Korean stories: Sports & exercise
11 Jireader stories are on this theme: 3 at TOPIK 1, 2 at TOPIK 2, 3 at TOPIK 3, 2 at TOPIK 4, 1 at TOPIK 5. Every one has audio narration, a tap-to-learn glossary and a comprehension quiz.
Level 1 · TOPIK 1 (3)
- 같은 편 On the Same Team
Every Saturday a boy rides two subways out to the court by the pool, always too small to be picked for a game. Then a lone foreigner shows up, and the juice-stand man has an idea.
15 sentences · ~7 min · teaches 8 new words
- 밤처럼 까만 운동화 Sneakers Black as Night
Taeo just wants to kick his ball, but the street out front is full of cars and Grandmother won't allow it. Old and slow as she is, she has another idea — and a warning about his brand-new white sneakers goes unspoken.
15 sentences · ~6 min · teaches 8 new words
- 그분의 닭 The Man with the Chicken
On his first day at the neighborhood ping-pong hall, a nervous beginner can't see why everyone crowds around one old man who keeps losing his games — until practice is over.
15 sentences · ~6 min · teaches 8 new words
Level 2 · TOPIK 2 (2)
- 할아버지의 느린 걸음 The View from Last Place
Grandfather finishes the city walking race dead last every year, and never minds. This year his knee gives out, so his slow, embarrassed grandson must walk in his place — just as a typhoon closes in on the city.
19 sentences · ~8 min · teaches 12 new words
- 아버지의 십 년 His Ten Years
For ten autumns her father never missed the neighborhood race—until an injured knee keeps him off the course. So she laces up his old shoes and runs in his place, determined not to be the one who lets his ten-year streak end.
19 sentences · ~8 min · teaches 12 new words
Level 3 · TOPIK 3 (3)
- 순두부찌개의 효과 The Soft-Tofu Effect
A burned-out student thinks a paper on 'the benefits of exercise' will write itself—until a volleyball club, a losing streak, and a pot of soft-tofu stew start teaching her something her sources never measured.
25 sentences · ~10 min · teaches 16 new words
- 모래판의 큰아들 The Only Reason He Wrestled
By day a truck driver, by night a ssireum wrestler, Junho has fought his way to the televised national final — but the reason he steps onto the sand has nothing to do with the cameras, the crowd, or the prize.
26 sentences · ~10 min · teaches 16 new words
- 카메라는 모른다 What the Camera Doesn't Know
A disgraced boxer takes shelter in a dying neighborhood gym, until a TV crew arrives to spin his worst night into ratings — and the old coach dares him to climb back through the ropes for himself, not for the cameras.
26 sentences · ~9 min · teaches 16 new words
Level 4 · TOPIK 4 (2)
- 가장 높은 문턱 The Highest Threshold
A twelve-year-old gymnast can vault over anything but his father's silence. Stranded on a jammed highway before the meet of his life, he begins to suspect the man guarding him so fiercely is wrestling an old fear of his own.
39 sentences · ~12 min · teaches 20 new words
- 검을 든 아이 The Boy Who Took Up the Sword
A rough orphanage boy who finds everything beneath him is handed a wooden sword by a retired detective — and a defeat he never saw coming forces him to decide whether anything is worth caring about.
41 sentences · ~12 min · teaches 20 new words
Level 5 · TOPIK 5 (1)
- 호루라기 소리 The Sound of the Whistle
A losing handball team and its gruff, praise-stingy coach are one budget cut from disappearing. Decades later, one of those boys — now a filmmaker — sits his old mentor down in a dark room to show him who the real story was about.
50 sentences · ~12 min · teaches 24 new words