Readlang vs Readlang Mobile: two different products, explained side by side

Why the names are similar

Readlang Mobile is a reader app for the phone built around the same idea Readlang made familiar: open a real text, tap the word you do not know, keep reading. The name describes the category, a reading tool for language learners, and the device, a phone. That is the whole story of the name.

What there is not: shared code, shared accounts, or a shared company. Readlang Mobile was written from scratch as a native SwiftUI app. It has its own library, its own subscription through the App Store, and its own developer. Readlang, for its part, has never released a native app for iOS or Android; requests for one come up on the Readlang forum regularly, most recently in a thread from March 2026, and the official answer has been the home-screen shortcut.

Side by side

Everything in the Readlang column was checked on 14 September 2026 against readlang.com, its pricing page and the Readlang forum. Everything in the Readlang Mobile column comes from the app itself.

Readlang prices from readlang.com/pricing, 14 September 2026, in USD. Readlang Mobile prices as shown in the US App Store; your store shows its own currency.

What Readlang does better

An honest list. If one of these is what you need, Readlang is the right choice.

• Languages. More than a hundred, with AI explanations for all of them. Readlang Mobile covers about twenty, and if yours is not among them the app is of no use to you.
• The browser extension. The Web Reader turns any page in Chrome, Edge or Firefox into clickable text. Readlang Mobile has nothing equivalent: it takes a link and opens the article in its own reader, which is fine for articles and useless for a web app you are already inside.
• YouTube. Import a video, get a synchronized transcript, click the words in it. Readlang Mobile has no video of any kind.
• Flashcards and export. Spaced repetition with words ranked by frequency, and a CSV export that gets your vocabulary into Anki. Readlang Mobile saves words and offers practice on Premium, but nothing leaves the app.
• Track record. Online since 2013, bought by Duolingo and sold back, still run by the person who wrote it.
• The forum. forum.readlang.com is active and the founder answers there himself. That is rarer than it sounds.

There is also the free plan: unlimited single-word translations with no daily cap, where Readlang Mobile stops at 30 a day.

What Readlang Mobile does differently

Not better across the board. Different, in ways that matter if the phone is where you read.

• It is a native app. Installed from the App Store, opens like a book app, holds your place, and keeps playing a narrated book with the screen locked. Readlang on a phone is the website, which reads fine and feels like a website.
• Translation on the device, if you switch to it. By default, translation comes from Google Translate through the app's server; in Settings you can switch to Apple Translate, which runs on the device. Without a connection the app switches to Apple Translate, which translates on the device if the language pack for your pair is downloaded; a book has to be opened online once. The offline page has the details.
• A graded library. Public-domain books sorted A1 to C1, so the first book you open is not a wall. Some are narrated, with the current word highlighted; tapping a word for its translation does not pause the narration.
• Phrases by first and last word. Tap the first word of a phrase and then the last, and the whole phrase is translated in place. Up to six words free, longer on Premium.
• Articles by link. Paste a URL and the article opens in the reader with the same tap-to-translate.
• Your own EPUB. Upload on Premium and read it the same way as the library books.

Readlang Mobile download, APK and "review" questions

Three questions arrive here from search engines; three answers.

Where to download Readlang Mobile

The App Store, and only the App Store. It runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 or later. There is no Android version, no web version and no desktop version. The app download page covers the confusion from the other side: people searching for a Readlang app to download, which does not exist, and what the official Readlang instructions say to do instead.

Is there a Readlang Mobile APK?

No. An APK is an Android package, and there is no Android build of Readlang Mobile to package. Anything offered as a Readlang Mobile APK on a download site is not ours, and we would not install it. The same goes for files calling themselves a Readlang APK: Readlang has no Android app either, and its forum points Android users to the Firefox for Android extension or the home-screen shortcut instead.

A short review of our own app

We make it, so discount accordingly. What it does well: the tap-to-translate loop on a real book runs in a native app, with Apple Translate on the device as an option that works offline once the language pack is downloaded; the graded library means a beginner has something to read on day one; narrated books with word highlighting let you listen and read at once. What it does not do: it covers about twenty languages, not a hundred; there is no video; there is no export to Anki or anywhere else; there is no Android version; and the free plan is 30 translations a day, which a serious evening of reading will use up. If any of those is a deal-breaker, Readlang, LingQ or one of the tools on the alternatives page will serve you better.

Can you use both?

Yes, and many people will. There is no account link between them and nothing to migrate; the words you translate in one will not appear in the other. The natural split is by device: Readlang at the desk, where the browser extension, the hundred languages and the flashcards live; Readlang Mobile on the phone, where a native reader with a graded library is the more comfortable thing to hold. One vocabulary habit is enough: review wherever you read more and let the other be input.

If you are choosing one, the question is where you read. Mostly at a desktop, or in a language outside the mainstream twenty: Readlang. Mostly on an iPhone or iPad, in one of the twenty, and you want books already sorted by level: Readlang Mobile. The Readlang guide and the Readlang vs LingQ comparison cover the rest of the field.

Questions people ask