How to learn a language by reading.
Laesi is built around one idea: you learn to read by reading — a lot, a little above your level, looking up what you don't know and tracking what you do. Here's how to go from knowing nothing to reading freely.
Four ideas the whole app is built on
None of this is a secret, and none of it is ours. Laesi just makes it sustainable for the languages that don't have a polished course waiting for you.
Input you understand
The engine of reading fluency is volume of text you mostly understand — not flashcards, not grammar drills. Pages read. Laesi's whole job is to make more text understandable to you, sooner.
Clear the page
Every word you click and rate is a word the app stops highlighting once you know it. The text visibly clears as you learn. Each session has one job: turn a little more of the page from highlighted to clean.
Track honestly, review lightly
The knowledge levels — Seen, Recognized, Remembered, Known — mirror your real recall. Send the stubborn words to Anki; don't drill the easy ones. Reading is the practice; spaced repetition is just a backstop.
Read what you can't put down
Motivation beats method. The sagas, the crime novels, the news, the show you're mid-binge — bring your own taste from day one. Laesi adds just enough support to make it comprehensible.
Laesi is the reading half of the puzzle. Pair it with listening and speaking when you're ready — but reading volume is the fastest way to a big vocabulary, and it's the half most apps do worst.
From nothing to reading freely, in five phases
You won't move through these cleanly — you'll be in two at once, and you'll slide back. That's fine. They're a map, not a schedule.
Set up the language
Goal — get the tools in place so the first text isn't a brick wall.
Add the language and let Laesi wire up Wiktionary and Google Translate. For a well-supported language, a real lemmatizer is configured automatically; for a minority or historical one, the Activation Wizard and Model Manager walk you through adding a GiellaLT or Voikko analyzer — one click for hosted models, a guided build for the rest. Skim a one-page alphabet-and-sounds primer, and let the built-in text-to-speech read a few words so the script stops looking alien.
Your first few hundred words
Goal — learn the high-frequency core that makes everything else readable.
Don't open a novel yet. Start with the simplest input you can find — children's books, graded readers, an "easy [language]" news service, or an AI Graded Reader generated at A1–A2. Read in the Standard reader, click almost everything, and set knowledge levels honestly. When a sentence is a wall, switch on the Interlinear reader or hit full-sentence translation to see the whole thing at once. A handful of words show up constantly — send just those to Anki.
Build momentum
Goal — read more, look up less, and start on things you actually care about.
The frequent words are fading out of the highlights now. Step up to harder graded material, then your first real texts — but lean on the AI Graded Reader to rewrite tough chapters down to your vocabulary, and keep the dictionary panel close. Watch the coverage stat and aim for texts where you already know around 85–90% of the words, so each page stays comprehensible. Save idioms and phrasal verbs as single units with multi-word lemmas. Above all, build a daily habit — fifteen minutes that actually happens beats an hour that doesn't.
Real material, with a net
Goal — read native content for real, keeping support only where you need it.
Read the books, news, and subtitles you actually want. Keep the safety net — a lookup here, a sentence translation there, a graded rewrite when a chapter fights back. Read the web in your language with the browser extension, and drop SRT or VTT subtitles in to read along with a show. Switch to the Immersive reader when you'd rather it felt like a book than a study tool. Coverage keeps climbing; the highlights keep thinning.
Read freely
Goal — just read.
Mostly you read without thinking about the tool at all. The odd lookup, a new word marked here and there. Open original editions in the Facsimile reader and read them as they were published; tackle classical texts with their proper analyzers. Finish the saga, the trilogy, the dissertation you came here for. Laesi fades into the background — which was always the point.
Four readers, four jobs
Standard
Your default. Every word colored by how well you know it. This is where most reading happens.
Interlinear
The meaning right under the text. Reach for it early on, or whenever a passage stops making sense.
Immersive
When you'd rather it felt like a book than a study tool. Cleaner, calmer, light or dark.
Facsimile
When the file keeps its original page layout and you want to read it exactly as published.
Small things, big difference
- —Volume beats intensity. A little every day moves you further than a marathon once a week.
- —Don't mark a word "Known" until it's actually known. Honest levels keep your coverage stats — and your reading choices — meaningful.
- —Keep Anki for the words that won't stick. Most vocabulary will settle in from reading alone. Drill the exceptions, not the rule.
- —Re-read. Going back to a text that used to be hard is the most satisfying way to feel how far you've come.
- —Choose books you can't put down. The best level for you is the one you'll keep reading. Each language page has suggestions to get you started.
Pick a language and start phase 0.
One-time purchase, all 60+ languages, free updates for life. The reading does the rest.