Duration: 1 year+

Goal of this stage

Reading – Grasp the high level idea of a Korean passage without checking dictionary
Writing & Speaking – Express any ideas or thoughts you have in Korean
Listening – Understand the gist of Korean drama without subtitles
Grammar – Understand complex Korean sentence structures

This is when learning Korean become most fun. You can start to navigate the online Korean community with ease, enjoy Korean dramas and shows much more than before and cry when Reading Korean poems or listening to Korean songs because they are so touching.
Apart from TV shows and songs, some people may find it difficult to find the right materials to advance your Korean learning at this stage. Some people may also find it difficult to attain level 6 in TOPIK II. I will give you step-by-step instructions here on how to advance your studies in each of the below sections.

How about Advanced Grammar?

Apart from reading and listening, do I need to continue working on advanced level grammar separately?

I would say it is completely optional. The so-called advanced level grammar concepts are by definition rare to come by in daily prose and conversations. Therefore even if you spend time and effort working on them, chances are that you will not come across any practical usage soon so it is just a lot of rote memorisation without much application or practice.

Instead I would suggest to integrate this into your reading and listening practices, just like how you learn new vocabulary. In contrast to when you were a beginner where you had to focus on grammar in order to get to a stage ready for learning by immersion, at the advanced stage it is much more easier to just dive right into it, go with the flow and see where it takes you.

If there is a particularly sticky grammar concepts that you want to get to the bottom of, there is this fabulous official National Institute of Korean site where they have an QnA on grammar concepts. In there we have the official golden source answer to grammar questions raised by native Koreans. Sometimes when I try to do internet search and results from that site come up. All QnA are written in Korean so I only recommend this to advanced learners.

Guide and Learning Materials

TOPIK II Strategy

Tips & Advice