The best apps for learning a language by reading

Reading real content and saving the words you meet is one of the most reliable ways to learn a language. A handful of apps are built around it. Here is an honest look at the main ones, and who each one fits. I built one of them, Language Lit, and I have tried the rest.

The idea behind all of these is the same, and it is a good one: instead of drilling flashcards in a vacuum, you read something you actually want to read, tap the words you do not know, and let the app help you remember them. Linguists call the underlying principle comprehensible input. In plain terms, you learn a language by understanding messages in it, and reading is the easiest place to get a steady supply.

Where these apps differ is everything after that first tap: how good the translation is, how they decide what you review, what you are allowed to read, and how much they cost. I will go through them one by one. I made Language Lit, so treat me as a biased but informed guide, and I have tried to be fair about where the others win.

How to choose

What actually matters when you learn by reading

Translation quality is the thing you feel first. A dictionary gives you every possible meaning of a word and leaves you to guess which one the sentence needs. A translation written for the exact sentence hands you the one that fits, which matters most with idioms and common words that mean five different things.

Review is the thing that decides whether any of it sticks. The best apps use spaced repetition so a word comes back just before you would forget it. The difference is whether the schedule adapts to you, word by word, or runs everyone up the same fixed ladder.

Then there is what you can read (your own imports, a graded library, the open web), whether you can hear it read aloud, and the price. No single app is best at all of these, which is why the right pick depends on which ones you care about.

The shortlist

The apps, one by one

Language Lit

Made by us

Contextual translation on every tap, and review that predicts what you are about to forget.

Best for: Readers who want the translation that fits the sentence, and who want the words they read to actually stay learned.
Price: Free forever tier, no credit card. Paid plans priced for your country.

This is the one I built, so read this section with that in mind. The bet behind it is that the two things that matter most, understanding the sentence and remembering the word, should both be as good as current technology allows. So every tap gives you a translation written for that exact sentence, not a list of dictionary senses, and a machine-learning model (real FSRS) predicts, word by word, how likely you are to recall each one right now. Your practice serves the words you are genuinely losing, and as you read, a saved word lights up when you are about to forget it and fades as it sticks.

You can bring your own content (YouTube with read-along audio, articles, EPUB, PDF with OCR, web pages), read lessons the community shares, or start from 40,000+ free Project Gutenberg classics. Lessons can be read aloud in voices that sound human and filled with images. The honest trade-offs: there is no browser extension for translating arbitrary websites in place, the graded-lesson library is smaller than LingQ’s, and the community is younger.

Strengths

Sentence-aware AI translation on every tap, unlimited, with grammar notes and a visual mnemonic from the same tap.
FSRS review and highlighting that adapt per word, so you stop re-reviewing what you already know.
A big built-in library plus wide imports, and the whole app is native in 33 languages.

Watch-outs

No browser extension for the open web.
Smaller graded-lesson catalogue than LingQ, and a newer community.

LingQ

The deepest graded library and the biggest community in the category.

Best for: Learners who want a huge catalogue of made-for-learners lessons and an active community, and do not mind dictionary-style lookups.
Price: Limited free tier; Premium is around $12.99 a month, cheaper on longer annual terms.

LingQ has been at this for years, and it shows in the library. If a big catalogue of graded, levelled lessons and stories is what you want, nothing here matches its depth, and its community and forums are the most active in the category. Its model is the classic one: tap a word, get dictionary entries plus hints other learners saved, and set each word’s status yourself as new, learning or known.

The trade-offs are the flip side of its age. Translation is word-level dictionary lookup rather than written for the sentence, and review runs on a fixed interval ladder that is the same for every word, so it does not predict which words you personally are about to lose. Its most realistic AI voices sit on a higher tier.

Strengths

The largest graded, levelled library and the most active community.
Mature apps on iOS and Android with years of polish.

Watch-outs

Dictionary-style lookups, not sentence-aware translation.
Fixed review intervals per status, not adaptive per word.

Language Lit vs LingQ, in depth

Readlang

The cheap, lean, browser-extension-first reader.

Best for: People who want the lowest price and to click-translate their way across the open web, and who mostly need quick word lookups.
Price: Generous free tier; Premium is $5 a month.

