Everyone agrees that to learn a language, you should read a lot.
Everyone who has tried knows how painful and almost impossible it can feel: an endless flood of unknown words turning reading into a tedious dictionary exercise.
But here are a few simple facts. Nobody knows all the words, even in their own language. People routinely read books with unknown words here and there, and children often read with up to 4 or 5 unknown words on a page, learning the language just by guessing them from context. This is actually a well-established threshold: at 98% known words you can read without a dictionary, getting the meaning of the text from the words you know.
If we spend the unknown 2% on rare words, the ones used only once or twice in the whole book, then the 98% we need is covered by just a few thousand of the most common words. An average learner already knows a few thousand words. The problem is that they are not exactly the same words. The difference may be huge, but for surprisingly many popular titles it is small. That is where ReadOriginal steps in.
ReadOriginal analyzes your vocabulary and compares it with thousands of popular English books. It finds books within your reach and shows the short list of key words you need to learn for each one.
Then it helps you build a chain of books where each next book needs only a small handful of new words.
You will not learn the language overnight. However, you will learn the language WHILE you read and enjoy the process, similar to how you learned your native language.
How many English words do you know?
Take a 2–3 minute test to estimate your vocabulary size and see what kinds of books it makes possible.
How it works
Start With Your Vocabulary
Mark the words you already know, or provide your own list. ReadOriginal compares your vocabulary with every book to find a good match.
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Explore a vast library of popular English books, instantly analyzed and sorted by how well they fit your current vocabulary. Actually, you can analyze any text, even movie subtitles!
Vocabulary Match Indicator
Each book has a clear, color-coded indicator showing the percentage of words you already know and the number of top words to learn to reach your desired level of comprehension (98%+). One click and you have the word list ready!
Reading Plan
Plan ahead! The Reading Plan shows how the words you learn for one book make the next one easier. Choose books and vocabulary with the future in mind, so the number of new words stays small from book to book.
Queue
Study selected words in the Queue, choose definitions and examples from the dictionary, and instantly turn them into flashcards for review.
Flashcard Review
Review your flashcards with spaced repetition to stop forgetting them over time.
Full Immersion
We follow best practices: using monolingual dictionaries and reading with full immersion. Even the interface is English-only. It’s the best way to stop translating in your head and start thinking in English.
It's closer than you think! Select a book, learn the key words for the first pages, and start reading today!
