[2PM] From literacy to Korean fever...Korean Language Reads by the Head of the Korean Language Institute

■ Host: anchor Lee Se-na, anchor Na Kyung-chul
■ Starring: Jang Ji-won, Director of the National Institute of Korean Studies

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN New Square 2PM] when quoting.

[Anchor]
When I suddenly looked at the calendar in the elevated sky and the cool air, it was already October.

[Anchor]
That's right. Ahead of next week's Hangul Day, let's look at the recent controversies related to the Korean language along with the beautiful Hangul story today.

We have invited you to the studio of the National Institute of Korean Studies. Please come in.

When it comes to the National Institute of the Korean Language, many of you know that it is the most powerful institution in Korean. Please introduce exactly what kind of people are doing together.

[Placeman]
The National Institute of the Korean Language is an organization under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism located in Banghwa-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul. So the people who work at the National Institute of the Korean Language are degree officials with a master's degree or higher in the field of Korean language and people with the equivalent of civil servants. These people manage language norms such as Korean spelling and standard language regulations so that the Korean people can use Korean language and writing easily and conveniently, and compile and manage Korean dictionaries such as the Standard Korean Dictionary and the Korean Language Sam.

In addition, we need to investigate the Korean language skills of our people, investigate the use of Korean, and create artificial intelligence that is good at Korean in the era of the 4th revolution, so we build language big data called corpus that is the basis. In these days, there are many foreigners learning Korean, so the demand for Korean teachers increases, so they certify and retrain Korean teachers. In particular, it is an institution that manages and disseminates sign language and braille.

[Anchor]
You introduced the National Institute of the Korean Language, and I think it's an inseparable institution from our anchors. Before we ask you a full-fledged question, we'll look at the Korean language questions posted on the online bulletin board. Can you show us?

If you look, where is the technical high school in the future? This question was posted on a bulletin board. It doesn't even show up on the map app, does anyone know where it is? I'm asking you this question, but we often use the word "post-announcement" on documents and documents, but I wonder if you posted it because you didn't know it or as a joke. Have you ever seen this question before?

[Placeman]
These days, there are many interesting examples related to literacy on the Internet, and I've seen them because they've been reported a lot in the media. There are people who think of three days in connection with the four days or ask which area of the city is the name of Rain City.

[Anchor]
That's right. In addition, there are cases where they think that a boring apology is really boring, and it's due by Friday after seeing the post that it's due today. And in the notice that Chinese food is provided, there are cases where it is understood that Chinese food is provided. But director, I don't see what literacy is and simply knowing the exact definition as literacy. What are you talking about?

[Placeman]
That's right. Now, later announcements and rainy days mean vocabulary that is part of literacy rather than overall literacy in a strict sense. It's because I don't know the meaning of the word well. Literacy is literally the ability to understand text, so the ability to read long and complex text, understand the core, and summarize it is called literacy.

[Anchor]
Issues on literacy are coming up a lot on social media these days and a lot on bulletin boards from various places. Recently, the Ministry of Education and the National Institute for Lifelong Education conducted a survey, and 3 out of 100 adults in Korea are called adults by inscription. So, it is a shocking result that an adult with no knowledge is at the level of the first and second grades of elementary school to read, write, and count. In fact, I think there is no country with a lower literacy rate and higher education enthusiasm than Korea. What do you think is the reason for the recent decline in literacy?

[Placeman]
I think I can think of two things. The first is that many people of today's generation don't like to read long articles. So when you want to get some information, you don't want to read a book and pick out the information you need from it, but you just want the answer that is given right away through the video. Also, even if you read a long article, instead of reading a long article, if it's news, you don't look at the entire news, but only look at the card news. Because you read such short texts too much, you can see that your literacy to read long texts gradually decreases.

Second, things like later announcements and rainy times mentioned earlier are Chinese characters. Nearly 60% of our words are Chinese character words, but schools do not provide Chinese character education these days. As a result, as they try to guess the meaning only with the Chinese characters they know, their literacy gradually declines. Then, should we start teaching Chinese characters again? Since this is a more complex problem, experts need to discuss and discuss it in more depth, and as a way to solve it right away, I think one way is to say that we will announce it later, and in the case of rain, we can express it in easy Korean.

[Anchor]
Parents are also interested in this literacy because it has a great influence on learning. The National Institute of the Korean Language is also preparing a separate educational plan for this literacy issue?

