# Learn a language by reading what lasts.

*Leaders learn languages*

**You don’t have an hour a day for drills. You have a few minutes, and something worth reading.**

Read the Gospel in the Greek it was written in, with the sound and the meaning under every word and your own language right below. Tap a word you want to keep, and it comes back before you forget it. One portion a day, on your calendar.

## Augmented word: Read Greek before you can speak a word of it.

This is the first verse of John, the way Kanboombo’s reader shows it. Augmented word puts the sound and the meaning under every word. Support text below puts the same verse in English underneath, so you never lose the thread.

John 1:1 · Greek, word by word · English below. The verse is read from Kanboombo’s library when this page runs. <https://kanboombo.com/learn/#verse>

## Recall: Tap a word, and it comes back before you forget it.

Recall is Kanboombo’s review. Every word you tap becomes a card, and spaced repetition brings it back just before you would forget it: again today, again tomorrow, then further apart each time you know it. Only the words you chose, from what you actually read.

## ONE LANGUAGE, ONE BOOK: Pick the language you want and the book you will read it in.

- [Learn Greek reading the Gospel](https://kanboombo.com/learn/greek/gospel/)
- Learn Greek reading the classics (coming)
- Learn Greek reading Plato (coming)
- [Learn Arabic reading the Gospel](https://kanboombo.com/learn/arabic/gospel/)
- Learn Arabic reading the classics (coming)
- [Learn Chinese reading the Gospel](https://kanboombo.com/learn/chinese/gospel/)
- Learn Chinese reading the classics (coming)
- [Learn Latin reading the Gospel](https://kanboombo.com/learn/latin/gospel/)
- Learn Latin reading the classics (coming)
- [Learn Spanish reading the Gospel](https://kanboombo.com/learn/spanish/gospel/)
- Learn Spanish reading the classics (coming)
- Learn Spanish reading Plato (coming)

## A portion a day: A lectionary hands you a few verses every day.

A lectionary is a church’s calendar of readings: every day has its passages, the same for everyone who keeps it. Keep one, and a new language arrives a portion at a time, on your calendar.

### Today · Wednesday 21 October

- Maronite: Gospel · Lucas 19:11-28
- Roman: Gospel · Luke 12:39-48
- Coptic Orthodox: Gospel · John 10:1-16

[See every day on Readings](https://kanboombo.com/readings/)

## What you can read: 301 editions in 27 languages, open today.

Every edition below is one you can open right now. Word by word, with the sound and the meaning under each word: Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, English, Spanish, Arabic, Greek and Chinese. The library grows one edition at a time.

