Readlang, explained: what it does, what it costs and where it stops

What Readlang is and who makes it

Readlang was built by Steve Ridout, a developer who later spent several years at Duolingo as a staff engineer and created the Duolingo Stories feature there. Duolingo bought Readlang in 2016 and kept it running mostly untouched; a few years later Ridout bought it back, and since then the project has been a one-founder company again. That history explains its character: a small, quiet tool with a forum where the person who wrote the code answers the questions.

The idea has not changed since the first version. You bring a text in the language you are learning, you read it, and every word you do not know is one click away from its translation. The words you clicked become flashcards. Nothing gamified, no streak pressure beyond a daily reminder email, no lessons. Reading is the lesson.

Its own description of the goal is "the best reading tool in the world for language learners", and in the browser that claim is defensible. The rest of this guide is about the fine print around it.

What you can actually do with it

Six things, roughly in the order most people discover them.

• Read uploaded texts. Paste text, upload a DRM-free EPUB, or pick something from the shared library. Click a word for a translation; select a phrase for a phrase translation. What can and cannot be uploaded is on the EPUB and PDF page.
• Read the live web. The Web Reader extension turns any page you are already on into clickable text. This is the feature people mean when they say Readlang is better than LingQ.
• Ask the AI why. A context explanation of a word or an idiom, generated by a GPT-4o model, ten a day on the free plan and unlimited on Premium.
• Watch videos with transcripts. Import a YouTube video, get a synchronized transcript, click words in it. Netflix is not supported; the YouTube and Netflix page has the details.
• Review flashcards. Words are prioritized by frequency and scheduled by a spaced repetition algorithm. You can practice from a specific book on Premium.
• Export your vocabulary. Everything you translated goes to a CSV file, which is how people get their Readlang words into Anki. Details on the Anki export page.

There is also Ami, an AI conversation partner, a customizable pop-up dictionary, and three different things called audio, which the audio page untangles. Which of the 100+ languages get audio and voices is on the languages page.

Where it runs, and where it does not

Readlang is a website first. Everything else is a way of getting that website onto the page or the device you are looking at.

The short version for phones: there is no Readlang app in the App Store or on Google Play. The official instructions describe opening readlang.com in the browser and adding it to the home screen. The iPhone page and the Android page walk through what that gives you and where it runs out. The extensions page covers every browser, and Safari gets its own page because the bookmarklet there is the most-asked question.

What Readlang costs

Three plans, and the free one is more generous than most people expect.

Prices from readlang.com/pricing, checked 14 September 2026, in USD. One subscription covers all languages.

The practical line between free and paid is the phrase limit. Single words are unlimited forever; the tenth phrase of the day is where the free plan stops. If you read novels, where idioms and multi-word verbs carry the meaning, that limit arrives quickly. The pricing page goes through the plans in detail, including what is not on offer: there are no lifetime deals, coupons or student discounts on the site.

A related question, asked often enough to deserve its own page: is there a free Readlang alternative, and does the free plan already cover you.

Is it any good?

Yes, with a specific shape. People who like Readlang like it for the same three reasons: the interface is clean and there is nothing to learn; it is cheaper than LingQ; and the extension makes the whole web readable. People who leave it leave for the same two reasons: you have to bring your own material, because the shared library is thin for beginners in most languages; and on a phone it is a website, with everything that implies.

Trustpilot gives it 4.6 out of 5 on a small number of reviews. The Mezzofanti Guild review calls it "a decent assisted reader" and marks it down for advanced learners. Reddit threads in r/languagelearning are mostly warm, with the same caveats. Our own Readlang review goes through all of it, with the disclosure that we make a competing app and the evidence laid out so you can discount our bias.

Readlang against the alternatives

Three comparisons cover most of the questions people bring to a search engine.

• Readlang vs LingQ. The classic pairing. LingQ tracks every word you know and has a huge library; Readlang is lighter, cheaper and better on live web pages.
• Readlang vs Language Reactor. Different jobs: Language Reactor is for Netflix and YouTube with dual subtitles, Readlang is for text. Many people run both.
• Readlang vs Readlang Mobile. The name confuses people, so here it is plainly: Readlang is the web tool; Readlang Mobile is an independent native iOS app made by a different developer.

If what you want is simply a list of things to try instead, the Readlang alternative page is the shortest route, and Readlang vs LUTE covers the open-source option you run on your own machine. For the confusion with a similarly named app, ReadLang WatchLang is a different product from a different developer again, and is not related to either.

How to get started in ten minutes

1. Create a free account at readlang.com and pick the language you are learning.
2. Open something from the shared library that looks slightly too hard, or paste a news article.
3. Click every word you do not know. Do not look them up anywhere else; that is the whole method.
4. The next day, do the flashcard session the reminder email points you to. Ten minutes is enough.
5. Install the Web Reader extension when you find yourself copying text from websites by hand.

The Readlang tutorial goes into the settings that matter, such as dictionaries, phrase selection and what to do when the translation is wrong.

Questions people ask