TOPIK 2 Vocabulary List: Essential Words by Topic for Levels 3-6

What Is on the TOPIK 2 Vocabulary List?

The TOPIK 2 vocabulary list on this page covers the topics that TOPIK II listening, reading and writing draw on: society, economy, science, culture and abstract ideas. These differ from TOPIK I topics, which stay with personal life. The 12 groups fall into five clusters.

Romanization follows Revised Romanization and is only a learning aid. Where a word is said differently from its spelling, the pronunciation appears in [brackets], following the 국립국어원 standard pronunciation rules. The example sentences use the written plain style (-다), because that is the register of TOPIK II reading and writing.

Which Topic Groups Are Covered?

The 12 topic groups below each give six anchor words and one example sentence that uses at least two of them. Each group has the same structure, so you can study one per session.

Society and Economy

Group 1: economy. Economy words carry the graph and news items.

Group 2: society. These words are the core of question 54 topics.

Group 3: law and rules. Rule words appear in notices and editorials.

Group 4: workplace. Workplace words fill the interview and office dialogues.

Science and Environment

Group 5: environment. Environment is one of the most frequent essay themes.

Group 6: science and technology. These words dominate lectures and academic passages.

Group 7: health. Health words appear in news and documentary items.

Education, Media and Culture

Group 8: education. Education surveys are a favourite source for question 53 graphs.

Group 9: media. Media words turn up in headline items and debates.

Group 10: culture. Culture words appear in reviews and literary texts.

Relationships and Communication

Group 11: relationships. Relationship words carry interviews and opinion essays about modern life.

Abstract and Academic Words

Group 12: abstract concepts. These six words appear in every section, often in the answer options themselves.

The 72 anchor words are a starting core, not the whole of TOPIK II. Review them in the deck below, which follows the table order. For a shorter 30-card set with usage notes, use the TOPIK 2 vocabulary flashcards.

Learning words one by one is slow at this level; the faster route is through shared roots.

How Do Sino-Korean Word Families Help?

Sino-Korean word families help because one root or suffix, learned once, appears in dozens of TOPIK II words. Sino-Korean words are built from Chinese-origin roots (hanja), and most abstract vocabulary in TOPIK II reading is Sino-Korean. You do not need to write hanja; you need to recognise the repeated syllables.

The -화 row shows the method in action. Once you know that -화 means "becoming", 정보화 (jeongbohwa) is easy to guess: 정보 (information) + 화 = the shift to an information society. The Sino-Korean words hub explains how these roots work, and the page on hanja word families shows how one character builds dozens of words.

The common mistake is to guess from one syllable alone. 수입 can mean income (收入) or imports (輸入), because two different roots are both read 수. Check a guess against the context before you commit to it. Recognising families builds reading speed; producing the right word combinations builds writing points.

Writing Collocations for Questions 53 and 54

Questions 53 and 54 reward fixed word combinations (collocations) used in reports and essays. Raters judge language use partly on whether the words sit together naturally, so learning the pair is safer than learning each word alone.

The two sentences below show the collocations at work, one for each question type.

With the words and the combinations in place, the order you study them decides how much you keep.

How to Study the TOPIK 2 Word List

Study the TOPIK 2 word list one topic per session, with the example sentence first and the family second, and review earlier groups on a spaced schedule. Five steps work for most learners:

1. Read the sentence before the table. Guess each anchor word's meaning from context, then check the table. TOPIK II tests words in context, never in isolation.
2. Add the family. For each Sino-Korean word, find one other word that shares a root, such as 교육 (education) and 교육적 (educational).
3. Write one sentence in the plain style. Use two anchor words in a -다 sentence, the register of questions 53 and 54.
4. Review with spaced repetition. Return to the group after one day, three days and one week, using the deck.
5. Check against a past paper. After four groups, read a TOPIK II reading passage and underline every anchor word you meet.

The honest limitation: this list gives the core of each topic, not the 3,000 to 9,000 words that the rough level estimates suggest. Real reading of news and articles is what fills the gap. The page on how many words for TOPIK explains where the estimates come from.

Where to Go Next

For a broader set of word lists by level, the TOPIK vocabulary hub routes to every list on the site, and TOPIK flashcards collects the exam decks. To see where these words appear in the test, read the TOPIK 2 exam format, and for idioms that a word list cannot capture, see TOPIK idioms. The TOPIK 2 grammar list covers the patterns that hold these words together, and the TOPIK II guide links every page for the test. Once this TOPIK 2 vocabulary list feels familiar, plan your schedule with how to pass TOPIK 2.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Many Words Do I Need for TOPIK 2?

Rough estimates commonly cited by teachers are about 3,000 words for Level 3, 5,000 for Level 4, 7,000 for Level 5 and 9,000 or more for Level 6. None of these figures is official, because NIIED publishes no word list. Treat them as a sense of scale and measure progress with timed past papers instead.

Is Hanja Needed for TOPIK 2 Vocabulary?

No. TOPIK II never asks you to read or write Chinese characters; every question is in Hangul. Knowing common hanja roots still helps, because most abstract TOPIK II words are Sino-Korean, and a root such as 화 or 성 lets you guess many new words. Learn the meaning of the root, not the character's strokes.

Which Words Are Most Important for Writing?

The most useful words for TOPIK II writing are report verbs and fixed collocations: 증가하다 and 감소하다 for graphs, 조사를 실시하다 for survey openings, and 영향을 미치다, 문제를 해결하다 and 대책을 마련하다 for essays. They appear in nearly every model answer for questions 53 and 54, so learn them as whole phrases.

Is There an Official TOPIK 2 Vocabulary List?

No official TOPIK II word list is published for candidates. Lists online, including this one, are editorial, built from course books and past-paper topics. The National Institute of Korean Language has published learner vocabulary references, but they are not TOPIK lists. Use past papers on topik.go.kr to see the words real questions use.