A 21-year-old Uzbekistan student, Natalya Kim, won the top award in a Korean language speech contest organized by Kyung Hee University on Thursday.

Kim, a fourth-generation Korean, came to her grandfather’s home country this February to study the Korean language at the university’s Institute of International Education (IIE).

"Studying Korean and English came easily for me because I like to study languages. The Korean language has so many different ways of describing something and the formal way of speaking in Korean is a bit more difficult," Kim told The Korea Times in an interview after receiving the award.

Kim recommended listening to a lot of Korean music, watching Korean movies and reading newspapers to develop language skills, Korea Times reported.

In her speech, "A Story of a Girl", Kim spoke about how her grandparents influenced her to learn about Korea and the Korean language. She plans to enter Kyung Hee University as an undergraduate student.

The IIE has hosted the event for foreign nationals on the birthday of King Sejong (1397-1450), who invented "Hangeul",’ the Korean alphabet, since 1998.

The Crown Hall of the school was packed with more than 1,000 people who came to support their friends and colleagues from universities nationwide.

A total of 873 foreigners from 27 countries applied for the contest on the subject of "Family and Experiences in Korea". Among them 22 finalists - 19 female and three male contenders - competed to win the contest.

"I think the speaking contest is a very good tool for foreigners to measure their language abilities. More and more foreigners apply for the contest every year. I believe our event has been positioned as the country’s leading Korean-speaking festival," Kim Jung-sup, the director of IIE, said.

In accordance with the growing number of foreigners in Korea, the contest has seen a nearly 16-fold increase in the number of participants compared to the first event. Also, the nationalities of contenders have risen from 11 to 27.

Five contestants shared the second prize. They were Sonoda Miwa, a Japanese national studying at Dong-A University; Chen Po-chen, a Taiwanese student at Seoul National University; Darima Tsydenova, a Russian from Korea University; Dong Chenxiang, a Chinese student from Yonsei University; and Japan’s Sugimoto Kana from Kyung Hee University.

"The speech contents of the participants were very fresh compared to last year. Also, the nationalities have become more diverse," said Paik Bong-ja, the former president of the International Association of Korean Language Education. Paik served as chief judge for the contest.