Read your first book in Spanish.
Short stories built from the Spanish you already know. Folktales from Andalucía, a mystery in Buenos Aires, an afternoon in a Madrid café.
The shortest path from hola to fluent.
Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, and one of the kindest to an English speaker. The spelling is nearly phonetic, the verb patterns are regular, and there is a vast literature waiting to be read.
The catch is the same as in every language. Drills only take you so far. To learn to read Spanish you have to read Spanish, and that's where most learners stall. Native fiction is a wall. Children's books are written for children. Graded readers from 1987 are, generously, dull.
ReadBilingual gives you short Spanish stories pitched at your level, set from the words you've learned or from a one-minute placement quiz. Tap any word to see what it means in that sentence. Press play to hear the story read aloud.
A reading level for every Spanish learner
Just starting
About 250 core words. Present tense. Stories with one or two characters in a single place.
Comfortable
About 800 core words. Past and future tenses. Multi-chapter stories with a small cast.
Conversational
About 2,000 core words. Subjunctive, conditionals, dialogue. Full short stories with a subplot.
Independent
About 4,000 core words. Idiomatic dialogue and regional voice. Novellas of 8 to 12 chapters.
Advanced
Literary register. Fiction at native level from across the Spanish-speaking world.
The classics
Once you're at C1 the rest of Spanish literature opens up. We'll point you at the best.
Empieza a leer hoy.
Coming soon to iOS and Android. Your first story will be five minutes away.
