LingQ is where many self-directed learners read their way into a language: importing articles, videos and ebooks, tapping unknown words, watching their known-word count grow. It is built around an interactive reader on a screen, and does that very well. Learners who mostly listen on walks, at the gym or on the commute often want the reverse: whole books heard first, with help that works with the phone in a pocket.
LingQ is a reading and listening platform co-founded by the polyglot Steve Kaufmann and running since 2007. Its method is comprehensible input: you learn from content you want to read or hear, not from drills. It works on the web, iOS and Android in more than 50 languages (52 are listed on its site), including Finnish, Thai, Ukrainian and Irish Gaelic.
The centre of LingQ is its reader. You open a lesson, read or listen, and tap an unknown word for definitions from several dictionaries or an AI-suggested translation. A saved word becomes a "LingQ", and every word is colour-coded across your library: blue for new, yellow for learning, white for known. LingQ also tracks known words, words read and hours of listening.
Content is the other strength. The library holds thousands of lessons from podcasts, books, interviews, videos and articles, all with matching text, plus Mini Stories for beginners. The importer, including a browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge, turns Netflix shows, YouTube videos, podcasts, ebooks and web articles into lessons, and AI transcription does the same for podcasts and audiobooks. Few apps match this range.
LingQ does support listening away from the desk. The reasons learners look further are about what happens while they listen.
Redible is built so that listening is as comfortable as reading. You choose a complete book in its original language, not a bilingual edition, and every sentence is narrated in a natural, expressive synthesized voice (not a human narrator, not the phone's built-in text-to-speech), synchronized with the text. Read along, or put the phone away and keep going.
Support reaches you by ear:
The trade-offs are real: Redible has books in seven languages against LingQ's 50+, from a curated library of complete books. It runs on iPhone, iPad and Android, is free to start (the first chapter of every book comes with full audio and support), and Premium costs $11.99 a month or $99.99 a year on the US App Store.