Upper-intermediate stories
Original Korean stories written for this level, with comprehension questions.
Short stories
36 original stories written for this level, each with a comprehension check.
스타트업의 마지막 한 달
A small Seongsu startup that connects lonely elderly people with university students has one month of money left, and its founder tries everything to save it.
월요일까지의 시간
A quality inspector at a food company in Daegu finds that her own mentor changed a test result, and gives him until Monday to act.
팀장님 지키기
A worn-out team leader at a Yeouido insurance firm keeps forgetting things, yet her error-filled reports keep reaching the boss perfectly corrected.
너무 완벽한 온도 기록
A customs inspector at Busan's Gamcheon port grows suspicious of a frozen squid container whose paperwork is a little too perfect.
귤밭에서 온 답장
Three years after a bitter fight over their late father's tangerine orchard, a sister in Seoul writes to her brother on Jeju, and he finally writes back.
신발을 돌려놓는 손님
A couple buy a century-old hanok in Jeonju to turn into a guesthouse, and every morning someone has rearranged their shoes.
남항의 늙은 선장
A retired fishing captain in Busan gets a call saying his son has been arrested, and decides to play along.
저는 여기까지 하겠습니다
At a Friday team dinner in Euljiro, a new employee politely declines the karaoke second round, and a mid-career manager waits for the explosion.
노란 스카프
At her twenty-fifth high school reunion in Cheongju, a divorced woman goes looking for the boy who left an unsigned note in her locker.
수요일의 짜장면
A separating couple rehearse for months how to tell their ten-year-old son, and the conversation does not go as planned.
열네 살 차이
A fifty-one-year-old accounting manager and a younger colleague bond over old songs during late nights at the office, until the gossip starts.
세 번째 방문
In 2041, Seoyeong goes to a memory-editing clinic in Gangnam to erase her ex-boyfriend, and the technician has something to show her first.
오백 원짜리 동전
In a near-future Seoul where cash is banned, a young district official is sent to shut down a fish-bread stall that still takes coins.
배 안의 이름
A woman remembers growing up in Ulsan in the 1980s as the daughter of a quiet shipyard welder, and learns his secret decades later.
비카스의 일 년
A Nepali university student spends his first year as a worker in a furniture factory in Pocheon, where the gruff foreman is hard to read.
공짜 점심은 없다
A widower in Gwangju is pushed by his daughter into a speed-dating event for over-sixties, and he only goes for the free lunch.
마을 방송은 계속된다
In a mountain village of grandmothers near Hamyang, the care robot that runs the village loudspeaker is about to be taken away.
고추밭의 새벽
A Seoul couple quit their jobs to grow chilli peppers in a Chungcheong village, where the neighbours seem to want nothing to do with them.
아버지의 죽방렴
After her father dies, an accountant from Seoul spends one season working his bamboo anchovy weir off Namhae before deciding whether to sell it.
한 글자의 무게
In thirteenth-century Goryeo, a young apprentice carving the Buddhist scriptures into woodblocks makes a mistake that nobody has seen.
꼴찌 팀의 일 년
A father keeps a diary of the baseball season in which he takes his ten-year-old daughter to watch the worst team in the league.
쉰 살의 운전석
After the family restaurant closes, a woman in Daegu sets out at fifty to become a city bus driver, much to her teenage son's alarm.
기일 아침
On the tenth anniversary of Grandpa's death, the family gathers for the memorial rite, and Seoyun's mother has been cooking for three days.
학생 한 명을 태우는 배
When the ferry company plans to cut the morning boat from a tiny island off Yeosu, its only schoolgirl may have to leave.
측우기를 지킨 아전
In a drought in fifteenth-century Joseon, a county clerk who records the rainfall is asked by his kind magistrate to change one number.
예순두 살 막내 이장
A retired manager moves to a village in South Jeolla for a quiet life and is elected village head because, at sixty-two, he is the youngest man there.
일흔세 통의 편지
A granddaughter in Sokcho learns why her grandfather, separated from his sister in 1950, has never agreed to leave his small refugee village.
새벽 두 시의 순서
On a busy Friday night in a Daejeon emergency room, a nurse deals with an angry man who says he has waited too long.
종로의 외상 장부
On the last night before her Jongno street stall closes for good, the owner tries to cancel all her regulars' unpaid tabs.
동인천에서 송도까지
A sixteen-year-old in Incheon has told her classmates she lives in Songdo, and a school video project threatens to give her away.
갓생 관리 앱
A young office worker decides to live the perfect productive life and downloads five apps to help him do it.
벽 너머의 노크
In a tiny Noryangjin study room, a man preparing for the civil service exam starts talking to his unseen neighbour by knocking on the wall.
일곱 번째 배심원
Chosen as a juror in a citizens' jury trial, an office worker notices one small detail in the photos of a very simple case.
마감 십 분 전
Ten minutes before deadline at a Gwangju newspaper, a young reporter's editor wants a headline that every other outlet is already running.
세어 줘서 고마워
In 2045, one of the last human census workers is sent to a mountain village where the electricity bill doesn't match the number of residents.
3번 구덩이의 항아리
At a dig in Gyeongju, a graduate student finds a modern coin in a pit that should be 1,300 years old and fears months of work are ruined.
Nonfiction
4 original articles: explainers, news-style pieces, columns and workplace texts, each with a comprehension check.
우리 집 아파트는 나보다 성실하다
A columnist complains, half joking, that his Seoul apartment earns more than he does, until the market turns.
Opinion column
청약과 로또, 하나로 합친다
A satirical news report: a made-up government agency decides that since winning a Seoul apartment is harder than winning the lottery, the two should simply be merged.
Satire
요즘 애들이라는 말
A fifty-four-year-old manager at a Daejeon factory writes about why he has stopped saying kids these days.
Opinion column
정이라는 말
A translator tries to explain a Korean word she has never managed to put into English.
Essay