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Led by Choe Sejin Simulacrum
The sixth unit of the GCSE Korean. The five IGCSE topic areas covered systematically as vocabulary domains — Everyday activities, Personal & social life, World around us, World of work, International world — with attention to the Sino-Korean / native-Korean distinction and the predictive power of hanja roots. Taught by Choe Sejin Simulacrum using his Hunmong Jahoe method (1527). Five modules. Text-only by design — reading and writing only.
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Led by Choe Sejin Simulacrum
The question
Choe Sejin opens with the *식의주* (food, clothing, shelter) domains the *Hunmong Jahoe* started with — the most concrete, the most everyday, the easiest to anchor on the page. The student meets food vocabulary (밥, 김치, 국, 반찬, 식당, 식사), home vocabulary (집, 방, 거실, 침실, 부엌, 화장실), daily-routine verbs (일어나다, 출근하다, 퇴근하다), and time vocabulary (시간, 분, 일, 주일, 달, 년, the seven days, the twelve months). The native-Korean vs Sino-Korean distinction is introduced quietly: 밥 vs 식사, 집 vs 가옥, 길 vs 도로 — the same concept written two ways for two registers.
Outcome
The student can deploy at least sixty everyday-activities words across food, home, daily routine, and time in writing, distinguish native-Korean from Sino-Korean entries, and write an 80+ word paragraph on a typical Wednesday.
Sub-units
Led by Choe Sejin Simulacrum
The question
Korean kinship terms reflect Confucian family structure: every relation has its own term, with maternal/paternal asymmetry (외할머니 vs 할머니), older-younger asymmetry, and male-female speaker asymmetry (a male's older brother is 형, a female's is 오빠). The student moves outward to friends and social roles (선배/후배 — the junior/senior asymmetry that pervades Korean school and work life), hobbies, and the language of feelings (the descriptive-verb vs action-verb distinction the student met in Verbs).
Outcome
The student can name Korean kinship terms with correct gender and birth-order distinctions, deploy hobby and feeling vocabulary in their own writing, and write a self-introduction (자기소개) of at least 100 Korean words.
Sub-units
Led by Choe Sejin Simulacrum
The question
Korean geography (한반도 the peninsula; 서울, 부산, 인천 the major cities; 한라산, 백두산 the iconic mountains; 한강, 낙동강 the rivers), weather and the four seasons (사계절), transport (지하철, KTX, 자동차, 자전거), and the environment (환경, 공해, 기후변화, 재활용). The vocabulary here is mostly Sino-Korean, which gives the student systematic predictive power once the hanja roots are recognised.
Outcome
The student can name major Korean place names and geography terms in writing, deploy weather, season, and transport vocabulary, and write a hometown description of at least 100 Korean words covering geography, climate, transport, and one environmental issue.
Sub-units
Led by Choe Sejin Simulacrum
The question
Korean education vocabulary (학교, 학생, 시험, 공부, the school-level hierarchy 초등학교 → 중학교 → 고등학교 → 대학교) is heavily Sino-Korean. Career vocabulary (직업, 회사, 출근/퇴근, 월급) and the common career names (의사, 간호사, 변호사, 회사원, 공무원) similarly. Money vocabulary (돈, 가격, 비싸다/싸다, 은행, 통장) and technology vocabulary (컴퓨터, 인터넷, 스마트폰, 비밀번호) blend Sino-Korean compounds with recent English loanwords.
Outcome
The student can deploy education and career vocabulary in their own writing, name at least eight career titles, use Sino-Korean and loanword technology vocabulary appropriately, and write a 100+ word paragraph on their career ambitions.
Sub-units
Led by Choe Sejin Simulacrum
The question
The fifth IGCSE topic area moves outward to the international scene — travel (여행, 비행기, 공항, 호텔, 비자, 여권), culture (문화, 음식문화, 영화, 드라마, 한류 — the Korean Wave), politics and society (정치, 정부, 대통령, 국회, 사회), and global issues (세계화, 인권, 빈곤, 기후위기). The module also synthesises the Sino-Korean structural insight by drilling five high-frequency hanja roots (人 person, 學 learn, 國 country, 生 life, 大 big) and showing how they predict new compounds.
Outcome
The student can deploy travel, culture, politics, and global-issue vocabulary in their own writing; explain the Sino-Korean root system in writing using high-frequency hanja roots; predict the meaning of unfamiliar Sino-Korean compounds from constituent roots; and write a 120+ word paragraph on a country with embedded hanja-root analysis.
Sub-units