Yoon meets with Korean language students in Hanoi
President Yoon Suk Yeol sits next to first lady Kim Keon Hee, as he speaks during a meeting with Vietnamese students learning the Korean language at Vietnam National University in Hanoi, Thursday. Yonhap
HANOI ― Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon Hee met on Thursday with a group of students learning the Korean language in Vietnam.
The meeting took place at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, shortly after Yoon arrived in the country for a three-day state visit aimed at deepening economic cooperation between the two countries.
The president and the first lady looked at Korean language textbooks and other educational materials on display before listening to some of the young Vietnamese students talk about what they wish to achieve by learning Korean.
"I heard in South Korea that the fervor of Vietnamese students to learn Korean was remarkable," Yoon said. "The Korean language skills of the person who made an introduction before I entered this room and the various textbooks here made me realize that the stories I heard in Seoul were no different from reality."
President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon Hee greet Vietnamese students learning the Korean language at Vietnam National University in Hanoi, Thursday. Yonhap
The meeting was attended by around 70 Korean language students and instructors, and conducted entirely in Korean without a translator.
The students who gave presentations included a high school student planning to study abroad in South Korea in order to become a future artificial intelligence developer, a college student majoring in Korean in order to become a Korean translator and an employee of a South Korean company operating in Vietnam.
Yoon said he feels a big responsibility to repay the students' fervor and will send the education minister to Vietnam to look at ways the government can support their learning.
"Our government will put in our best effort so that you can easily learn the Korean language and technical terms needed to work in a particular field," he said. (Yonhap)