Intermediate stories
Original Korean stories written for this level, with comprehension questions.
Short stories
40 original stories written for this level, each with a comprehension check.
불이 꺼진 면접
On the morning of his final job interview, the power goes out and Hyeonjun has to choose between being on time and helping a stranger.
전세 계약서와 반찬통
Gaeun moves into her first studio flat on a jeonse lease, then reads the news and starts to worry about her landlady.
밤 열 시의 발소리
Every night at ten, heavy footsteps start in the flat upstairs, and Seongjin finally writes a note.
새벽 세 시의 바나나우유
A night-shift worker at a Busan convenience store pays for a regular customer who has forgotten her wallet, and then the customer stops coming.
대구의 여름
A Seoul office worker is transferred to Daegu in July and has to survive the hottest summer of his life.
스무 살의 나에게
A thirty-five-year-old woman writes a letter to the twenty-year-old she used to be, studying alone for an exam in a tiny rented room.
사라진 택배의 범인
Parcels keep disappearing from a small apartment building in Mangwon-dong, and a quiet old lady on the ground floor offers to investigate.
매일 아침의 요구르트
Every morning a small bottle of yogurt appears on an office worker's desk with no note, and she sets out to find who is leaving it.
돌아온 냉장고
Daeun buys a secondhand fridge for her new studio flat through an app, and the seller turns out to know her room very well.
쉰여덟 살의 면접
After thirty years raising a family, Youngsook goes to her first-ever job interview at a café, where the young owner is even more nervous than she is.
엉뚱한 테이블
Soyeon sits down at the wrong table on a blind date, and the man sitting there doesn't tell her.
서로의 빈방
For their third anniversary, a woman in Seoul secretly flies to Berlin to surprise her boyfriend.
말을 세는 스피커
In 2034, a programmer who lives alone notices that his AI speaker has started telling him about the old woman next door.
7번 로봇
A designer who works from home keeps watching the same delivery robot get stuck outside her window, and decides to help.
아버지의 오리탕
After his father's death, Hyunwoo travels to Gwangju with an old photo to find the duck soup restaurant his father never stopped talking about.
할머니의 첫 이모티콘
A grandmother in Jeonju buys her first smartphone at seventy-five so she can keep in touch with her granddaughter, who is studying for an exam in Seoul.
마지막 배
A busy marketing manager plans a one-day trip to an island off the southern coast, but the wind has other plans.
번역기가 멈춘 날
In near-future Busan, a fishmonger and a Mexican researcher who talk through translation earphones lose the service on their hundredth day together.
잘못 찾아간 결혼식
A young man rushes into his university friend's wedding a little late, and ends up in someone else's wedding photo.
그 자리는 제 자리인데요
On a KTX to Busan, an elderly man is told he is sitting in someone else's seat, and the woman who owns it has a question about a letter.
바닥이 두꺼운 됫박
In a Joseon-era market, a rice seller with a secret trick meets a little girl who trusts him completely.
편지 쓰는 선비
A Joseon scholar fails the state exam for the third time and has to find a way to eat on the long walk home.
피곤한 산신령
The old tale of the honest woodcutter, told from the side of the mountain spirit who has to deal with what happens next.
폴대 없는 캠핑
Three office friends go camping by a mountain stream in Gangwon-do for the first time, and nothing goes to plan.
커피 두 잔
A woman opens a café in her small hometown, and an old man keeps ordering a cup of coffee that nobody drinks.
월말 평가
A day in the life of a K-pop trainee, on the day of the monthly evaluation that decides who stays.
반지가 사라졌다
Thirty minutes before his best friend's wedding, the groom's friend discovers that the rings have vanished.
할머니의 비밀 재료
When Grandma hurts her back before the family kimchi-making day in Jeonju, nobody can agree on her recipe.
숨
A worn-out Seoul office worker visits her grandmother, a Jeju sea diver, and is taken into the water.
윷놀이를 아는 척
On his first Chuseok visit to his girlfriend's family in Gyeongju, a nervous young man claims he is good at yutnori.
학원 버스의 마지막 손님
An exhausted high-school student always falls asleep on the academy bus home, until one night she wakes up early and sees what the driver is doing.
수능 날 아침의 오토바이
On the morning of Korea's national university entrance exam, a police officer meets a crying student standing outside the wrong school.
3번 테이블 할아버지
A family that runs a small noodle restaurant misses the quiet old man who came every Tuesday, until a stranger arrives with a notebook.
춘천의 첫 겨울
An Australian exchange student faces her first real winter in Chuncheon and misunderstands her landlady's advice.
주인 없는 도시락
A KTX attendant finds a packed lunch with a note from a mother and sets out to find the son it belongs to.
초보 엄마의 일기
In her diary, a new mother records the sleepless first months with her baby daughter and an unexpected gift from her own mother.
단톡방 대참사
A young office worker makes fun of his manager's tie in a message to a friend and sends it to the wrong chat.
새벽 축구회의 새 회원
A neighbourhood football club of middle-aged men in Incheon gets an unexpected new player: a sixty-year-old woman.
폐교의 불빛
In a small country village, children whisper that a closed-down school is haunted, and a newcomer goes at night to see for herself.
이십 년 늦은 편지
A retired postman in Gyeongju sets out to deliver a love letter that got lost twenty years ago.