- **Hebrew** (word by word): Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible, תפילות
- **Biblical Aramaic** (word by word): OSHB Aramaic Passages
- **English** (word by word): Tyndale New Testament 1534, Douay-Rheims 1899, King James Version, Berean Standard Bible, Jowett, third edition 1892, Shorey, Loeb 1935–1937, Jowett, third edition 1892, Lamb, Loeb 1924, Fowler, Loeb 1914, Fowler, Loeb 1914, Fowler, Loeb 1914, Fowler, Loeb 1914, Jebb, Cambridge 1891, The Song Celestial (Edwin Arnold, 1885), Kisari Mohan Ganguli, 1883–1896, The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an — Pickthall, 1930, Griffith, second edition 1896, Motte, American edition 1846, Sri Guru Granth Sahib — Manmohan Singh, English, Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji — Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa, The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (Benziger, 1903), Adam Smith — Moral Sentiments (Dublin, 1777), Adam Smith — Wealth of Nations (Gutenberg), Traditional prayers, Butler's prose Iliad, 1898, Butler's prose Odyssey, 1900, Macaulay, 1890, First edition, 1859, Pilkington, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers I.1 (1886), Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Benziger, 1947) — Part I, Dods, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers I.2 (1887), Smyth, Loeb 1926 (English), Smyth, Loeb 1926 (English), Smyth, Loeb 1926 (English), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (English), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (English), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (English), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (English), The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and its Amendments (National Archives transcriptions), Proslogium, tr. Sidney Norton Deane (Chicago: Open Court, 1903), Athenian Society, London 1912, Athenian Society, London 1912, Athenian Society, London 1912, Edghill, Project Gutenberg 2412 (Categories), Chase, Everyman's Library (Nicomachean Ethics), Butcher, Macmillan (Poetics), Ellis, Everyman's Library (Politics), Pride and Prejudice, ed. R. W. Chapman, as Project Gutenberg's ebook 42671 sets it (1813 title pages; impression not named), Novum Organum, ed. Joseph Devey (New York: Collier, 1902), Heart of Darkness (Project Gutenberg 219), Discourse on the Method, tr. John Veitch (Project Gutenberg), Six Metaphysical Meditations, tr. William Molyneux (London: Benj. Tooke, 1680), Poems, Series One to Three, ed. Todd and Higginson (Project Gutenberg 2678, 2679, 12241), The Brothers Karamazov, tr. Constance Garnett (1912), Crime and Punishment, tr. Constance Garnett (1914), The Idiot, tr. Constance Garnett (1913), Notes from Underground, tr. Constance Garnett (1918), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), appendix of speeches — Frederick Douglass, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, tr. Perrett and Jeffery (1923) — Fourmilab, Relativity: The Special and General Theory, tr. Robert W. Lawson (1920), Prufrock and Other Observations; The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot (Project Gutenberg 1459, 1321), Coleridge, Bell 1906, Coleridge, Bell 1906, Coleridge, Bell 1906, The Federalist Papers, Constitution Society text (Project Gutenberg 1404), A Simple Soul, English (translator and printing not named; Gutenberg #1253), Beyond the Pleasure Principle, tr. C. J. M. Hubback (London: International Psycho-Analytical Press, 1922), A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, authorized translation with a preface by G. Stanley Hall (New York: Horace Liveright, 1920), Faust. Eine Tragödie — Cotta, Tübingen 1808, The Sorrows of Young Werther, tr. R. D. Boylan (1854), Household Tales, tr. Margaret Hunt (1884), Motion of the Heart and Blood, tr. Robert Willis (1847), The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1878), as Project Gutenberg's ebook 25344 sets it, Book of Songs, tr. Edgar Alfred Bowring (1859), A Treatise of Human Nature (Project Gutenberg 4705), Treatise on Light, tr. Silvanus P. Thompson (University of Chicago Press), Critique of Practical Reason, tr. T. K. Abbott (1873), Critique of Pure Reason, tr. J. M. D. Meiklejohn (1855), Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, tr. T. K. Abbott (1873), Perpetual Peace, tr. M. Campbell Smith (1903), Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, tr. Paul Carus (1902), The Fables of La Fontaine, tr. Elizur Wright, new edition with notes by J. W. M. Gibbs (1882), Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims, tr. J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell (1871), The Princess of Cleves, English (translator and printing not named; Gutenberg #467), Elements of Chemistry, tr. Robert Kerr (Edinburgh, 1790), Discourse on Metaphysics, tr. George R. Montgomery (Chicago: Open Court, 1908), Monadology, tr. Robert Latta (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), Speeches — The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Constitutional Edition (ed. Arthur Brooks Lapsley), Of the Nature of Things, tr. William Ellery Leonard (1916), Death in Venice, tr. Kenneth Burke (The Dial, 1924), The Communist Manifesto, tr. Samuel Moore (1888), Benito Cereno, in