Learn languages by reading

Read real books. The page remembers what you know.

Every word is colored to how well you know it: new words glow, familiar ones fade. Tap any word for its meaning and grammar. The more you read, the more the page quiets into language you already know.

EPUB · TXT · Markdown No ads, no surveillance Genuinely useful free tier
Candide Voltaire
New 0 Learning 0 Known 0 0% known
How well do you know it?

Reading-first. Review only when you want it.

Three steps, then it gets out of your way.

Step 1

Import

Upload an EPUB, paste text, or drag in Markdown. Or open a public-domain classic straight from Project Gutenberg. Free and unlimited.

Step 2

Read

Every word is colored to your knowledge. New words stand out; words you know recede into plain text.

Step 3

Remember

Save the words that matter, then consolidate them with optional spaced-repetition review — or just keep reading and let repetition do the work. Always there, never required.

Every word follows a path

Mavo tracks your relationship with each word across five levels, per language. New words run warm; as you learn, they cool and fade until they disappear into the text.

serpent
New
Never seen before
serpent
Learning
Seen before, not stable
serpent
Familiar
Meaning in context
serpent
Comfortable
Still takes effort
serpent
Known
No effort needed
warm & loud  ·  →  ·  cool & quiet  ·  →  ·  gone
The same page, as a beginner

Je ne sais pas pourquoi je raconte ces souvenirs de brume et de mon enfance.

The same page, a year later

Je ne sais pas pourquoi je raconte ces souvenirs de brume et de mon enfance.

Something to read on day one

Bring your own books, or start from graded stories written for your level.

Your own library

Import EPUB, TXT, or Markdown: upload, paste, or drag it in. Or open a classic straight from Project Gutenberg's public-domain collection, right inside the reader, with no download or account juggling. Your content stays yours.

A few of the thousands of titles you can open in one tap.

EPUB TXT Markdown Project Gutenberg

Graded stories

Not ready for a full novel? Read short, original stories written for each CEFR level, from gentle A1 up to B2. A good selection is free; Plus unlocks the full, growing catalog.

Short, original readers, from gentle A1 up to B2.

A1 Beginner A2 Elementary B1 Intermediate B2 Upper-int.
Fully tested: tokenization, dictionary & text-to-speech validated
🇫🇷 Français 🇩🇪 Deutsch 🇪🇸 Español 🇵🇱 Polski 🇷🇺 Русский
+ 9 more languages, experimental
🇮🇹 Italiano 🇵🇹 Português 🇳🇱 Nederlands 🇸🇪 Svenska 🇳🇴 Norsk 🇩🇰 Dansk 🇫🇮 Suomi 🇹🇷 Türkçe 🇬🇷 Ελληνικά

Don't see your language? Tell us when you join the waitlist.

Built for serious reading

For learners who've outgrown the textbook: intermediate readers, polyglots, and anyone who'd rather learn from real books.

Personalized highlighting

Words are colored by your knowledge, not a generic frequency list. The page literally lightens as you learn.

One-tap dictionary

Tap any word for an instant definition, part of speech, and grammar. Lookups are cached, so you never wait twice.

Root-word aware

Inflected forms map back to one root word, so avait, avais and avoir count as the same thing you know.

Cross-text vocabulary

Your knowledge follows you across every book and article. Mark a word once and it's known everywhere you read.

Know before you start

Every text is scored against your vocabulary (“82% known, 12% learning”), so you can pick something that's actually at your level.

Privacy-first

No ads. No surveillance. Export your data anytime. We answer to readers, not advertisers.

Why we're building this

We love reading, and we wanted a calmer way to read real books in the languages we're learning — one that quietly remembers which words we already know, so the same lookups don't interrupt us on every page.

There are good tools out there already. Mavo Reader is simply the one we wanted for ourselves. We use it every day to read in Polish and Spanish.

— The Mavo Reader team

Simple pricing — when we launch

A free tier that does real work, and one paid tier when you need more.

Free
€0

The full reader and highlighting, a handful of your own documents, daily lookups, spaced-repetition review, and a good selection of graded stories. Listen with premium audio on our starter stories, plus a built-in voice for your own texts. No credit card.

Plus
~€7 / month

Unlimited documents and lookups, the full graded-story catalog, vocabulary export, a monthly allowance of premium text-to-speech for your own content, and more to come.

Planned Free is what you see above, no surprises. What's in Plus isn't locked yet; we'll add more as we go, and early-access members help us decide what comes next.

Questions

Which languages are supported? +
Five are fully tested: French, German, Spanish, Polish, and Russian, with tokenization, dictionary, and text-to-speech validated. Nine more have experimental support. Don't see yours? Join the waitlist and tell us.
Can I import my own books? What formats? +
Yes: EPUB, TXT, and Markdown. Upload, paste, or drag them in. Import is free and unlimited. You can also open public-domain classics straight from Project Gutenberg's collection, right inside the reader.
How is this different from LingQ or Readlang? +
Mostly the experience. Where other reader apps can feel busy or dated, Mavo Reader stays calm and modern, built around the text. Our free tier does real work instead of teasing you. Inflected forms map back to one root word, so avait, avais and avoir count as the same word you know — something many tools get wrong. Your knowledge is colored to you and follows you across every book, and it works well in a mobile browser.
Where is my data stored, and is it private? +
Your documents are stored securely so they're available wherever you sign in. No ads, no third-party tracking, and you can export your data anytime.
When does it launch? Is there a mobile app? +
We're in active development. Mavo Reader is web-first at launch and works in mobile browsers; native apps come later. Join the waitlist to hear first.

Read your first real book with us

Join the early-access list and we'll tell you the moment it opens. No spam, ever.

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