Learn English by reading
Read English stories and articles written at your level. Save the words you don't know, and review them until you remember them. Start at A1, or continue from the level you have now.
- Script
- Latin alphabet, 26 letters, no accents
- Spelling
- Irregular, so reading shows you how words are written
- Levels
- Every CEFR level, A1 to C2
Sam lives in a small apartment in an old building in Boston. Every morning he locks the door, puts the key in his pocket and runs to the bus stop.
On Friday evening he comes home tired and puts his hand in his pocket. It’s empty. He looks for the key in his bag, in his coat and on the stairs, but he can’t find it.
Then the door across the hall opens. His neighbor, Mrs. Patel, is holding something small and shiny. “Are you looking for this?” she asks with a smile. “It was next to the mailboxes.”
Sam thanks her and invites her in for a cup of tea. The next day he puts a small hook on the wall by the door. Now the key always goes there.
The same story in simpler English (A1)
Sam has a small apartment in Boston. Every morning he locks his door and goes to the bus.
On Friday evening, his key is not in his pocket. He looks everywhere, but he can’t find it.
His neighbor, Mrs. Patel, opens her door. She has his key. She found it near the mailboxes.
Sam is very happy, and they drink tea together. Now Sam keeps his key on a hook by the door.
Words from this story
Every LingunAI story comes with a vocabulary list like this one, and any word you select can join your review queue.
| English | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| looks for | phrasal verb, look for | tries to find something |
| locks | verb, lock | closes something with a key, so other people can't open it |
| noun | a small bag sewn into clothes, for keeping things like keys or money | |
| across the hall | phrase | on the other side of the hallway, opposite |
| neighbor | noun | a person who lives next to you or very near you |
| shiny | adjective | bright, because light shines on it |
| invites her in | phrasal verb, invite in | asks her to come into his home |
| hook | noun | a curved piece of metal or plastic for hanging things on |
Why reading works for English
Reading is one of the best ways to grow your English, because a written text waits for you. You can read at your own speed, see where each word starts and ends, and go back when a sentence is not clear. In spoken English, words run together, and you hear each sentence only once.
English also has a very large vocabulary. The researcher Paul Nation (2006) estimated that you need about 8,000 to 9,000 word families to know 98 percent of the words in written English, and about 6,000 to 7,000 for spoken English. (A word family is a base word and its related forms: read, reads, reading, reader.) No course can teach that many words one by one. Reading a lot can, because you meet the same words again and again, in different sentences.
But the text must match your level. A novel or a newspaper at A2 or B1 means stopping at every line, and reading becomes slow, tiring work. LingunAI writes English at the level you choose, so you understand most of each page and learn a few new words at a time.
What’s easy and what’s hard in English
English is easy to start and hard to master. Its grammar has few endings, but its spelling, its phrasal verbs and its tenses take years to control. Here is what most learners find:
- Easy: there is no grammatical gender (the table, the man, the car), most verbs have only four or five forms (walk, walks, walking, walked), and English is all around you, in films, songs, games and online.
- Spelling and sound: the same letters can sound different (though, through, tough), and one sound can have many spellings (blue, shoe, too, flew). Reading shows you how a word is written; listening shows you how it sounds. You need both.
- Phrasal verbs: a verb plus a small word can mean something new: look after (take care of), look up (find information), look forward to (feel happy about something in the future). They are everywhere in everyday English.
- Articles: a, an, the, or no article at all (I like music, but the music in this café). Many languages have no articles, or use them in a different way.
- Tenses: English has simple, continuous and perfect forms (I work, I’m working, I’ve worked). The present perfect (I have lived here for two years) is hard for many learners.
- Prepositions: in the morning, on Monday, at night. There is often no clear rule, so learn them as part of whole phrases.
How to learn English with LingunAI
- Choose your level. Pick a CEFR level from A1 to C2. If you are not sure, choose one level lower: easy texts help you read faster, and faster reading means more reading.
- Get a story with your words. In StorySplice, type the English words you want to practice, or pick them from your flashcards. LingunAI writes a complete story of 50 to 500 words that uses them, with a full translation into another language you choose.
- Read real news at your level. Paste an article into the article reader. LingunAI rewrites it in English at your level, keeps the facts, and explains 8 to 12 key words.
- Save the words you don’t know. Select a word, or a whole phrasal verb like look after, and save it as a flashcard. Write a simple definition yourself, or let AI fill in the definition, synonyms and examples.
- Look words up in English. The dictionary explains a word in English, with synonyms, four example sentences and the word’s history, so you learn new words through English instead of through translation.
- Review, then speak. By default, each card comes back after 1, 3, 7 and then 15 days. When you are ready, try a job interview or a hotel check-in in a roleplay, and get corrections at the end.
Your English reading path, from A1 to C1
| Level | What you can read | What to do in LingunAI |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | Very short, simple texts: signs, notices, a few sentences about a person | 50–100-word stories; press “Read aloud” to hear each one |
| A2 | Short stories and personal messages about everyday life | 150-word stories built from your own flashcards |
| B1 | Clear texts about work, school and free time; simple news stories | Articles you choose, rewritten at B1; everyday roleplays |
| B2 | Most news articles and modern novels, with some effort | Articles at B2; the grammar coach on your own writing |
| C1 | Long, complex texts, including specialist articles and literature | Original English texts, with LingunAI for the words you still miss |
Want to know what each level means? Read CEFR levels explained.
English questions, answered
01 How can I improve my English reading?
Read a little every day, and choose texts where you know almost every word. Researchers such as Batia Laufer (1989) and Hu and Nation (2000) found that readers need to know about 95 to 98 percent of the words in a text to understand it well. So read many easy texts, save the new words you meet, review them a few days later, and move up a level when reading feels easy.
02 What English level do I need to read the news?
Most news articles are comfortable at B2. The CEFR describes B2 readers as able to read articles and reports about current problems in which the writer has a point of view, while B1 readers mainly understand everyday texts. Below B2 you can still read the news: paste an article into LingunAI and it rewrites it at your level.
03 Is reading or listening better for learning English?
You need both, and reading is the easier place to start. A text lets you go at your own speed and shows you how each word is spelled, which matters in English because spelling and sound often don't match. The linguist Paul Nation counts reading and listening together as meaning-focused input, one of the four strands of a balanced course, so read a text first and then listen to it.
04 Does LingunAI teach American or British English?
LingunAI writes standard English that readers understand everywhere, and there's no setting to choose American or British English. You can ask the AI tutor about the differences, such as apartment and flat, or color and colour. Both are correct, so just be consistent in your own writing.
05 Can I use LingunAI if my English is very basic?
Yes. You can start at A1 with stories as short as 50 words, and get a full translation of each story into another language you choose. The AI tutor knows your level and your native language, so it can explain grammar in simple steps. The free plan needs no card and includes a one-time allowance of AI credits, enough for about three stories.
Read your first English story today.
Free plan, no card. Pick a level from A1 to C2 and LingunAI writes a story for you, with every new word one tap from your review queue.
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