The best reading apps

The best apps to learn a language by reading are LingQ if you want a big library and detailed word tracking, Readlang if you want a cheap, simple reader for your own texts, and Satori Reader or Du Chinese if you’re learning Japanese or Mandarin and want carefully graded stories. Lute is the best free option, and Migaku is the pick if your “reading” is mostly subtitles. There’s no single winner, because the right app depends on your language, your level and what you want to read.

Here’s how they compare, what they cost in October 2026, and who each one suits.

What makes a good reading app

Reading works for language learning because it gives you lots of input at your own pace. Research on lexical coverage suggests you need to know about 98% of the words in a text to read it comfortably without help (Hu and Nation, 2000, Reading in a Foreign Language), and that comfortable reading across a wide range of texts takes a vocabulary of roughly 8,000 to 9,000 word families (Nation, 2006, Canadian Modern Language Review). A good app helps you close that gap. It should do four things:

1. Make unknown words cheap. A tap should give you the meaning in context, fast enough that you stay in the story.
2. Help you find text at the right level. Either by grading content, or by telling you how hard a text is for you.
3. Remember what you’ve learned. Save words with their sentence and bring them back.
4. Let you read things you care about. Interest keeps you reading, and volume is what counts.

Our post on the 98% rule explains the coverage research in more depth.

The best apps to learn a language by reading, compared

Prices are US prices from each product’s official site at the time of writing (October 2026), and they can change.

LingQ: best all-round reading system

LingQ is the best-known app in this space, for good reason. It has a large library of lessons with audio across 50+ languages, and it imports almost anything: web pages through the LingQ Importer extension (Chrome, Firefox and Safari), ebooks, podcasts, YouTube and Netflix.

Its signature feature is word tracking. Every word on the page has a status: new words are blue, saved words are yellow, and known words are plain. Turn the page and untouched new words become known, so your known-word count rises as you read. It’s motivating, and it shows you at a glance how hard a lesson is.

Downsides: it’s one of the pricier options at $14.99 a month, or $10 a month on the annual plan, and the free plan (20 saved words in total) is really just a demo. The interface has a lot going on.

Best for: learners who want one app for reading and listening, with a library to fall back on and a clear measure of progress. See Readlang vs LingQ for a closer look.

Readlang: best value for reading your own texts

Readlang does the core job, click a word and see its translation, with less clutter and a much lower price. A Chrome extension and bookmarklet work on any web page, so you can read the news without importing it. You can also upload texts and EPUB books, and it can sync YouTube videos with their transcripts. Saved words go into spaced repetition flashcards.

The free plan is genuinely usable: unlimited single-word translations, plus 10 phrase translations and 10 AI context explanations a day. Premium ($6 a month or $48 a year) removes the limits. It supports over 100 languages, more than anything else here.

Downsides: a smaller library, and at the time of writing no LingQ-style known-word count.

Best for: budget-conscious readers, learners of less common languages, and anyone who already knows what they want to read.

Satori Reader: best for intermediate Japanese

Satori Reader has more than 1,650 Japanese episodes across many genres. Every story has native-speaker audio, inline grammar explanations and definitions that fit the context. You can read in kanji, kana, or kanji with furigana, which makes it unusually flexible as your kanji knowledge grows. Notes and SRS flashcards are built in.

Selected episodes are free, and Pro is $9 a month or $89 a year at the time of writing.

Downsides: Japanese only, aimed at intermediate learners, and you can’t import your own texts.

Best for: Japanese learners past the beginner stage who want trustworthy, well-explained material.

Du Chinese: best for graded Mandarin

Du Chinese offers more than 3,000 readings and 80+ graded stories, from Newbie to Master, with native-speaker audio, a pop-up dictionary and grammar explanations. It runs on iOS, Android and the web, and saved words go into its flashcards.

It’s $14.99 a month, $79.99 for six months or $119.99 a year, with some free lessons.

Downsides: Mandarin only, no importing, and the monthly price is high if you don’t commit.

Best for: Mandarin learners who want reading practice pitched at their level, from the very start.

