Die Verwandlung
Franz Kafka · 1915
Probably the most famous opening in German literature. Short enough to read in an afternoon, strange enough to stay with you for years.
German · Deutsch
Read German books with in-context translation.
Open Kafka, Hesse or your own EPUB. Tap any word and get the meaning it has in that sentence - compounds and separable verbs included - with a short note on why.
Die Verwandlung · I
Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. Er lag auf seinem panzerartig harten Rücken und sah, wenn er den Kopf ein wenig hob, seinen gewölbten, braunen, von bogenförmigen Versteifungen geteilten Bauch…
UngezieferSave
vermin
Kafka never names the creature · no “insect”
SentenceWhy?Grammar
Why the original
Why read German books in the original
German is famously precise. Four cases, three genders, compound nouns that pile up to ten syllables. From a textbook, it looks brutal. In a novel, all of that precision starts to feel like a feature.
German prose has its own pace. Long sentences with verbs that arrive at the end. Subordinate clauses inside subordinate clauses. Translators usually break these up; the original keeps them whole, and the meaning unfolds in a different rhythm.
Modern German is also remarkably close to English in vocabulary, especially in everyday words. Once you've picked up the case system, the reading gets easier surprisingly fast.
Start here
Six German books worth your time
Import any DRM-free EPUB of these, or start with a free classic from the app’s library.
Der Steppenwolf
Hermann Hesse · 1927
Hesse writes German that's clear, direct, and full of feeling. Steppenwolf is the kind of novel teenagers read once and adults reread differently.
Der Vorleser
Bernhard Schlink · 1995
Modern German, accessible vocabulary. A good first novel to read in the original. Heavy themes, light sentences.
Buddenbrooks
Thomas Mann · 1901
A century in the life of a Lübeck merchant family. Mann is harder than Hesse, but the prose is one of the great pleasures of German literature.
Faust
Goethe · 1808 / 1832
The German national poem. Verse, archaic in places, but everyone who reads German seriously gets here eventually. Worth the climb.
Tschick
Wolfgang Herrndorf · 2010
A road-trip novel told by a fourteen-year-old. Modern, funny, heartfelt. Currently the standard suggestion for anyone learning German who wants to read fiction.
What a dictionary misses
German you’ll meet in books - explained in place.
Ungeziefervermin
Often translated as “insect”, but the word only means a loathsome pest - Kafka keeps it vague on purpose.
Schwein habento be lucky
Literally “to have pig”. A dictionary gives you a pig; the sentence means someone got off easy.
ins Gras beißento die
Literally “to bite into the grass” - the German cousin of “to bite the dust”.
By level
How to read German at your level.
A2
Short and familiar
Start with a short modern novel like Tschick - everyday words, lots of dialogue. Tap freely, save only the words you meet twice.
B1
Read for the story
Kafka’s Die Verwandlung and Schlink’s Der Vorleser are short and clear. Tap the long compounds and let the grammar note split them.
B2+
Go for the classics
Hesse, Thomas Mann, then Goethe’s Faust. Ask for grammar on long clauses and old forms, and export your deck to Anki.
In the app
How LinguaRead works with German
Drop in any German EPUB. Tap a word and the meaning shows up with the case (nominativ, akkusativ, dativ, genitiv) and the gender. Tap again and you see why the verb is at the end, what kind of subordinate clause it's in, why the article changed.
German doesn't really make sense one word at a time. The case endings only mean something in the context of the sentence. Reading is exactly that context, in a form your brain wants to absorb.
German FAQ
Before you start.
How does it handle separable verbs?
Tap either part - “kam … an” - and the meaning comes back for the whole verb, “ankommen”, as it’s used in this sentence, not the two pieces on their own.
What about long compound words?
Tap the compound and the explanation breaks it into its parts and gives the meaning of the whole, so “Versteifungen” or “panzerartig” stop being a wall.
Can I read older German classics?
Yes, as EPUBs with modern type. Older spellings and forms in Goethe or Mann get a grammar note, so you know what the modern word would be.
Can I import German EPUBs from other stores?
Any DRM-free EPUB works - from Project Gutenberg, your own files or stores that sell without DRM. Books locked to another app’s DRM can’t be opened.
Your first German book, tonight.
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