Readlang is the minimalist. Its browser extension lets you click-translate almost any website in the wild, its free tier is genuinely generous, and Premium is only $5 a month. If a fast reader that gets out of the way is what you want, it is hard to beat on value.

It has added AI explanations, an AI chat partner and neural read-aloud, but the everyday tap is a fast machine translation of the word, and its AI explanations and phrase translations are capped at ten a day on the free plan. Its spaced repetition follows a SuperMemo-style fixed ladder rather than predicting recall per word, and it is a lean reader rather than a place with illustrated lessons or a built-in library.

Strengths

Cheapest paid tier and a generous free plan.
Browser extension that translates almost any webpage in place.

Watch-outs

Context-aware AI explanations capped at ten a day on the free plan.
Fixed-ladder review; a lean reader without illustrated lessons or a built-in library.

Language Lit vs Readlang, in depth

Language Reactor

Learn from Netflix and YouTube subtitles, free.

Best for: People who learn best from video and want to turn shows and YouTube into study material without paying anything.
Price: Free; Pro is $5 a month (or $28 a year).

Language Reactor (once Language Learning with Netflix) is a browser extension that turns Netflix and YouTube subtitles into a study tool: dual subtitles, click any word for a translation, and slow, controllable playback. For learning from video specifically, it is excellent, and the core of it is free.

It is built around watching rather than reading long text, and it leans on other tools for serious review (you export words to Anki rather than getting adaptive spaced repetition inside it). If your input is mostly video and you already have a review habit elsewhere, that can be exactly the right shape.

Strengths

Best-in-class for Netflix and YouTube, with dual subtitles and click-to-translate.
Free to start, no account hurdle.

Watch-outs

Built for video, not long-form reading.
Review lives in Anki, not in the app.

Migaku

An immersion toolkit that feeds Anki, for power users.

Best for: Immersion learners who live in Anki and want to mine sentences from video and the web into rich flashcards.
Price: Paid subscription, around $15 a month, with annual and lifetime options.

Migaku is aimed at the immersion crowd. It hooks into video and websites and lets you turn sentences you meet into detailed Anki cards, with audio, images and readings, which is powerful if that workflow is your thing.

The power comes with setup. It is more of a toolkit than a single reader, and it assumes you are comfortable running Anki as your review engine. If you want something that just works out of the box without assembling a pipeline, it is more machine than most people need.

Strengths

Deep sentence-mining from video and the web into Anki.
Rich cards with audio, images and readings.

Watch-outs

Steeper setup, built around Anki.
More toolkit than turnkey reader.

Common questions

Questions people ask

What is the best app for learning a language by reading?

There is no single winner, because it depends on what you want. For the deepest graded library and the biggest community, LingQ leads. For the cheapest, leanest way to click-translate the open web, Readlang is hard to beat. For learning from Netflix and YouTube, Language Reactor is excellent and free. For the translation that fits the exact sentence plus review that predicts what you are about to forget, Language Lit does the most, which is the one I built. Most have a free tier, so trying two or three costs nothing.

What is the best free app for reading in a foreign language?

Readlang and Language Reactor both have strong free tiers: Readlang for reading the open web and Language Reactor for video subtitles. Language Lit is free forever with no credit card and includes the full method (sentence-aware translation, spaced repetition and read-along audio) with a cap on how many words you can save. LingQ has a free tier too, but it is more limited and most regular users end up paying.

What are the best LingQ alternatives?

The closest alternatives are Readlang (cheaper and leaner, browser-extension-first) and Language Lit (sentence-aware AI translation and adaptive FSRS review, with a big free library). Language Reactor is a good alternative if you mainly learn from video, and Migaku suits immersion learners who want to feed Anki. Which one fits depends on whether you care most about library size, price, translation quality or review.

Is reading actually an effective way to learn a language?

Yes, when the material is at roughly the right level for you. Reading gives you a large, steady supply of comprehensible input: words and grammar met in real context rather than in isolation. The apps here help by making unknown words one tap away and by scheduling review so the words you meet do not slip away. Reading pairs well with listening, so tools that also read the text aloud let you build both at once.

Want to try the one I built?

Read anything, tap any word for a translation made for that exact sentence, and let spaced repetition make sure it sticks.

Start reading free

Free forever. No credit card. 30+ languages.