Tips & guide
How to read on LeftLingo.
Everything happens in two places: the feed, where you choose, and the story, where you read.
01 · The feed
Pick a story that looks good.
Five sections fill every day: News, Satire, Fiction, Travel and Education. Each headline shows its translation underneath, so you know what you’re getting into.
Open today’s feed ›
Un nuovo teatro dell'opera apre a Shanghai
A new opera house opens in Shanghai
La legge italiana sulle spiagge libere: il mare deve comprare un biglietto
Italy's Free Beaches Law: the sea must buy a ticket
02 · Reading a story
Tap once to see it in English. Tap again to hide it.
Read in your target language first. The speaker beside a sentence plays just that sentence, and the round button beside a paragraph plays that paragraph. The player pinned to the bottom of the screen reads the whole story in Italian or English. It always picks up from the last sentence you heard, you can tap its progress bar to jump to any sentence, and the line being read is highlighted as you go.
Prefer translations always on, or never? Switch between Tap, Both and Off at the top of any story.
Il vincitore della maratona si è fermato due volte per un espresso.
03 · The study panel
Tap the book to go deeper.
The book icon on an open sentence brings up the study panel: a word-by-word breakdown, a grammar explanation when you ask for it, and a box for your own questions. The English stays blurred until you choose to reveal it — try to work it out first.
Use Previous and Next to study sentence after sentence, and flag anything that looks wrong with “Report a problem”. An editor reviews every report.
A few habits that help.
Read before you tap.
Give each sentence a real try first. Guessing from context is where the learning happens.
Listen, then read.
Play a paragraph with your eyes on the text to connect sound and spelling.
Step up a level.
Finished the A1 version easily? Switch to B1 and read the same story again.
The tips show on the page the first time you meet each feature. See them again any time.
Open the demo story ›