For the third year running, The Korea Times is putting cash, and a shot at a summer internship, behind a simple pitch: get up, speak Korean, and tell us what you love about the country.
The newspaper’s third annual Foreigners’ Korean Speaking Contest opened registration on February 26 and ran through May 7, open to any foreign national or overseas Korean for whom Korean is not a first language. Contestants could compete in a speaking category — either a free topic or a prompt titled “What’s your favorite K?” in long-form or short-form video — or a pronunciation category built around Korean tongue-twister challenges.
The stakes are more than bragging rights. Organizers set aside a combined 12 million won in prize money across 20 winners, and one winning contestant currently enrolled at a Korean university or graduate school will receive a summer internship at The Korea Times itself — a rare direct pipeline from language competition to newsroom experience for an international participant.
Winners were announced May 26, with an awards ceremony held June 4. The contest is backed by a roster of government and educational institutions, including Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Education, the National Institute for International Education, the King Sejong Institute Foundation, and Korea Cyber University.
The contest reflects a broader, sustained rise in global demand for Korean-language education, driven in large part by the continued international spread of K-pop, K-dramas and Korean film. Industry trackers have described Korean as one of the fastest-growing languages studied worldwide in recent years, with interest extending well beyond entertainment fandom into practical territory, as more foreign nationals pursue work and long-term settlement in Korea and need functional Korean for daily life, not just fan culture.
For a contest that started as a modest speaking competition, the growth into a fully sponsored, multi-institution event — complete with a newsroom internship prize — signals just how much institutional weight is now being put behind rewarding foreigners who put in the work to learn the language, rather than simply consuming Korean pop culture in translation.
Source: The Korea Times, Korean Language Speaking Contest official announcement, 2026.
