Practical Korean Usage Intermediate 1

PKU Intermediate 1 — Practical Korean Usage
Your AI-Powered Guide to Korean Grammar

You've learned the words. Now learn how Korean MOVES them.

This is where Korean stops being a list of expressions and starts behaving like a system. An action becomes a thing you can talk about. A doer quietly becomes a receiver. You learn to make others act, to weigh two sides in a single breath, and to say "probably…" in a way that shows you care. Volume 5 of the Practical Korean Usage (PKU) series — and the first of three intermediate books, the machinery of real fluency.

📘 WHAT YOU'LL MASTER
- Nominalization — turning verbs into nouns (-기 / -(으)ㅁ / -는 것)
- The passive — when things happen TO you (-이/히/리/기)
- Becoming — describing a state that changes (-아/어지다)
- The causative — making others do (-이/히/리/기/우/추, -게 하다)
- Balanced contrast — weighing two sides (-(으)ㄴ/는 반면에)
- Mid-action switches, "not only… but also," "the more, the more," and "or / whatever" (-다가, -뿐만 아니라, -(으)ㄹ수록, -든지 / -거나)
- Guessing with care — the grammar of 정(情) (-(으)ㄹ 텐데)

✨ WHAT MAKES PKU DIFFERENT
🤖 AI Companion — every chapter ends with guided exercises you do WITH an AI tutor: quizzes, writing coaching, even making your own card-news image. Learning becomes a conversation, not a worksheet.
🎬 K-Drama scenes — each grammar point lives inside a short dramatic scene, so you feel WHEN a Korean speaker would actually reach for it.
✍️ The running sonnet — one 12-line poem threads through all twelve chapters, gaining a line each time. By the end, you complete the final line yourself.
📚 Contrastive pairs — the tricky look-alikes (-기 vs -(으)ㅁ, -든지 vs -거나) are placed side by side, so the difference finally clicks.
🎙️ Pronunciation spotlights, 🌍 K-Culture notes, and 📝 mini-quizzes with full answer keys round out every chapter.

🎯 WHO IT'S FOR
Intermediate learners (중급) ready to move past survival Korean — self-studiers, TOPIK II candidates, and teachers looking for classroom-ready material.

📚 THE PKU SERIES
Written by Korean-language educator Sungtaek Lee (이성택), PKU teaches grammar the way it is actually used in real life, through the "Snowball Method" — small pieces that build, chapter by chapter, into confident fluency. Created in collaboration with Claude (Anthropic). New to the series? Start anywhere; the four earlier volumes carry you from the basics.

🆓 Completely free. Thank you for learning with us — and may your Korean grow as fluent as your heart desires.