The thing foreign students struggle the most when preparing for the TOPIK is memorizing vocabulary words. This is because Korean words are expanded as they combine with several other words, so if you try to memorize it without any strategy, it will be too difficult to do so consistently.
According to the standard Korean dictionary that records all the words used by Koreans, there are more than 780,000 words in total. Even after filtering the words out to only include the necessary vocabulary that foreigners need to know, the number still stands at 47,000 words.
Then which words should we prioritize out of all of these?
We should focus on memorizing 'words that are used a lot' and 'words that are expanded often'. First, it is important to understand commonly used words at the beginner level, and then at the intermediate level, we must learn to understand the words that are often expanded upon. Finally, at the advanced level, it is necessary to understand idioms and proverbs that are commonly used by people.
1. Beginner
It is important for beginners to understand the words that are often asked in the exam.
If you have a word that has been asked more than 1,000 times on TOPIK and another that has been asked 10 times, which word will most likely appear on the next test? Of course, there is a higher possibility that the words that were often asked in previous tests will be asked once more in the next. This is simply because it's a word that's used a lot.
2. Intermediate level : word expansion(1) - Affixes
As a result of analyzing the basic Korean dictionary, a total of 3,958 words were extended to at least two more words. And these words are being extended to a total of 17,490 words.
Considering that the total number of words in the basic Korean dictionary is 47,400, it means that about a third of the dictionary can be memorized through vocabulary expansion.
So would it better to memorize more than 10,000 words without any strategy? Or to memorize them by focusing on the 3,958 words that are greatly expanded upon? Of course, the latter will be more advantageous. Since we already know the meaning of some of the words, it will be easy to understand and memorize new words.
This is why "word extension memorization" is effective
There are two ways to expand words.
1. Understanding through "Affixes"
87% of word extensions are made through affixes. The basics for understanding word extensions are found in 129 affixes that are greatly expanded.
In addition, the 129 affixes also have different numbers of words that extend from it. There are affixes that expand a lot, and there are affixes that expands relatively little. In this textbook, "a commonly expanded affix" is placed in the front to increase the efficiency of learning.
2. Understanding through "words that expand a lot"
In order to memorize words efficiently, you need to understand the expansion through suffixes, and the context of the expansion from the original word. The two are not mutually exclusive, and we can achieve maximum effect when they are sequentially progressed.
Depending on your learning style, you can choose to start memorizing word extensions from affixes, or to just memorize word by word. However, it may be more efficient to learn "word extension" from affixes first, and then memorize word extension through other words.
All the explanations for the words in this textbook are based on the verified examples provided by 국립국어원 한국어 기초사전.
대기업에서 27년간 근무하였으며, 지난 수년동안 TOPIK시험에서 고득점을 취득할 수 있는 방법을 연구해 왔다. TOPIK을 보는 학생들이 단어 확장에서 어려움을 겪는 얘기를 듣고, 한국어 학습에 데이터 분석을 적용해 보게 되었다.
먼저 TOPIK 기출문제를 분석한 결과, TOPIK에 30번 이상 나왔던 840개 단어를 찾아낼 수 있었다. 그리고 한국어기초사전의 47,400개의 단어를 분석하여 5개 이상으로 확장되는 397개 단어와 129개 접사를 확인하였다.
이 "한국어 단어 확장 암기법"을 e-book과 앱, 그리고 유투브를 통해서 학생들에게 노하우를 공유하고 있다.