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The National Institute of Korean Language's official learning vocabulary list contains 5,965 words in total, split into three bands: 982 words for the beginner level (TOPIK levels 1–2), 2,111 more for intermediate (levels 3–4, bringing the running total to 3,093), and 2,872 more for advanced (levels 5–6, reaching the full 5,965). So if you're aiming for TOPIK II level 4, you're effectively working toward about 3,093 words; aiming for level 6 means covering the entire list.
| Level | Words | Cumulative | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner (TOPIK Level 1–2) | 982 | 982 | 것 thing · 하다 do, make · 있다 (auxiliary) be ~ing, be in the state of ~ · 있다 exist, be · 되다 become |
| Intermediate (TOPIK Level 3–4) | 2111 | 3093 | 등 etc., and so on (as in 학생, 선생님 등) · 대하다 treat, face · 위하다 for, do for · 사회 society · 따르다 follow |
| Advanced (TOPIK Level 5–6) | 2872 | 5965 | 그녀 she · 그러다 to be so, to do so · 정부 government · 새롭다 new, fresh · 과정 process |
The 5,965-word list is organized into three bands that map onto TOPIK's six levels in pairs: beginner covers levels 1 and 2, intermediate covers levels 3 and 4, and advanced covers levels 5 and 6. The beginner band has 982 words, the intermediate band adds 2,111 words on top of that for a running total of 3,093, and the advanced band adds the final 2,872 words, bringing the cumulative count to the full 5,965.
This means the list isn't officially broken down further into "level 1 only" or "level 2 only" — you should think in terms of the band you're preparing for instead. A learner aiming for TOPIK I needs to know close to 982 words, someone preparing for TOPIK II level 4 is effectively targeting 3,093 words, and a level 6 candidate is targeting the entire 5,965-word list.
Notice how the jumps get bigger as you go up: intermediate more than doubles the beginner count, and advanced adds even more than intermediate did. That's worth knowing before you plan your timeline — moving from TOPIK I to TOPIK II isn't a small step in vocabulary terms, even before you factor in grammar.
These figures come from the Korean-language learning vocabulary list published by the National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원), the government body responsible for standardizing Korean language use. The list is distributed under a KOGL (Korea Open Government License) Type 1 license, meaning it's public data you can look up yourself rather than a number circulated by test-prep marketing.
Because the source is a government-published reference list rather than the TOPIK exam authority itself, treat it as the vocabulary a learner at each stage is expected to have absorbed, not as an official guarantee of what the exam will test. For the exact word list, level assignments, and any future revisions, checking the original NIKL publication directly is the most reliable path.
TOPIK I is scored out of 200 points total, split between level 1 (80 points) and level 2 (140 points), while TOPIK II is scored out of 300 points, divided across level 3 (120), level 4 (150), level 5 (190), and level 6 (230). Vocabulary isn't tested as its own separate section with its own point value — it's woven into the reading and listening sections, where understanding a passage or a conversation depends directly on whether you recognize the words being used.
In practice, this makes vocabulary the foundation the rest of your score sits on: you can know every grammar rule for a level, but if a passage uses several words you've never seen, you'll likely stall on the questions built around it. For the exact test structure, section weighting, and any changes to the scoring breakdown, check the official TOPIK site before locking in your study schedule.
Since the list is organized by level rather than by how often a word actually shows up in real Korean, the most efficient approach is to work through your target band first, then prioritize by frequency inside that band — common, everyday words before rarer or more specialized ones. Two words in the same band aren't equally useful: a frequent connector or daily-life noun will show up across far more passages than a technical or low-frequency term at the same level.
A practical order looks like this: lock in the 982 beginner words solidly first, since they're the base everything above them builds on, then move through the 2,111 intermediate words roughly in order of how often they appear in daily conversation and news-level reading, and save the most specialized advanced words for last, since they tend to cluster around specific topics rather than everyday use. If a frequency-ranked version of the list is available to you, lean on it — working through an alphabetized list from A to Z wastes time on rare words before you've secured the common ones that show up on nearly every exam.
You need close to the full cumulative list — 5,965 words — since level 6 sits at the top of the advanced band. In practice, though, exam passages tend to lean on the higher-frequency words within that list more than the rarest entries.
TOPIK I covers levels 1 and 2, which correspond to the 982-word beginner band. That's the vocabulary base the reading and listening sections for those two levels are built around.
The 5,965-word figure comes from the National Institute of Korean Language's own list, not from any single publisher, so counts in individual books or apps may vary slightly depending on how closely they follow that source. Checking the original NIKL list is the most reliable way to confirm which level a specific word belongs to.
Vocabulary is necessary but not sufficient — reading and listening questions also test grammar and comprehension, not just word recognition. Still, since vocabulary underlies your ability to understand a passage at all, it's one of the highest-leverage areas to study early.
Updated: 2026-09-04