first floor of the event's annex, they were greeted by a traditional Vietnamese musical instrument, the arirang, played by students from a middle school affiliated with the Hanoi Foreign Language University, who responded with warm encouragement.

The Presidential couple then toured the Korean textbooks displayed at the entrance of the venue, including the Sejong Institute's Korean textbooks, which will be published for the first time in January next year, and Korean grammar notebooks created by students of the Korean Studies Department. When a Vietnamese student explained the contents of the exhibition in Korean, he said, "You seem to be really good at Korean. Thank you," and encouraged the students.

Although all of the students present today were fluent in Korean, the President greeted the Vietnamese students with "Xin chào" (hello) in Vietnamese before speaking to them, which drew a loud applause.

"It has been more than 30 years since Korea and Vietnam established diplomatic relations and became friends. The two countries have shared many possibilities, cooperated in economic and industrial fields, and our friendship and cooperation have been of great help to the development and growth of both countries."

Regarding the high level of interest in the Korean language in Vietnam, the President said, "I have heard that there is great enthusiasm for studying Korean in Vietnam, but when I came here and heard the explanations and saw the textbooks, it is not different from reality. As someone who runs the government of the Republic of Korea, I feel a great responsibility to respond to your enthusiasm."

The President and his wife then listened to young Vietnamese students, including elementary, middle and high school students, university students, and office workers, give presentations in Korean about their dreams and futures that they hope to achieve by learning Korean, and encouraged them. The diverse and vivid experiences of the presenters, including a high school student who plans to study in Korea to become an artificial intelligence developer, a university student majoring in Korean who dreams of becoming a Korean interpreter, an IT company employee who was selected as a Korean government scholar this year, and an employee who studied Korean at the Sejong Institute and joined a Korean company in Vietnam, showed the high interest in the Korean language in Vietnam.

After listening to the presentation, Mrs. Kim Gun-hee said, "Not only do they speak Korean well, but the sentiment of what they say makes me feel like they are Korean, so I feel very close to them."

On behalf of educators, the President and Mrs. Kim also heard from a professor at Hanoi National University about the career paths of students learning Korean, including studying abroad.

Prior to the event, the President and his wife met with Hanoi State University President Dr. Le Quan and Vietnam's Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Sun at the university's main building.

The President thanked Hanoi National University for its support in organizing the event, saying, "It is a pleasure to visit Hanoi National University, a top school in Vietnam. I look forward to seeing Hanoi National University's ambitious development plans come to fruition soon," and emphasized that the government will spare no effort to support the exchange of students and researchers between Korea and Vietnam."