Today I am officially launching Beletria, my very first app. It is free, and it teaches you a language by having you read public-domain classics in their original words.
Less than seven weeks ago, in my first post, the shelf held German and French. Today it also holds Italian and Spanish, every book is fully narrated, and the app is on the App Store. So it feels like the right moment to open the door properly.
What is on the shelf
Here is what you get for free, with no ads:
- 📚 95 books by 30 authors, in French, German, Italian and Spanish
- ✍️ 148,684 sentences, about 2.7 million words of original text
- 🌍 An English translation and a grammar note for every sentence
- 🔍 2.5 million word entries, each explained in the context of its sentence
- 🎧 775 hours of audio, covering both the originals and the English translations
- 🗣️ 63 AI narrator voices across five languages, with narrators chosen per book
The audio alone would take you more than a month to play back without sleeping. The shelf runs from fairy tales you can finish over a coffee to Les Trois Mousquetaires at 11,308 sentences.
The text you read is the author's, word for word, never simplified. The translations, notes and narration are prepared by AI and checked before a book reaches the shelf. If you are curious how that works, and what it cost, I wrote about it in Quality vs. Cost.
What it costs
Nothing. There are no ads and no card to enter. You can open any book and read its first 20 sentences as a guest, and a free sign-in with Apple or Google unlocks every book from the first page to the last.
Early adopters
I promised in September that the first users to sign in would earn early adopter status, and that promise stands. If Beletria ever adds a premium tier, early adopters get all of it, for free, for as long as the app exists. There is nothing to claim or fill in. If you have already signed in, you are one of them.
Where to find it
Beletria runs in any browser at app.beletria.com, and on iPhone through the App Store. The Android app is on its way. Until then, the web app works well in your phone's browser.
What comes next
More books, more languages, better quality, more magic, and that is where you come in. If a book you love is missing, request it in the app. If you would like a different language next, tell me which one. I read all the feedback that comes in.
Happy reading.