Eugène Dété after Paul Thiriat, 1908 (public domain)
Free English reading, level B2
Read Wilde's only novel in his original English
Wilde's epigrams lose their edge in translation. Read the wit exactly as he wrote it.
Learn English with this book for freeThe Picture of Dorian Gray is famous for its wit, and wit is exactly what gets flattened in translation. Lira keeps Wilde's own English on the page, but every unfamiliar word is one tap away from a translation, and every word you look up gets scheduled for review so the vocabulary sticks, not just the plot.
Key vocabulary from The Picture of Dorian Gray
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.
odour
smell, scent
stirred
moved gently, was stirred
scent
perfume, fragrance
studio
artist's studio
delicate
delicate, subtle
garden
garden
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.
The studio was filled with the rich odour of , and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the , or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering .
TRANSLATION
lilac (the flower/shrub)
CONTEXT
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
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
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