One person, one stubborn problem.

The premise

Every language learner eventually hits the same wall. The first 2,000 words come from courses, the next 3,000 come from willpower, and the 5,000 after that come from doing the one thing the courses can’t do for you: reading a lot of real text.

The blocker isn’t will. The blocker is friction. Books drown you in unknown words. Looking them up breaks reading. Building cards by hand is glacial. Most learners abandon the project somewhere around chapter four.

What Lemnly does today

It closes the loop. You read — a graded story at your level, a free classic, a web article you pasted in, an EPUB from your phone, or a page you photographed. You tap a word you don’t know and get the translation, the part of speech, an example, and a grammar explanation if you want one. That word becomes a card, scheduled with FSRS, with separate forward and reverse state so recognising it and producing it get their own curves. Six study modes — auto, flashcard, typing, listening, multiple choice, letter assembly — and then you go back to the book.

What it doesn’t do yet (and what’s coming)

• Languages. Today: English, German, Spanish. French, Italian and Portuguese are next, then more languages that put spaces between their words — those drop into the existing reader without much fuss. Scripts that don’t space their words, like Japanese and Chinese, are on the list too, but tapping a word there means first deciding where the word ends, so they’ll come later.
• Native apps. The iPhone and iPad app is built and sitting in App Store review — it isn’t downloadable yet. Android is further back; until both land, the web app installs to your home screen.
• Browser extension. On the list. For now, paste the URL.
• Paid plans. The beta is free. When paid plans launch, existing users will get notice first.

What I believe

• Software should help you read more books. If an app keeps you in its own UI instead of pushing you toward the book you wanted to read, it failed.
• Streaks should encourage, not punish. A missed Tuesday is not a moral failure.
• AI is a labelling tool, not a teacher. The learner does the work. The model saves time on the tedious parts.
• Your data is yours. Delete your account whenever you like, and ask for a copy of your library any time. Nothing is sold; nothing is used to train models.

Get in touch

If you’ve got feedback, a feature request, or you just want to talk about how to read Tolstoy in the original — please say hello or email hello@sooties.com. I read every message.