Korean stories: Shopping & money
12 Jireader stories are on this theme: 3 at TOPIK 1, 5 at TOPIK 3, 2 at TOPIK 4, 2 at TOPIK 5. Every one has audio narration, a tap-to-learn glossary and a comprehension quiz.
Level 1 · TOPIK 1 (3)
- 작은 가게의 큰 마음 The Kindest Price
Sujin has saved only a little for her mother's birthday. The convenience store has nothing worth giving and the perfect department-store bag costs far too much. Then she tries one small shop in her neighborhood.
15 sentences · ~6 min · teaches 8 new words
- 어른처럼 Like a Grown-Up
Yuna is tired of being too little for the grown-up things at the market. Then the vegetable-shop auntie hands her a real job, and one purple eggplant is at the center of it.
15 sentences · ~6 min · teaches 8 new words
- 제일 작은 저녁 The Smallest Dinner
Everything at the night market smells delicious, but Dad's wallet holds only three thousand won. One hotteok, four hungry people — how they share it is the whole story.
15 sentences · ~6 min
Level 3 · TOPIK 3 (5)
- 아버지의 외투 Father's Coat
Minjae's first paycheck could buy the celebration his coworkers keep pushing or the savings the bank teller recommends — but he has a third plan he tells no one, and a father who reads every gift as money wasted.
27 sentences · ~10 min · teaches 16 new words
- 좋은 걸로 추천해 줘요 What's Good Today?
Every morning an old woman asks Junseo for his best juice, then comes back to demand a refund on a drink that's perfectly fine. He's ready to give up on his most exhausting regular — until he sees what she's really there for.
26 sentences · ~10 min · teaches 16 new words
- 계산기에 없는 셈 The Sum the Calculator Won't Show
A number-proud kid working his grandmother's corn stand is certain that nudging the price up means fatter profit. She lets him try it his way — and the tin, oddly, fills slower than the calculator promises.
26 sentences · ~10 min · teaches 16 new words
- 달빛 아래 건진 상자 The Box We Pulled from the Water
A developer's black car keeps circling a snowbound village, and a sister buried in city debt is ready to sign away her late father's land — until one freezing night forces the siblings to decide what he really left them.
28 sentences · ~10 min · teaches 16 new words
- 동화를 그리던 손 The Hands That Drew Fairy Tales
A young woman keeps a failing fairy-tale bookshop that her gruff father-in-law calls a childish waste — until a redevelopment notice and one worn, hand-drawn book reveal why his scorn cuts so deep.
27 sentences · ~9 min · teaches 16 new words
Level 4 · TOPIK 4 (2)
- 믿을 만한 형용사 An Adjective You Can Trust
A retired Korean teacher runs the last unsold shop on an alley marked for demolition. When a developer slides a thick envelope across the counter, every neighbor is waiting to see whether the stubborn old holdout will finally sign.
39 sentences · ~12 min · teaches 20 new words
- 진짜 황금 What the Miser Left
A handsome layabout has coasted on charm for years. When his miser grandfather dies leaving a single line — the real gold is hidden in the house — the hunt for it starts to corner the one thing he keeps dodging: himself.
39 sentences · ~11 min · teaches 20 new words
Level 5 · TOPIK 5 (2)
- 제값 The Proper Price
A fresh graduate inherits her father's failing side-dish stall and drowns in fees, wages, and overdrafts — until a developer's cash-stuffed envelope forces her to decide what her father's idea of a 'proper price' was really worth.
53 sentences · ~13 min · teaches 24 new words
- 탐정 놀이 Playing Detective
A city transplant who reads her sleepy village like one of her beloved detective novels pays its odd little 'stairway fee' without a second thought — until the night her jewelry shop is robbed forces her to finally read the real clues.
49 sentences · ~14 min · teaches 24 new words