Free language learning.
Learn as you read traditional books. Each book will gradually change from English to the language of your choice as you read.
iPhone · iOS 15 or later · no account, no subscription
How it works
As you read, words are gradually translated.
Initially only a few, as you learn them more and more, until you are reading in the language of your choice.
Initially a few words appear translated. Tap them to view the translation.
A tap means "I didn't know that"
It is the only thing you ever have to do. Tapping a word tells InkShift to keep showing it; a word you read past without tapping is one you have learned.
Known words stay, and more arrive
Words you never tap are treated as learned. New words are then added to the pool as well as your vocabulary improves.
Then phrases, then sentences
Learn every word in a phrase and the phrase switches, correcting the word order. Learn every word in a sentence and the sentence itself flips.
The shelf
Books worth reading twice
A large collection of public domain books to read - for free.
Support
Questions, and where to send them
Most of it is below. If yours is not, ask.
Spanish, French, German or Italian currently. New languages could be added in the future based upon the success of the app and public demand.
Yes. I do plan on possible adding in new books for a minimal cost, but will keep the core app and a large selection of books free forever.
Yes, everything happens on your device. The only thing that requires an internet connection is for the audio voice samples, largely to stop the app being huge. Reading itself requires no data.
No. Outside invasive tracking there is no real point to it - all progress is stored on your phone. They may be added in the future as a option to enable cross-device sync, but only as an option.
Because it is not worth your time, and we have taken that decision on your behalf. Words arrive in the order you are likely to meet them again, so the common ones come first and a few percent of any book never come at all. You want the word for house long before the word for shipyard. The shipyards stay in English, quietly, and nobody need mention it again.
Unfortunately they are all done by AI. There is no way to make the app and retain all my kidneys by having a human translator, it is just eye wateringly expensive. I hope that once you gain fluency you can buy your favorite novels elsewhere that have been translated properly.
An iPhone on iOS 15 or later, which is to say very nearly any iPhone. It installs and runs on an iPad too, at iPhone size — but it is built for the phone at launch and I would rather say so than let you find out. Books are a few megabytes each, not a few hundred — you will run out of enthusiasm long before you run out of storage. I only have an iPhone X and it was developed on that.
Get in touch
Bugs, questions, requests, or a book you would dearly like to see on the shelf — it all goes to the same inbox: support@inkshift.app.
If something has gone wrong, a few details make it very much quicker to fix:
- which book, which language, and roughly where in it you were
- what you expected to happen, and what happened instead
- your device and iOS version, from Settings → General → About