Graded stories · Tap-to-translate · Vocabulary that tracks itself
Learn a language by reading it.
Stories that start at your level and grow with you. Tap any word for an instant translation. Every word you meet is remembered — until one day it's simply yours.
Free first book in every language. No card, no account needed to start.
Live demo — hover a sentence, tap a word, or press ▶ to listen.
How it works
Reading is the method. The app just removes the friction.
No word lists to memorize before you're “allowed” to read. You open a story at your level and start.
Tap what you don't know
Tap any word for an instant translation — with pinyin or romanization for new scripts. Hover a sentence for the whole thing. You never leave the page or lose the plot.
Read stories, not sentences
Graded books that start at absolute-beginner A1 and grow one notch per chapter — so the story stays a story, and the difficulty is always right behind you.
Words become known by themselves
Meet a word three times without needing a tap and it counts as known. Your level estimate, progress chart and per-book Anki decks all build from real reading — not quizzes.
The graded ladder
Every ladder climbs to a real classic
Each language starts with a chapter-graded classic that grows from absolute beginner to B1 — Journey to the West in Chinese, Don Quixote in Spanish, and Pinocchio in Italian.
Languages
Which language are you learning?
Georgian is fully live. The next ladders are in production — every language launches with its first book free.
ქართული LIVE Spanish
Español SOON French
Français SOON German
Deutsch SOON Italian
Italiano SOON Brazilian Portuguese
Português brasileiro SOON Russian
Русский SOON Japanese
日本語 SOON Mandarin Chinese
中文 SOON Korean
한국어 SOON Arabic
العربية SOON Armenian
Հայերեն SOON Azerbaijani
Azərbaycanca SOON Persian
فارسی SOON Thai
ภาษาไทย SOON Vietnamese
Tiếng Việt SOON Ukrainian
Українська SOON Serbian
Српски SOON Greek
Ελληνικά SOON Hebrew
עברית SOON
Why reading works
Extensive reading, minus everything that made it hard
Decades of second-language research point the same way: the fastest reliable route to a large vocabulary is comprehensible input — reading a lot of material that is just slightly above your level. Learners who read graded readers consistently outperform flashcard-first learners on vocabulary retention, because words met inside a story arrive with grammar, collocations and emotional context attached.
The problem was never the method — it was the friction. Paper graded readers strand you at a dictionary every third sentence, and authentic texts are a wall of unknowns. ReadNative removes both: stories graded so precisely that each chapter adds only a handful of new words, and tap-to-translate so a lookup costs half a second instead of a lost paragraph.
The app then does what a book can't: it remembers every word you've met. Words you keep reading without help quietly move to “known”. Your CEFR-style level estimate, your progress chart, and a ready-made Anki deck per book all fall out of the reading itself — no separate study session required.
Also in the app
Built for serious readers
Read-along audio
Narrated chapters highlight each word as it's spoken, so your ear and eye learn together.
Anki export per book
The words you looked up most become a ready-made deck — front, sentence, and translation filled in.
Offline everything
Download a book once and read on the metro, on a plane, in the mountains it was written about.
Questions
Frequently asked
Is it free?
The first book in every language is completely free — no account, no card. A Pro subscription later unlocks the rest of each library.
How is this different from flashcards?
Flashcards teach words in isolation; stories teach them in context, with grammar and collocations attached. ReadNative tracks your vocabulary automatically while you read, so you get the measurable progress of an SRS without the grind. And if you love Anki, every book exports a ready-made deck.
Do I need to study grammar separately?
You can, but you don't have to start there. Graded stories introduce structures gradually and tap-to-translate shows you the meaning of whole sentences, so grammar patterns emerge from reading — the way they did in your first language.
What does “words known” actually measure?
A word counts as known once you've met it three times without looking it up. It's a conservative, honest measure based on your real reading — not on multiple-choice guesses.
Your first book is waiting.
Join the waitlist and start reading the day your language goes live — Georgian readers can start today.