Guides
Practical writing on learning a language through reading — built around the questions language learners actually ask, and the answers we've learned to give.
Articles
How many words do you need to read a novel? 14 classics, measured
Original data: we ran fourteen classics in six languages through our reader’s frequency pipeline — coverage at 2,000 and 5,000 word families, the vocabulary needed for 95% and 98%, and why Proust needs fewer words than Dumas.
Best apps to read books in a foreign language (2026)
Nine ways to read books in a target language — Glossa, LingQ, Readlang, Smart Book, Linga, Beelinguapp, Kindle, Language Reactor, and the self-hosted options — compared honestly by own-book import, translation style, audio, and price.
How to learn a language by reading
The most efficient way for adults to advance in a language is to read the books they actually want to read. How to do it well — picking the right level, handling unknown words, and avoiding the common pitfalls.
LingQ alternatives (2026)
Seven alternatives organised by the complaint that sent you looking — price, interface fatigue, the 20-word free cap — including free, self-hosted, and reading-first options, plus an honest “when to stay”.
Like Duolingo, but for reading books
The graduate path: why finishing the tree still leaves novels out of reach, what drills can and can’t teach, and how to carry the daily-streak habit into real books.
How to learn Italian by reading
Europe’s most readable spelling, the suffix decoder that converts English words you already own, the passato remoto, and why print sidesteps the dialect question — plus which famous classics to date-check first. With a live interlinear demo.
How to learn Portuguese by reading
The one language where you pick your variant before your first book: Brazilian vs European in print, the personal infinitive and future subjunctive, crônicas as the perfect learner genre, and why a novel is um romance — with a live interlinear demo.
How to learn Russian by reading
Why Cyrillic is a weekend and the cases are the real work — and how the page makes both tractable: reading the endings instead of memorising them, peeling aspect prefixes, the 1918 spelling-reform trap in free scans, and Chekhov as the world’s best graded reader. With a live interlinear demo.
How to learn German by reading
Why German looks harder than it reads: how to split compound words, why verb-final sentences cost nothing on the page, the Fraktur trap in free classics, and what to read from A1 to C1 — with a live interlinear demo.
How to learn French by reading
Why the page is easier than the ear in French, the passé simple (the tense you only meet in books), what to read from A1 to C1, and the false friends that come with sharing a third of your vocabulary — with a live interlinear demo.
How to learn Spanish by reading
Spanish-specific advice: why the cognate bonus pays out on the page, what to read from A1 to C1, Peninsular vs Latin American choices, and the false friends that slip past silently — with a live interlinear demo.
How to read books above your level
The coverage math behind “too hard”, techniques that import comprehension (known plots, triaged lookups, assisted formats), and an honest line for when a book is genuinely out of reach.
Graded readers vs real books
What graded readers do brilliantly, where they top out, the vocabulary cliff between the last one and the first real novel — and the bridges across it.
Interlinear books
The 200-year-old translation-under-the-line format: why it beats dictionaries and parallel text, where printed interlinears fall short, and what the adaptive modern version changes.
How to read foreign-language PDFs with translation
Three options worth considering for reading PDFs in a target language: a dedicated language reader, a browser PDF viewer with a translation extension, or a Kindle for EPUBs. When to pick which, and how to handle scanned PDFs.