This study investigated the effects of culture‐specific background knowledge and inferences upon second‐language readers’comprehension of text. Ten Korean adult second‐language readers were asked to think aloud as they read a short story from another culture and then answer a detailed set of post‐reading questions. A qualitative analysis was done on the subjects’verbal report protocols and post‐reading answers to obtain data on the inferences generated, the knowledge structures underlying these inferences, and the effect of activated background knowledge and inferences upon comprehension of a second language text. The results indicate that the activation and generation of culture‐specific schemata and inferences at times significantly affected subjects’comprehension of text. The study provides a picture into how such effects developed as these readers continually constructed, evaluated, and revised their models of the text. The results also indicates that negative effects of culture‐specific schemata on the subjects’interpretation of text could be mitigated or exacerbated by utilization