Your First Novel in a New Language, 15 Minutes a Day

In short: pick an easy book, read for fifteen minutes a day, and let pimReader show translations above the words you don't know. Keep only a few new words each day.

Get a book

You can read a book you already have. pimReader opens EPUB, PDF, MOBI, AZW3, FB2, TXT, HTML and Markdown files. Tap Open a file (on Home, or under ＋ in the library) and pick the file in the list that opens (the Drive & other apps row reaches cloud storage). If Android's own file picker opens instead, that works too and needs no permission. Your library already holds a few sample books: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (English and German) and Les Trois Mousquetaires (French). Ignore them if they are not your language.

No books yet? The easiest start is a graded reader: a book written for learners at A2 or B1, which you can buy or borrow as an EPUB or PDF. Free alternatives are public-domain books, whose copyright has ended: under ＋ → Free books look for fairy tales and children's stories first, then short classics. The Feeds list on Home also has free book catalogues such as Project Gutenberg: open one, search, and download a book straight into your library.

One warning: a scanned PDF (a photo of each page) has no real text. You can read it, but you cannot tap the words.

Choose an easy one

A good first novel is short, modern and simple. A children's book or a young-adult novel is a fine start. So is a book you have already read in your own language. Knowing the story helps you guess.

First, tell the app what you already know. When you set up a language, the vocabulary estimate opens (Estimation of Vocabulary; you can find it later in Settings → Languages → Estimate Your Vocabulary). It shows common words, most frequent first. Scroll through the list of common words to the point where they stop looking familiar, then tap OK. Everything above that point is marked as known and gets no translation, so stop a little early rather than late. After that, only unfamiliar words are coloured on the page.

Open the first chapter and look. How many coloured words you see depends on the book: a graded reader or a modern novel may have only a few per paragraph, while classics often have many more even after the estimate. If almost every line has a coloured word, the book is too hard for now. Try something easier and come back later.

The Book ... dialog (open the menu ⋮, then Book ...) has a box, Automatically mark new words as known. Leave it off while you are learning from the book. Turn it on only if you want to read on without help: new words are then marked as known and are not shown in the dictionary.

Read with help above the line

Unknown words are shown in colour, with a small grey translation above them. You read on without stopping.

When the small translation is not enough:

• Tap a coloured word. The dictionary panel opens and jumps to that word.
• Tap its translation in the panel. The full dictionary entry opens. Tick Memorize there to keep the word.
• Select a phrase and tap Translate. You get the meaning of each word in it.

If a whole sentence makes no sense, open the panel menu (⋮) and tap Show Translation. You see a translation of the page. Tap Show Dictionary to go back.

When you know a word, tap it in the panel. It is marked as known and stops being coloured, in this book and in every book after it.

Listen while you read

Text-to-speech can read the book to you. In the book, open the menu (⋮), tap Book ..., tick Play Audio: and choose Speech Synthesis. Then press play. The app reads one sentence at a time, marks it on the page and turns the pages for you.

It helps with pronunciation and on tired days. Your phone's own voice is free.

Keep only a few words

Do not try to learn every new word. When a word comes back again and again, open it and tick Memorize. The app brings it back for a short review on a schedule set by spaced repetition, which brings each card back when you're likely to start forgetting it. Due words wait in your daily reviews (the Exercise card on Home).

Five words a day is enough. If the review list starts to feel heavy, add fewer.

A calm 15-minute routine

1. 2–5 minutes: do your daily reviews (the Exercise card on Home). They grow as you add words; if they pass 10 minutes, add fewer new words.
2. 10 minutes: read. Don't stop for every coloured word. Stop only when you lose the story.
3. 3 minutes: go back over the page with text-to-speech, or read one paragraph out loud.

Stop after fifteen minutes, even on a good day.

When you feel lost

When it happens:

• Read the paragraph again, slowly, with the voice on.
• Tap Show Translation for that page, then read the original once more.
• If you are lost for a whole chapter, switch to an easier book. Keep the hard one for later.

What it won't do

• It won't choose the right meaning every time. The translation above a word comes from a dictionary, and a word can have several meanings. Use the sentence to decide.
• It won't make a hard book easy. A book that is too difficult is tiring, even with help.
• It works on Android phones and tablets only.
• Scanned PDFs have no tappable words. An MP3 audiobook can play beside the text, but it does not follow your place on the page.

Everything in this guide is free, except AI page translation and the better voices, which use AI.