Step 1
Match your goal and your level
| What you want to do | What gets you there | Class of app |
|---|---|---|
| Start from zero A0 to A2 | The first thousand words and a daily habit | Gamified course |
| Read books, news and articles A2 and up | Volume of text you mostly understand | Parallel reading |
| Hold a real conversation A2 and up | Speaking time and someone correcting you | Tutor marketplace |
| Pass a CEFR or school exam Any | A syllabus, grammar drills and past papers | Structured course |
| Survive a trip in three weeks Any | About 300 phrases and clear pronunciation | Audio course |
| Grow vocabulary fast A2 and up | Spaced repetition on words you have met | Review trainer |
Below A2, native books and films are decoding, not reading. Above B2, any app whose content stops at B2 is finished with you. Unsure? The CEFR test takes five minutes; how long your language takes turns it into hours.
Step 2
What that class costs
| Class | Apps in it | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| Gamified course | Duolingo, Memrise | Free tier, then about $5 to $13 a month |
| Structured course | Babbel, Rosetta Stone | About $9 to $20 a month, less billed yearly |
| Tutor marketplace | italki, Preply | About $4 to $50 an hour, bought as single lessons or a recurring package |
| Review trainer | Anki, Quizlet | Free, a $25 one time purchase on iOS, or a paid tier from about $10 |
| Audio course | Pimsleur, Language Transfer | Free to about $21 a month |
| Parallel reading | Lingo7, LingQ | Free tiers, then about $4 to $15 a month |
Every range covers a whole class and was checked September 2026. The apps named are examples of the class, in no particular order.
Step 3
Seven checks before you pay
- Can you open your own book, or only what is in the catalog?
- How is meaning shown: full parallel translation, tap-to-translate, or nothing?
- Is there audio, and is it tied to the sentence you are on?
- Do tapped words come back in spaced repetition, fed by your reading?
- Store listings count interface localizations. A claim of "35 languages" often means three with content.
- Is the free tier one you could live with, not a trial?
- Offline on the commute, synced to your desktop, and exportable if you leave?
Step 4
Price, refunds and the way out
- Two prices, one app. In-app and on the app’s own site the price often differs, and a year costs somewhere between half and two thirds of twelve monthly charges. Pay monthly first.
- App Store refunds. Ask at reportaproblem.apple.com and wait 24 to 48 hours. Apple judges case by case, with no guaranteed window.
- Google Play refunds. Usually self-service within 48 hours, though Google words it as a may. After that you ask the developer, and the current period is not pro-rated.
- Cancelling is not a refund. It stops the next charge and leaves the one you already paid where it is. Play keeps access to the end of the paid period; on Apple cancel a day early, the renewal can be charged 24 hours ahead.
- EU and UK. The 14 day withdrawal right rarely survives here: Play has you waive it at checkout, and Apple’s lapses once the download starts.
Step 5
Shortlist two, then compare them head to head
Ranked: best apps to read books
All 6 reading apps scored on imports, parallel translation, audio, vocabulary and coverage, then a ranked list per language. Features checked July 2026, prices September 2026.
See the ranking →Head to head: Lingo7 vs the others
4 side-by-side comparisons, each with a feature table and a "choose this one if" verdict for both sides.
See the comparisons →Straight to a pair: Lingo7 vs LingQ, Lingo7 vs Beelinguapp, Lingo7 vs Readle, Lingo7 vs EWA.
Step 6
Test for fourteen days before you subscribe
- One book or one topic, the same one in both apps. Different content, different verdict.
- Twenty minutes a day in the same slot. A fixed hour survives a busy week, "when I have time" does not.
- Write down on day one what you cannot do yet; check it on day fourteen.
- Watch which app you open without negotiating with yourself. That is the one you keep.
- Set the trial reminder now, for the day before it renews.
How not to choose
Store rating and download count
They measure onboarding and marketing. Reaching B2 takes about eighteen months, and no rating follows anyone that far.
The streak
Two minutes of tapping keeps it alive as well as an hour of reading.
"Learn 5000 words"
That is how many cards the app will show you. The number you keep is far smaller.
The lifetime deal
A bet that the company outlives your interest, placed before you know the method.
A tip for another language
The app everyone names for Spanish may have nothing at all in Czech.
Where Lingo7 fits
Lingo7 is one row of that table: reading real books, the original beside a sentence-by-sentence translation, narrated audio, and a tap that saves a word to a review deck. It fits from about A2. It is the wrong tool at zero, or if speaking is the only thing you want this month.
Next: best apps to read books, per language · Lingo7 vs LingQ, Beelinguapp, Readle and EWA · what comprehensible input means · a 30 minute a day reading plan