Getting started with Lumo

Welcome to Lumo. The idea behind it is simple: you learn a language by reading and listening to things you understand, a little every day, and Lumo handles the dictionary, the vocabulary list and the review schedule so you can focus on the reading.

Lumo opens to everyone soon. This guide walks you through your first week with it, one small step a day, so you know exactly where to start. None of the days take more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and you can do them in any order. If you only remember one thing, make it this: pick content you mostly understand, and come back tomorrow.

Day 1: Set up and read your first story

When you first open Lumo, you tell it three things: the language you’re learning, roughly where you are (beginner, intermediate or advanced), and a daily goal.

For the goal, choose less than you think you can do. Five or ten minutes is perfect. You can always read more, and a small goal is far easier to keep on a busy day. You can change it later.

Then open a Lumo Story at your level. These are short originals written for learners, and they’re the easiest way to see how Lumo works. As you read, you’ll notice the words are colored:

• Blue, underlined words are new: you haven’t met them in Lumo before.
• Yellow words are ones you’re learning. The yellow fades as you go from unknown to recognized to familiar.
• No color means known.

Tap any word to see what it means in this sentence and to hear it spoken. Then set how well you know it, using the buttons on the word card or the keys 1 to 4 on a keyboard. Press K to mark a word known straight away, or X to ignore it (handy for names).

One important habit: when you turn the page, any blue words you didn’t tap are marked as known. That’s how your known-word count grows without you having to click every word you already know. So if you don’t know a word, tap it before you move on.

Day 2: Read along

Open yesterday’s story again and turn on read-along. Lumo reads the text aloud and highlights each word as it’s spoken. Follow along with your eyes. Slow it down if you need to.

Then read the story once more on your own, without audio. You’ll find it’s noticeably easier the second time. That’s not a trick: re-reading is one of the most effective things you can do, because more of the text is now within reach.

Day 3: Import something you love

Now bring in something of your own. Paste some text, or paste a link to a web article on a topic you care about, whether that’s football, recipes or a band you like. Lumo turns it into a clean, readable page.

Before you start reading, look at the label. Lumo shows how much of the text you already know and calls it Easy, Just right, Challenging or Hard. Early on, almost everything native will come up Hard, and that’s completely normal. Keep it in your library and choose something easier for today. Those labels change faster than you’d expect.

Day 4: Watch a video

Find a YouTube video with captions in your language. Videos made for learners are a great place to start. Paste the link into Lumo and you’ll get the video with an interactive transcript beside it. The current line lights up as it plays, and you can tap any word without losing your place.

Try watching it twice: once for the gist, then once more slowly, looking up the words you skipped. The free plan is planned to include two videos a week, so pick one you’ll enjoy.

Day 5: Your first review session

By now you’ve saved a handful of words. Open your flashcards and do a short review. For each card, try to recall the meaning, flip it, then grade yourself honestly: Again, Hard, Good or Easy.

Lumo schedules every card with FSRS, a modern open-source scheduling algorithm. Words you find hard come back soon; words you know well come back after longer and longer gaps. Honest grading makes the schedule work, so don’t be shy about pressing Again.

Keep reviews short. A few minutes a day is plenty. Reading is still where most of your learning happens; flashcards just stop words from fading between encounters.

Day 6: Phrases and sentences

Some meanings live in groups of words, not single ones: by the way, to take part in, no matter what. When you spot one, select the whole phrase and save it. It’ll be highlighted as a unit wherever it appears again.

If a whole sentence doesn’t make sense even after looking up the words, use sentence translation. The free plan is planned to include fifteen a day. Treat them as a safety net rather than a crutch: try first, then check.

Day 7: Look back and plan ahead

Take a minute to look at your progress: your streak, your known words, and the stories and articles you’ve finished. A week of daily reading is a real achievement.

Then set yourself up for next week:

• Queue up a few things to read, so you never have to decide what to do when you open Lumo.
• Pick a time and a trigger. “After dinner, on the sofa” works better than “sometime today.”
• Know what happens on a bad day. One page or one short video still counts. If you miss a day entirely, a streak freeze can cover it, so you don’t lose your streak over one rough evening.

A few extra tips

• On your phone, add Lumo to your home screen so it opens like an app. In Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
• Stay in the Just right zone most of the time. Easy reading builds fluency; harder reading builds vocabulary; you need both, but mostly the middle.
• Re-read and re-watch favorites. It’s not cheating. It’s how input becomes yours.

Where to go next

If you’d like to understand the ideas behind Lumo, start with Comprehensible input, explained and The 98% rule. When you’re ready to graduate from stories to native content, read Graded readers vs. native content.

Most of all, enjoy it. You’re not studying a language this week. You’re reading in one.