Who this course is for

• Intermediate and advanced learners preparing for TOPIK II.
• Learners who understand every word in a sentence and still miss what it means.
• Anyone who wants their Korean to sound less like a textbook.

About this course

Some Korean sentences cannot be understood from the words alone. 눈이 높다 is not about the height of anyone's eyes. This course covers about 200 of those expressions, across the four families that matter for TOPIK and for natural Korean.

관용어, the idioms, come first and take the largest share. Many are built on body parts, so the course teaches them as systems: all the 손 idioms together, all the 눈 idioms together, all the 입 idioms together. Learning them in families is far easier than meeting them one by one, and it shows you the logic behind the group. Further lessons cover idioms about food, situations and the news.

속담, the proverbs, come next, then 사자성어, the four-character idioms, which come with hanja decoding tables so that the four characters explain the meaning instead of being four things to memorise. The last family is 의성어 and 의태어, the sound and mimetic words that English speakers usually find hardest.

Those sound words are taught through a system rather than a list. Korean sound symbolism is regular: a bright vowel and a plain consonant suggest something small and light, a dark vowel and a tense consonant suggest something big and forceful. 반짝 is a small sparkle, 번칍 is a big flash. Once you have the system you can make sense of sound words you have never seen.

Every expression is taught the same way. You see the literal picture first and guess the meaning, then tap to reveal it. There are 126 illustrations showing the literal image behind an expression, which is what makes the meaning stick. Frequency stars show which expressions matter most for the exam, and register notes tell you where an expression belongs and where it would sound wrong.

The final section applies all of it to TOPIK listening, reading, writing and speaking, with before-and-after examples that upgrade an ordinary answer, and ends with a 60-item final exam. A searchable Expression Bank can be printed or downloaded.

What you’ll get

• About 200 expressions across idioms, proverbs, four-character idioms, and sound and mimetic words
• 126 illustrations showing the literal picture behind each expression
• Guess first, then tap to reveal the meaning
• Frequency stars (★★★, ★★, ★) showing which expressions matter most for the exam
• Register notes: where an expression fits, and where it would sound wrong
• Hanja decoding tables for the four-character idioms
• The sound-symbol system, so you can make sense of sound words you have never seen
• A searchable Expression Bank you can print or download

Course curriculum

31 lessons in 6 sections

Questions about this course