[Place source]
The National Institute of the Korean Language evaluates our people's Korean language skills every five years, that is, reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. This is what all countries in the OECD are doing. Recent research has shown that writing and reading skills, or literacy, are especially poor. So, from three years ago, the Korean Institute will develop evaluation indicators for argumentative writing with the aim of improving writing skills, and will announce them under the name of national indicators by the end of this year. We are also training professionals to evaluate. And now, in order to conduct a large-scale evaluation, it is better to borrow the power of artificial intelligence, so artificial intelligence continues to learn with the index created by the need to develop artificial intelligence. So after about three years, there will be a stage where artificial intelligence corrects and scores arguments written by people. And regarding literacy, we will start developing programs that intensively develop students' literacy from next year. Since four to five years ago, we have already published a list of vocabulary that elementary and middle school students must know. So, the words that we must know are different depending on age, so it is already being used when we present vocabulary that we must know in the 3rd to 4th grades of elementary school, 5th to 6th grades, or 1st or 2nd grades of middle school and make books for those students.

[Anchor]
You're preparing a variety of educational plans, but you changed the topic a bit and told me earlier.Ma said that foreigners really want to learn our Korean, so why do you think Korean is being loved all over the world?

[Place source]
Perhaps our country has developed that much and economically, many companies are abroad, and the bigger reason is Korean culture and the Korean Wave. Since the Korean Wave is gaining popularity around the world, the number of people learning Korean is increasing because they like Korean culture at first, but they are curious about Korean. There is an app called Duolingo that learns foreign languages. According to a report released by the company in June this year, Korean came in fourth among the numerous languages that can be learned through Duolingo. In addition, more than 200,000 foreigners learn Korean every year at King Sejong Institute in 256 places around the world. In addition, there are 106 universities with Korean studies or Korean language courses in the university, and more than 1,400 courses are offered.

[Anchor]
Like this, foreigners want to learn our Korean, but I think our people often use foreign terms excessively. So, I know that the National Institute of the Korean Language is constantly working on changing it to pure Korean, so can you introduce a few things?

[Placeman]
Twice a month, the Korean Language Institute softens the new terminology, economic terminology, foreign language expressions used in the news, or policy names and announces them as press releases in Korean.

[Anchor]
It's coming out as an example right now. Turn value-up into value-enhancing or subculture, non-mainstream culture. So it's a moment when I think that we should get into the habit of using more of these terms. Now, the director's term as the director of the National Institute of the Korean Language is until the 7th, and there are only a few days left. You must have been very rewarding and disappointed, so what changes have happened to the National Institute of the Korean Language during your tenure?

[Placeman]
The reason why I decided to come to the Korean Institute and work was to make a writing ability evaluation index. Because I was upset to see that each university is reducing essay tests a lot because there are no proper indicators when I report all the essay tests at university. However, argumentation is a very important ability in modern society, so I started making this indicator because I wanted to enhance the argumentation of our people, and it is going well now.

Secondly, I wanted to raise a Korean teacher as a foreign national. I want to make Korean a world language, but I started K-teacher online last year because I wanted to create an era where foreigners become Korean teachers and teach Korean to my own people. On the other hand, the etymological dictionary was the long-cherished desire of the Korean Institute, but fortunately, it has secured a budget since last year and 20,000 etymological dictionaries will be published in the next four years.

In addition, in four years, an etymological dictionary containing 40,000 vocabulary words will be created at the level of a fully developed country. And we are planning a national dictation contest by organizing Hangul Week this year because we want our people to take more pride in our language and use a classy language. About 130 people have already made it to the finals after going through preliminary rounds in each region in September. These people will gather at Heungdeokjeon Hall in Gyeongbokgung Palace at 3 p.m. on Oct. 4 for a dictation contest.

[Anchor]
You've done so many things for the right Korean language business, but Hangul Day is just a week away. As a Korean language scholar and the head of the National Institute of the Korean Language, we asked in advance for beautiful Korean names and they brought pretty star names. Can you introduce them one by one?

[Placeman]
There are so many beautiful Korean words. You know what the Milky Way says in Korean, right?

[Anchor]
I've heard it a lot in advance.

[Placeman]
Yes, I use it a lot in advance. Have you heard of dog food?

[Anchor]
in the title of the book.

[Placeman] It's the title of the
book, but there's a star that's especially twinkling in the western sky after sunset in the evening. The star is Venus, and the evening Venus is called dog food flower. Meanwhile, Venus, which shines unusually in the east before sunrise in the morning and early morning, is called a bird star. Small, tiny stars scattered in the sky are also called Saragi stars.

[Anchor]
We'll be able to think that we need to know a lot of pretty Korean words and use them together.

It was a time with the head of the National Institute of the Korean Language, Chang Ji-won, who returned to his Korean language as a scholar after a three-year term.

Thank you for today, director.