Lute: best free option

Lute (Learning Using Texts) is free and open source under the MIT license. You install it on your own computer, with Python or Docker, and use it in your browser. You paste or import texts, configure dictionaries for your language, and mark words with statuses as you read. It supports multi-word terms, and “parent” terms so one definition covers several forms of a word.

Downsides: you have to install and configure it, there’s no official mobile app, and there’s no built-in content.

Best for: learners who want LingQ-style word tracking without a subscription, and who don’t mind some setup.

Migaku: best for reading subtitles and the web

Migaku isn’t a book reader, but if most of your reading happens in subtitles, it’s excellent. Its Chrome extension makes subtitles clickable on Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, Rakuten Viki and Animelon, as well as text on ordinary web pages. One click makes a flashcard with the sentence, audio and a screenshot. It also estimates how hard a video or page will be from the words you know.

Downsides: 11 languages, no free plan (only a free trial, 10 days at the time of writing), and its FAQ lists full ebook support as “coming soon.”

Best for: video-first learners. Read our full Migaku review.

Language Reactor: best free add-on for video

Language Reactor is a Chrome extension with about 2 million users on the Chrome Web Store. It adds dual subtitles and a pop-up dictionary to Netflix and YouTube, and can import text, books and websites with machine translation and text-to-speech. The free version is generous, and a paid Pro tier adds extras such as generated subtitles, saved-word highlighting and export.

Downsides: desktop only, and reading tools are basic compared with a dedicated reader.

Best for: learners who want help with the shows they already watch, at little or no cost.

A word on Anki

Anki isn’t a reading app, but many readers use it alongside one. It’s free on desktop, the web and Android (AnkiDroid), and AnkiMobile on iOS is a paid app that funds development (apps.ankiweb.net). If you already review in Anki, check that your reader can export cards before you commit.

Lumo: coming soon

We’re building Lumo, so read this with that in mind. It isn’t available yet, but it’s coming soon. It’s a reading and listening app aimed at the “help me find the right level” problem. Every text gets a difficulty label from your known-word coverage: Easy at 98% and up, Just right from 90%, Challenging from 80%, Hard below that. You’ll be able to import pasted text, web articles, EPUBs, YouTube videos with an interactive transcript and dual subtitles, and audio or video with subtitles. There will also be short original graded stories in 8 languages (A1–B1). Saved words become flashcards scheduled with FSRS, and everything is processed on your device, so it works offline.

It won’t have a browser extension, Netflix support, a big community library or tutors at launch. Planned pricing is a free tier and Pro at $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year.

How to choose

Start with your language, then your level.

• Japanese, intermediate: Satori Reader, plus a general reader for native content.
• Mandarin, any level: Du Chinese, then a general reader as you move to native texts.
• A common European language: LingQ if you want a library, Readlang if you have your own material.
• A less common language: Readlang (100+ languages) or Lute.
• Mostly video: Migaku or Language Reactor.
• No budget: Readlang’s free plan or Lute.

Then stick with one app for a month before judging it. The habit matters more than the features.

FAQ

Can you really learn a language by reading?

Reading is one of the best-researched ways to build vocabulary and grammar, as long as the text is mostly comprehensible. In one well-known case study, Pigada and Schmitt (2006, Reading in a Foreign Language) followed one learner of French through a month of reading graded readers and found that knowledge of about two-thirds of the 133 target words improved in some way, most strongly spelling, from reading alone. Most people combine it with listening and, later, speaking.

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

Readlang’s free plan is the most usable free option for most people, with unlimited single-word lookups. Lute is completely free and open source, but you install it yourself. Satori Reader and Du Chinese both have free lessons to try.

Is LingQ better than Readlang?

LingQ is better if you want a large library, audio and a known-word count. Readlang is better if you want a cheaper, simpler tool for your own texts, or you’re learning one of the many languages LingQ doesn’t support.

What level do I need to start reading in a new language?

You can start with graded stories almost from day one. Native content gets comfortable once you know most of the words on the page, which for general text means thousands of word families. Our post on graded readers vs native content covers when to make the switch.