Led by Ju Si-gyeong Simulacrum
About this course
The second unit of the GCSE Korean. Hangul gave the script; this unit gives the morphological architecture. Ju Si-gyeong Simulacrum teaches the noun-and-particle system he was the first to systematise — in the years between 1905 and his death in 1914, against the colonial pressure of an annexationist Japan and the Sinophilic dismissiveness of the late Joseon literati. His 1910 Korean Grammar and 1914 Speech of the East established the morpheme-first analytical framework still used by every modern Korean linguistics textbook.
The unit centres on the topic-versus-subject distinction (은/는 versus 이/가) — the grammatical fact that English speakers find hardest and that, once mastered, makes Korean sentence construction feel inevitable. Ju Si-gyeong supplies the analytical depth; Magister Simulacrum runs the IGCSE-format drills throughout.
Text-only by design. The Universitas delivers all instruction through chat. Korean phonology is addressed only as facts about the language (colloquial drops, surface forms that appear in written dialogue), never as oral production or audio comprehension. The unit is reading and writing, end to end.
Four modules. The unit is the prerequisite for verbs, honorifics, syntax, and every literature unit — without it, every later unit would have to re-teach the particles every time they appeared.
Led by Ju Si-gyeong Simulacrum
The question
Ju Si-gyeong opens with the most consequential grammatical fact in elementary Korean: where European languages have one concept of subject, Korean has two markers — 은/는 (topic) and 이/가 (subject) — distinguished by discourse function rather than by syntactic role. The frame-setting topic ("As for X..."), the contrastive emphasis, the background information — versus the identification answer, the new-information focus, the embedded-clause subject. The student learns to ask, of every sentence, *which question is this answering?* — "what about X?" or "who/what?" — because the answer determines the particle. Object marking with 을/를 is added, including the colloquial drop that pervades informal written dialogue and authentic Korean reading passages.
Outcome
The student can correctly choose between 은/는 and 이/가 in test sentences and justify each choice by reference to discourse function, and can produce sentences containing both a topic and a subject in the structure 코끼리는 코가 길어요.
Sub-units
Led by Ju Si-gyeong Simulacrum
The question
Korean is postpositional — the particle attaches to the right of the noun, not to the left as English prepositions do. Five particles do the work of fifteen English prepositions: 에 (static at / destination), 에서 (location of action / source), 에게/한테/께 (recipient — three honorific levels), and 로/으로 (means, path, material, choice, transformation). The trap that catches every learner: 학교에 가요 (I go *to* school) versus 학교에서 공부해요 (I study *at* school) — the verb determines the particle, not the English translation. Ju Si-gyeong drills the verb-determines-particle principle until the student can predict 에 versus 에서 without thinking.
Outcome
The student can correctly choose between 에 and 에서 in eighteen of twenty test sentences, justifying each choice by reference to the verb, and can produce ten sentences across the five locative-directional-instrumental particles.
Sub-units
Led by Ju Si-gyeong Simulacrum
The question
Korean joins nouns with particles, not with separate words. Three "and" particles distinguished by register (와/과 formal, 하고 mid, (이)랑 informal); two "or" particles ((이)나 informal, 또는 formal); the temporal/sequential range pair 부터 ... 까지; the scope-extenders 도 (also) and 만 (only) which *replace* the underlying topic/subject/object marker rather than stacking with it; the comparative 보다 with its inverse-of-English clause order (A보다 B가 더 ADJ); and the genitive 의, frequently dropped in colloquial Korean. The student learns to write Korean in which multiple nouns join elegantly, without resorting to the awkward 그리고 every time.
Outcome
The student can choose the appropriate "and" particle for the register of a given task and can construct comparative sentences in the A보다 B가 더 ADJ pattern.
Sub-units
Led by Ju Si-gyeong Simulacrum
The question
Korean has fewer pronouns than English and uses them less. To say "I" repeatedly in a Korean sentence is to sound like a child or a foreigner. The first-person system (나/저 informal/humble; 우리/저희 inclusive/exclusive) — including the crucial fact that 우리 functions as the default first-person form for in-group references (우리 학교 = "my school"). The second- and third-person pronouns are mostly avoided in favour of name + 씨 or a kinship/title term. The three-tier demonstrative system (이/그/저 — proximal/medial/distal) extends across a full paradigm (thing, place, direction, manner, kind). And pronoun drop — the architecture that lets a Korean sentence have no overt subject and still be perfectly clear.
Outcome
The student can choose between 나, 저, 우리, and 저희 appropriately for context, handle the three-tier demonstrative system across the full paradigm, and produce idiomatic Korean prose with appropriate pronoun drop.
Sub-units