Charles Léandre, 1931 (public domain)
Free French reading, level B2
Read Madame Bovary in Flaubert's original French
The novel that got its own author put on trial, in Flaubert's exact, unforgiving prose.
Learn French with this book for freeMadame Bovary is famous for Flaubert's exact, unforgiving prose, precisely the kind of writing that gets smoothed over in translation. Lira keeps Flaubert's own French, but every unfamiliar word is one tap away from a translation, and every word you look up gets scheduled for review so it actually sticks.
Key vocabulary from Madame Bovary
A preview of the words you'll run into early on, with pronunciation. Every one of them, and every other word you tap while reading, gets saved to your review deck automatically.
l'étude
study hall
suivre
to follow
habillé
dressed
le garçon
boy
porter
to carry
nouveau
new (student)
What actually happens while you read
One tap to translate
Click any unfamiliar word for its contextual translation, right inside the page. No dictionary tab, no losing your place in the story.
Every word saved with its sentence
The word you looked up keeps the exact sentence you found it in, not an isolated flashcard, so the meaning stays anchored to real context.
FSRS brings it back before you forget
Spaced repetition schedules each word's next review right before you'd naturally lose it, so vocabulary from this book actually stays with you.
Nous étions à l'Étude, quand le entra, suivi d'un nouveau habillé en et d'un garçon de classe qui portait un grand .
TRANSLATION
headmaster
CONTEXT
Nous étions à l'Étude, quand le Proviseur entra, suivi d'un nouveau habillé en bourgeois et d'un garçon de classe qui portait un grand pupitre.
Start reading free →The science
Recognizing a word isn't the same as remembering it
According to Stephen Krashen's comprehensible input hypothesis, a language is acquired durably through exposure to content you mostly already understand, not through isolated word lists. Reading a real book supplies exactly that kind of exposure. Spaced repetition on top of it is what turns a word you translated once into one you actually remember weeks later.
Learning approach
Retention with Lira
Start learning French with Madame Bovary today
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