The Piazza Tales (New York: Dix & Edwards, 1856), The Misanthrope, tr. Curtis Hidden Page (1908; Wikisource transcription), Essays, tr. Charles Cotton, ed. William Carew Hazlitt (1877), The Antichrist, tr. H. L. Mencken (1923), Beyond Good and Evil, tr. Helen Zimmern (1907), The Birth of Tragedy, tr. William A. Haussmann (1910), Ecce Homo, tr. Anthony M. Ludovici (1911), The Twilight of the Idols, tr. Anthony M. Ludovici (1911), Thus Spake Zarathustra, tr. Thomas Common (1909), Pensées, tr. W. F. Trotter (Harvard Classics, 1910), Lamb, Loeb 1925, Fowler, Loeb 1926, Fowler, Loeb 1914, Lamb, Loeb 1924, Fowler, Loeb 1921, Lamb, Loeb 1925, Fowler, Loeb 1921, Bury, Loeb 1929, Phaedra, tr. Robert Bruce Boswell (printing not named; Project Gutenberg 1977), Herbert Giles, Shanghai 1900, The Robbers, tr. Henry G. Bohn (1849), Wilhelm Tell, tr. Theodore Martin (1847), The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims, tr. T. Bailey Saunders (1890), The World as Will and Idea, tr. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp (1909 printing), Jebb, Cambridge 1896, Jebb, Cambridge 1894, Jebb, Cambridge 1889, Jebb, Cambridge 1887, Jebb, Cambridge 1898, Jebb, Cambridge 1892, The Ethics, tr. R. H. M. Elwes (Project Gutenberg #3800; printing not named), Harmonium, by Wallace Stevens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923; Project Gutenberg 78743), Lionel Giles, London 1910, Gulliver's Travels (Project Gutenberg 829), Herbert Giles, Gems of Chinese Literature, Shanghai 1922, History of the Peloponnesian War, tr. Richard Crawley (1874), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, as Project Gutenberg's ebook 76 sets it (E. W. Kemble's illustrations; no printing named), The Aeneid of Virgil, tr. Theodore C. Williams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910), Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Project Gutenberg 2376), Mrs. Dalloway, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. (Project Gutenberg 71865), Poems, six books, 1903–1928, by W. B. Yeats (Project Gutenberg 32233, 30488, 36865, 32491, 72987, 72985)
- **Spanish** (word by word): Reina-Valera 1909, Torres Amat 1825, Palabra de Dios para ti, Versión Biblia Libre, La Biblia en Español Sencillo, Qurbono 2005 (Spanish working draft), Azcárate, Obras completas de Platón VII–VIII (1872), Azcárate, Obras completas de Platón IV (1871), Azcárate, Obras completas de Platón I (1871), Azcárate, Obras completas de Platón I (1871), Azcárate, Obras completas de Platón I (1871), Azcárate, Obras completas de Platón V (1871), Sri Guru Granth Sahib — traducción de SikhNet, Texto autógrafo · Ignacio de Loyola, Oraciones tradicionales
- **Arabic** (word by word): Van Dyck, Qurbono 2005 (Arabic), Tanzil Uthmani text, version 1.1, صلوات تقليدية
- **Greek** (word by word): Tischendorf Greek New Testament, Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera IV), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera III), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera I), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera I), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera I), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera I), Storr, Loeb 1912, Προσευχαί, Monro & Allen, Oxford Classical Texts (Homeri Opera I–II), Murray, Loeb Classical Library (The Odyssey, Greek text), Godley, Loeb Classical Library (Herodotus, Greek text), Heiberg, Euclidis Opera Omnia I–V (Teubner, 1883–1888), Smyth, Loeb 1926 (Greek), Smyth, Loeb 1926 (Greek), Smyth, Loeb 1926 (Greek), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (Greek), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (Greek), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (Greek), Smyth, Loeb 1922 (Greek), Hall and Geldart, Oxford 1906, Hall and Geldart, Oxford 1906, Hall and Geldart, Oxford 1907, Bekker, Oxford 1837 (Aristotelis Opera, vol. 1, Categories), Bywater, Oxford Classical Texts (Ethica Nicomachea), Bekker, Oxford 1837 (Aristotelis Opera, vol. 1, De interpretatione), Bekker, Oxford 1837 (Aristotelis Opera, vol. 11), Ross, Oxford Classical Texts (Politics, 1957), Murray, Oxford 1902, Murray, Oxford 1913, Murray, Oxford 1902, Murray, Oxford 1902, Murray, Oxford 1913, Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera III), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera II), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera II), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera III), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera I), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera II), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera I), Burnet, Oxford Classical Texts (Platonis Opera IV), Storr, Loeb 1913, Storr, Loeb 1913, Storr, Loeb 1912, Storr, Loeb 1912, Storr, Loeb 1913, Storr, Loeb 1913, Jones, Oxford Classical Texts (1910; 1942 printing)
