The reader works the same on phone and desktop, with different gestures for some actions. Read aloud and display preferences each get their own page; this one covers moving through a chapter and the translation tools built into it.
Opening a chapter#
Tap a chapter from a novel's chapter list, the Continue shelf on the home page, or your library to open it. The translated text is usually already on the page when it loads. If a chapter hasn't been translated yet, you see a short loading state while it translates: a Reader member's chapter past 50 translates the first time anyone with that membership opens it, typically within about 10 seconds, with a progress bar and status text. See AI translation past chapter 50 for how that fits with the background translation.
The bars#
The reader has a top bar (back button, chapter and novel title, reading-settings button) and a bottom bar (read aloud, Repair, Glossary, bookmark, chapter list, previous/next). The same tools sit in the row above the chapter text.
- Repair opens a menu with Retranslate, Rescrape and Report (see below).
- Glossary turns full glossary highlighting on and opens a small menu with List (the chapter's terms) and Add (a new term). Press it again to turn the highlighting off. The bookmark button opens a menu of reading statuses, so you can mark a novel without leaving the chapter (see Reading statuses).
Tap anywhere in the chapter text to show or hide both bars at once. The tap is ignored on links, buttons, glossary terms, open dialogs, and any text you've selected, so it doesn't interfere with reading or highlighting.
Tip The top bar also hides itself automatically when the chapter title further up the page is already visible on screen, so it doesn't duplicate information you can already see.
Moving between chapters#
| Method | How |
|---|---|
| Buttons | Previous and Next buttons above the chapter text and in the bottom bar |
| Keyboard | Left Arrow (previous chapter), Right Arrow (next chapter) |
| Touch gesture | At the very bottom of the page, pull up past the last paragraph |
The pull gesture fills a thin rail at the bottom edge; release once it's full to go to the next chapter. It doesn't appear on the last chapter of a novel.
The chapter list#
The Chapters button in the bottom bar opens the novel's chapter list at the chapter you're currently reading, with that chapter marked. Long novels are split into pages of 100 chapters; use the arrows at the bottom of the list to move between pages, or search by chapter number or title to find a chapter on any page. Current brings you back to the chapter you're reading.
The Chapters tab on a novel's page works the same way, starting from the first page in your chosen order (newest or oldest first).
AI translation vs. Google Translate#
Which version you read depends on the chapter and your tier, not a choice you make freely:
- Reader members and higher (and staff accounts) always get the AI translation, on every chapter.
- On a novel's first 50 chapters, everyone reads the AI translation, and there is no toggle.
- On chapter 51 onward, everyone else reads a Google Translate version, run through the novel's glossary, even on a chapter that already has an AI translation. There is no switch: the version is picked for you.
See Google Translate chapters for what that means for translation quality.
Retranslating a chapter#
Open Repair (above the chapter or in the bottom bar) and choose Retranslate to redo the whole chapter's translation. There's no confirmation step: it runs as soon as you select it, as a background job, and the text updates in place once it's done. Retranslating a chapter requires the Reader membership or higher and counts against your daily chapter retranslate limit.
Retranslating one paragraph#
Open a paragraph's menu and choose Retranslate to redo just that paragraph, or an entire system-panel block as one unit. It requires the same Reader membership or higher and only works while you're reading the AI translation, not Google Translate. There's no confirmation step, and it draws from a separate, larger daily allowance than a full-chapter retranslate. Retranslating a chapter's title works the same way and shares this paragraph allowance. If only one paragraph or line is wrong, this is the cheaper choice.
Rescraping a chapter#
Open Repair and choose Rescrape to fetch the chapter again from its source site, then retranslate it. Use this when a chapter looks cut off, out of date or like the wrong chapter, before retranslating. Rescraping requires the Reader membership or higher and shares the same daily limit as a full-chapter retranslate.
Accounts below the Reader membership, including signed-out readers, can't retranslate or rescrape at all, and their Repair menu shows only Report: their translation past chapter 50 is Google Translate, prepared on our servers rather than redone on request. The exact daily numbers for each tier are in Limits.
Reporting a novel#
Report in the Repair menu opens the novel's report form, the same one as Report on the novel page, so you can report wrong details, missing chapters or a bad source without leaving the chapter. See Reviews, Comments and Reporting.
Your place is kept#
Retranslating a chapter or a paragraph updates the text where it is, so your scroll position doesn't move. Rescraping keeps you roughly in place too, though not exactly: fetching the source again can come back with a different number of paragraphs than before.
Translation feedback#
At the end of every chapter, under How was this translation?, you can vote thumbs up or thumbs down. Voting needs the Reader membership or higher; anyone can see the counts. Feedback helps even when you don't have a tool to fix the chapter yourself.
A thumbs-down opens a list of tags to describe the issue: Mistranslation, Grammar, Wrong Names, Formatting, Missing Text, or Other, all optional. The first time you vote thumbs-down on a chapter, it automatically files a report for moderator review; voting thumbs-down again on the same chapter doesn't file a second report.
The paragraph menu#
Every paragraph has its own menu of actions.
- On desktop: hover over a paragraph to reveal the menu along its left edge, or right-click the paragraph.
- On phone: double-tap a paragraph to open the menu at that point.
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Read from here | Starts read aloud from that paragraph |
| Retranslate | Redoes the translation for that paragraph (or, for a system-panel block, the whole panel) |
| Comment | Opens a comment box quoting that paragraph |
| Remove paragraph | Asks for a paragraph that isn't part of the story (an advert, a site notice) to be cut from the chapter. It is decided right away: removed, declined, or sent to the moderators. Signed-in readers, AI translation only |
Retranslate is only available on your tier and while you read the AI translation. Comments themselves are covered in Reviews, Comments and Reporting.
Glossary terms in the text#
Terms tracked in the novel's glossary are underlined in the chapter text by default, and tapping one opens it; a blue mark means another reader has suggested a different translation you haven't adopted. See The Glossary for what's inside and the switches that control it.
Chapter stats and removed paragraphs#
Selecting the chapter title (or hovering it, on a mouse) opens a panel with a few stat tiles: Words, Read time, Views, whichever the chapter has data for. Below the stats, if translation information is available, a row shows which model translated the chapter: Google Translate for the free machine-translation path, or the name of the AI model or models used, combining the translation step and the glossary step into one label.
If paragraphs were removed from the chapter, Removed (N) in the chapter header, and the same list in this panel, shows them. Restore puts one back.
Keyboard#
← and → change chapter, E toggles glossary highlights, R offers to retranslate the chapter and T toggles read aloud. Press ? for every shortcut, or see Keyboard shortcuts.