阿Q正传
鲁迅 · Lu Xun · 1922
The novella that more or less invented modern Chinese fiction. Short, sharp, full of irony. The starting point for any reader of 20th century Chinese literature.
Chinese · 中文
Read Chinese books with in-context translation.
Open Lu Xun, Yu Hua or your own EPUB. Tap any word and get the meaning it has in that sentence - chengyu and classical turns of phrase included - with a short note on why.
狂人日记 · 一
今天晚上，很好的月光。我不见他，已是三十多年；今天见了，精神分外爽快。才知道以前的三十多年，全是发昏；然而须十分小心。不然，那赵家的狗，何以看我两眼呢？我怕得有理。
发昏Save
living in a daze
Dictionary: “feel dizzy”; here: years spent confused
SentenceWhy?Grammar
Why the original
Why read Chinese books in the original
Chinese has a few thousand characters you have to know to read at all. There's no inflection (no tenses, no plurals, no conjugation), but the syntax doesn't map onto English neatly, and the same character has different meanings depending on what's around it.
The only way to actually learn it is exposure. Lots of it. Reading is exactly that, in the form of stories. Every page is a few new characters in context, slowly attaching themselves to your vocabulary.
The literature is enormous and underread outside China. Lu Xun's short stories shaped the modern language; Lao She's plays and novels are cornerstones of 20th-century Beijing; contemporary writers like Yu Hua, Mo Yan, and Liu Cixin are widely translated, but the originals are denser and stranger.
Start here
Six Chinese books worth your time
Import any DRM-free EPUB of these, or start with a free classic from the app’s library.
茶馆
老舍 · Lao She · 1957
A play, but reads beautifully on the page. Sixty years of Beijing history through the lens of one teahouse.
活着
余华 · Yu Hua · 1993
Plain Chinese, devastating story. A man tells the story of his life across 20th-century China. One of the most read modern Chinese novels for a reason.
三体
刘慈欣 · Liu Cixin · 2008
Hard science fiction with Chinese sensibilities. The first volume of the Three-Body trilogy. Modern Chinese, accessible vocabulary, big ideas.
围城
钱钟书 · Qian Zhongshu · 1947
A satirical novel about a returnee from Europe trying to find a place in 1930s China. Funny, dense, full of literary jokes.
红高粱家族
莫言 · Mo Yan · 1986
A village saga set during the Japanese occupation. Mo Yan's Chinese is rich, regional, and not easy - but it's the kind of language that pays you back.
What a dictionary misses
Chinese you’ll meet in books - explained in place.
马马虎虎careless; so-so
Literally “horse horse tiger tiger” - it describes sloppy work or a middling result.
画蛇添足to ruin something by overdoing it
“Drawing legs on a snake” - a chengyu from an old fable about adding what isn’t needed.
吃醋to be jealous
Word by word “to eat vinegar” - in a love story, nobody is at the table.
By level
How to read Chinese at your level.
A2
Short and familiar
Start with short modern stories. Tap freely - a word can be two or three characters, and the app shows the whole word. Save only what you meet twice.
B1
Read for the story
Yu Hua’s 活着 is plain, moving and dialogue-heavy. Use “Why?” on chengyu and measure words, and review five minutes a day.
B2+
Go for the classics
Lu Xun, Lao She, Qian Zhongshu, Mo Yan. Turn to grammar notes for older, semi-classical phrasing and export your deck to Anki.
In the app
How LinguaRead works with Chinese
Drop in any Chinese EPUB - simplified or traditional. Tap a word and you see the meaning, the reading (pinyin), the breakdown if it's a compound. Tap again to see the role it's playing in this sentence and how it's used elsewhere.
The character barrier is the thing that stops most learners. Tap-to-translate gets you past it: you read at your level, the meanings appear in context, and slowly the characters start to feel familiar instead of impossible.
Chinese FAQ
Before you start.
Simplified or traditional characters?
Both. Read whatever script your book is in - explanations follow the text on the page.
Chinese has no spaces - how does tapping work?
Tap a character and you get the word it belongs to in this sentence, with its meaning here, so 发昏 is read as one word, not two.
Is Lu Xun too hard for a learner?
His short stories are compact but use older phrasing. With tap-to-translate they’re a good B1–B2 challenge; 阿Q正传 is a classic place to start.
Can I import Chinese EPUBs from other stores?
Any DRM-free EPUB works - your own files or stores that sell without DRM. Books locked to another app’s DRM can’t be opened.
Your first Chinese book, tonight.
Free to try on iPhone and iPad.
