How to Read Books in a Foreign Language Without Stopping
Reading in a foreign language usually means stopping.
Stopping to translate.
Stopping to remember.
Stopping to study.
Very quickly, reading turns into work — and that's where most people lose momentum.
Why reading breaks down
The main problem isn't difficulty.
It's interruption.
Every unknown word forces a decision:
- Should I translate it?
- Should I remember it?
- Is it worth turning into a flashcard?
That mental overhead adds up fast and pulls you out of the story.
A reading-first approach
I'm building a reading-first language app based on a simple rule:
No drills during reading.
No flashcard interruptions.
When you translate a word, a flashcard is created automatically — no decision needed.
When you encounter that word again in the text, that's already a repetition.
- Translate it again → you don't know it yet.
- Skip it → you do.
There's no separate "study mode" interrupting your reading flow.
Spaced repetition, without doing spaced repetition
What's happening here is essentially spaced repetition — but implicit.
Words repeat naturally inside the book.
The ones you don't know keep slowing you down.
The ones you do know fade into the background.
This also solves another hard problem naturally:
Which words are worth learning?
You don't memorize word lists.
You learn the words your reading actually demands, at your level.
A simple example
You're reading a novel and see the word "glanced".
- First time: you translate it.
- A few pages later: you hesitate, translate again.
- Later in the chapter: you read it without thinking.
At that point, the word stops interrupting you — and that's real learning.
The goal
The goal isn't to study more.
It's to read more without breaking immersion.