I built an app so I could read the 3 Body-Problem in Chinese
Hey HN! I’m Alex, and one of my favorite ways to learn languages is by reading novels. Currently I’m reading 三体 (3 body problem), but one problem I've always had is it takes ages to look up words, and add them to Anki flashcards so I can remember them. 三体 is especially brutal with so much sci-fi vocab. That’s why I built Readly. I snap a pic of the page I’m reading, it loads the text in-app and lets me lookup words, add to Anki-style flashcards, or ask AI questions about the text, all in a single tap. It's a huge time saver. My specific learning strategy, if anyone wants to replicate it: 1.…
In plain words
Readly is a language learning app designed for readers tackling foreign language novels. Users photograph pages they're reading, and the app extracts the text, allowing them to look up unfamiliar words, create flashcard-style notes, and ask AI questions about passages—all with a single tap. The tool targets language learners using novel-reading as their learning method, significantly reducing the time spent switching between reading and studying materials like Anki flashcards.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN! I’m Alex, and one of my favorite ways to learn languages is by reading novels. Currently I’m reading 三体 (3 body problem), but one problem I've always had is it takes ages to look up words, and add them to Anki flashcards so I can remember them. 三体 is especially brutal with so much sci-fi vocab. That’s why I built Readly. I snap a pic of the page I’m reading, it loads the text in-app and lets me lookup words, add to Anki-style flashcards, or ask AI questions about the text, all in a single tap. It's a huge time saver. My specific learning strategy, if anyone wants to replicate it: 1. Buy a book you genuinely want to read (if not genuinely interested, you will lose motivation). 2. Load the pages into Readly. Translate any words you don’t know and add them to flashcards. 3. Once you finish a chapter, re-read it quickly without any tools. Then move to the next chapter. 4. If you want to improve listening skills, Readly lets you listen to the text too. Personally I repeat every page several times until I fully understand it. As a brit who only started learning Chinese in my 20s, I was able to take grad school classes fully taught in Chinese after only a few years, so reading novels is definitely a useful strategy! (Tsinghua uni, data science). Readly also works great for reading assignments in textbooks, social media posts on 小红书 (red note), Chinese AI research papers, or any Chinese text tbh. I know Chinese reading is a bit niche, but hopefully some other people here can enjoy it! Please let me know any feedback :) Alex
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