- **Chinese** (word by word): Chinese Union Version (Simplified), Chinese Union Version (Traditional), 木蘭詩 — Chinese Wikisource, 洛神賦 — Chinese Wikisource, 殉難六烈士傳 — Chinese Wikisource, 少年中國說 — Chinese Wikisource, 與妻書 — Chinese Wikisource (the manuscript), 魯迅全集, vol. 1 (Shanghai, 1948) — Chinese Wikisource, 清平山堂話本 — Chinese Wikisource, 三字經 as Herbert Giles prints it, Shanghai 1900 — English Wikisource, 墓畔哀歌 — Chinese Wikisource, 孫子兵法 — Chinese Wikisource, 桃花源記并詩 — Chinese Wikisource, 與山巨源絕交書 — Chinese Wikisource, 希望的埋葬 — Chinese Wikisource, 決斷 — Chinese Wikisource, 再剖 — Chinese Wikisource, 雪花的快樂 — Chinese Wikisource, 天國的消息 — Chinese Wikisource, 破廟 — Chinese Wikisource, 血淚 — Chinese Wikisource, 春風沉醉的晚上 — Chinese Wikisource, 沉淪 — Chinese Wikisource, 背影 (Kaiming Shudian, Shanghai, 1928) — Chinese Wikisource, 匆匆 (Yadong Tushuguan, Shanghai, 1924) — Chinese Wikisource, 荷塘月色 (Kaiming Shudian, Shanghai, 1928) — Chinese Wikisource
- **German**: Luther Bible 1912, Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper — German Wikisource, Über die spezielle und die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie, Vieweg 1917, Jenseits des Lustprinzips (Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 2nd ed., 1921), Faust. Eine Tragödie — Cotta, Tübingen 1808, Die Leiden des jungen Werther — Project Gutenberg, Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, 7th edition (1857) — German Wikisource, Phänomenologie des Geistes — first edition, 1807 (Deutsches Textarchiv), Buch der Lieder, first edition (1827) — German Wikisource, Die Verwandlung (Kurt Wolff, 1917), Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Akademie-Ausgabe (1913), Kritik der reinen Vernunft, second edition (1787), Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (Cassirer, 1913), Zum ewigen Frieden, first edition (1795), Der Tod in Venedig (Hyperion, 1912), Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, London 1848 — German Wikisource, Jenseits von Gut und Böse — Project Gutenberg (ebook 7204), Die Geburt der Tragödie — Project Gutenberg (old spelling), Ecce homo — Project Gutenberg (old spelling), Götzen-Dämmerung — Project Gutenberg (old spelling), Also sprach Zarathustra — Project Gutenberg (ebook 7205), Die Räuber — Cotta, Tübingen 1805, Wilhelm Tell — Cotta, Stuttgart 1862, Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit (Ohle, 1913)
- **Latin**: Vulgata Clementina, Principia, first edition 1687, Acta Sanctae Sedis · Acta Apostolicae Sedis, to 1930, Preces traditae, Migne, Patrologia Latina 32 (1841), Leonine text, Rome 1888–1889 (Prima Pars), Migne, Patrologia Latina 41, Proslogion seu Alloquium de Dei existentia, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 158 (Paris, 1864), Meditationes de prima philosophia, ed. Artur Buchenau (Leipzig: Meiner, 1913), after the first edition (Paris, 1641), De rerum natura, Perseus Latin text (printing not named), Aeneid, ed. J. B. Greenough (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1881), Perseus Latin text
- **Russian**: Russian Synodal Bible (1876), Братья Карамазовы — Russian Wikisource, Преступление и наказание — Russian Wikisource, Идиот — Russian Wikisource, Записки из подполья — Russian Wikisource
- **French**: Louis Segond 1910, Discours de la méthode, in Œuvres de Descartes, éd. Victor Cousin, t. I (dated 1824 by Wikisource's index; the ebook prints no year), Trois contes, fifth edition (1877), Un cœur simple, Fables de La Fontaine, illustrations par Grandville (Garnier Frères, Paris, 1868), Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales (1678 text in modernised spelling; Project Gutenberg 14913), La Princesse de Clèves, as Gutenberg #18797 prints it (1689 Barbin title page, spelling modernised), Traité élémentaire de chimie, Paris, Cuchet, 1789, La Monadologie, éd. Clodius Piat (Paris: Lecoffre, 1900), Le Misanthrope, éd. Philarète Chasles (Calmann Lévy, Paris, 1887), Essais, the 1595 text as General Michaud printed it (1907), Pensées, éd. Léon Brunschvicg (Hachette, 1921–1925), Phèdre, Racine, Œuvres (Didot, 1854), as transcribed on French Wikisource
- **Vietnamese**: Kinh Thánh (Cadman, 1925)
- **Italian**: Riveduta (Luzzi, 1927)
- **Marathi**: Indian Revised Version (Marathi)
- **Portuguese**: Bíblia Livre (2018)
- **Bengali**: Indian Revised Version (Bengali)
- **Gujarati**: Indian Revised Version (Gujarati)
- **Hindi**: Indian Revised Version (Hindi)
- **Punjabi**: Indian Revised Version (Punjabi), Faridkot Wala Teeka, Sri Guru Granth Sahib — Manmohan Singh, Punjabi, Sri Guru Granth Darpan — Prof. Sahib Singh, Shabadaarth, SGPC
- **Tamil**: Indian Revised Version (Tamil)
- **Telugu**: Indian Revised Version (Telugu)
- **Urdu**: Indian Revised Version (Urdu, Devanagari script)
- **Japanese**: Freedom Bible (Japanese)
- **Thai**: Freedom Bible (Thai)
- **Eastern Armenian**: Eastern Armenian Bible
- **Western Armenian**: Western Armenian Bible
- **Sanskrit**: Śrīmadbhagavadgītā, Sanskrit Wikisource

## Why it’s worth it: Three short essays on why a language is worth your time.

- [Why learn a language when AI can translate everything?](https://kanboombo.com/languages/why-learn-a-language/): For the same reason you still walk when cars exist.
- [If you want to keep your brain young, give it something hard to do.](https://kanboombo.com/languages/keep-your-brain-young/): Learn another language.
- [Give your children a second language.](https://kanboombo.com/languages/for-your-children/): Then give them a reason to keep it.

## You will always seek connection.

Start where it lasts: one portion today, in the language you know beside the one you are learning. Free to read and to sign up.