#readibu

Do you use Readibu to read Chinese webnovels? I love it, but as a dark mode person who often reads at night before falling asleep, I hate how Readibu's "dark mode" doesn't recolor the dictionary pop-up! The white pop-up feels blinding at night. Then one day I realized I could use color invert to achieve a better dark mode experience.

Steps:

In Readibu, open a webnovel, click Style, and set the background color to white. You could also choose cream, but it will have blue tint when inverted.

iPhone: Open your phone's Control Center. Press and hold, then click Add a Control. Under Vision Accessibility, select Classic Invert. Don't use Smart Invert--it won't work.

Android: Open Quick panel and click the pencil to edit. Under Available buttons, find Color inversion.

**I tried this on a family member's Samsung phone. Unfortunately I couldn't fully test it because their version of Android didn't support the Readibu app.

After adding, click the Classic Invert/Color inversion button. Tada, now Readibu has a black background and black pop-ups! Just turn off Classic Invert/Color inversion when you're done reading.

(I actually had to invert this screenshot because it turns out when you use inverted mode and take a screenshot, the screenshot shows up with normal colors.)

The main thing in Readibu that seems to benefit me is that it tells me the percent done in the right upper corner. I don't know why, but seeing percent really pushes me to keep reading. It did in Amazon Kindle and Moonreader Pro too, but both of those apps just Stop showing me percent for some reason eventually... I'm guessing because I read too slow for its calculator, or because the file I read is hundreds of pages instead of split into 2-10 pages in length.

Readibu also has click definitions, and audio of individual sentences, and it's paid version (which I'm not using) has full sentence translation. But Pleco has all those features, but better. Readibu let's me favorite words i look up, which is nice to me in particular because I can see the words favorited since I started this reading kick. But Pleco let's a person favorite words AND add them to many customized SRS flashcard collections so it's much better designed for study. (Readibus word favorite is only preferable to Pleco for me right now, because my pleco has thousands of words saved many of which I've now learned, versus Readibu which I got this month so all the saved words are fresh study words).

Readibu's main unique feature, as far as I can tell, is that you can click the Stats button for whatever you're reading, and see an estimate of the reading level of the material. This is convenient and really freaking useful, because the last took I found that did this required a lot more copy/pasting to use and didn't compare with HSK but it's own vague difficulty score and would often crash on me due to the amount of characters in a webnovel chapter (it was still useful and wonderful for existing though!). I think Lingq also had a similar feature when I used it (if I remember correctly), in that Lingq counted words you marked as known and could tell you the % new unknown words versus known in a given reading material. But the problem with Lingq for me, was my reading level was far above beginner and I'm too lazy to mark all the words I know. It was a LOT of words, and I just wanted to quickly read not pause to mark all the stuff I knew. The Lingq tool would likely be more accurate to YOUR real reading level, but it requires more regular Lingq use to be accurate for you. And I just didn't use it enough, and I hated Lingqs expensive pay model (especially given Pleco is way better for chinese and is a one time fee then free to use forever after). Readibu's Stats information is more generalized, but i can quickly open something I find easy to read, check it's Stats, then compare it to other things I want to read and see roughly how much more difficult they will be for me to read. So it's easier to pick something the same level or a little challenging, instead of accidentally going from one reading level to "this will take me months to slog through." It's very convenient, works great, and it's free (unlike lingq).

I'm only using Readibu's free version, but it's perfectly useful free. Like I mentioned, the only paid thing it seems to do is full sentence translation. And it's probably just using Google translate so a copy/paste will give you the same result free, or you could get Pleco (which was a one time cost of around $20 dollars for the several dictionaries I got and full Reading tool features which are hands down the best of all the Chinese reading apps I've seen) if full sentence/passage translation matters to you. The only particular thing tempting me to buy Readibu, is knowing if I know I'm being charged I'd probably read more to make it earn it's usefulness ToT. But I don't need to do that lol.

First thing I notice is "HSK 5 Comprehension %" is the same at 93% for both. Maybe HSK 5 Comprehension % can help me find stuff at my reading level. Since with 盗墓笔记 and 秃秃大王 chapters go between HSK 4 Comprehensiom 80-90% and I find them all similar in difficulty.

Second thing, 笑猫日记 is HSK 4 Comprehension % 87. It's higher than 盗墓笔记 by a few percents. Maybe the higher the HSK 4 Comprehension % the easier its going to be to extensively read, the lower the % the more new words it will have to teach me.

Basically: I think maybe the HSK 5 Comprehension 93% is near where I'm comfortably reading (maybe 90%+ range). If a story rates lower than that maybe it'll be more of a slog instead of easy feeling. And HSK 4 Comprehension 80% or more also seems to be my sweet spot for reading - if there are new words the % is in the lower 80s if I want to learn more, but regardless I don't need to look the words up to read and understand.

To compare, 破云 is HSK Comprehension 88%, therefore below 90% and definitely one or the harder stories for me. And 破云 is HSK 4 Comprehension 76%. So below my 2 thresholds, of course it feels harder like a slog to read.

So I'm guessing a good zone for me to pick extensive reading material right now is:

HSK 4 Comprehension 80%+ with higher meaning less unknown words.

Microsoft word still wins with the nicest machine generated voice, then Moonreader for the convienience of machine voice AND word AND sentence translation free immediately (versus Readibu where only single word translation is free and machine voice takes more work to select and only plays 1 sentence at a time). Pleco is equally as good as Moonreader, okay machine voice that reads as little as i want to the entire document, word and sentence translation (the BEST word translation), and word saving/flashcards. 

Readibu does track how OFTEN I look up a word though, which is cool to me because its basically showing me a list of my ‘struggle’ words either because i just CANNOT remember the hanzi and/or definition, or i just CANNOT get the pronunciation to stick so i keep clicking it to hear it. I may post that list on here because its a bit funny to me which words are my ‘struggle’ words. Some are SUPER common and I know their meaning well, just for whatever reason I cannot get the pronunciation to stick (maybe i don’t know the radical sounds well on those?). And then the other words are SUPER niche words that I am definitely learning mainly because they’re needed in that specific novel, not because they’re common. Like for example, I started chapter 1 of The Kings Avatar and all the new words were “ranking” and computer game related, and I started Poyun and all my ‘struggle’ words were new police/govt and medical terms I don’t normally read. I guess my point is, I do actually know a lot of common words now... so a lot of my hard words are really specific lol. 

I know it gives hsk ratings, but everything I look at is hsk 6/unranked including stuff i consider easy extensive reading.

So im wondering if the break down statistics like %words hsk 1 hsk 2 etc might be a different way to gage difficulty? Like if the writing is rated 80% or more percent comprehensible for hsk 4, then it's "easier" if it's under 80% then it's "harder." Or if most words are in the hsk 1-3 distribution, it's an "easier" text but if the word distribution is more of a small (or big curve down up down) then it's a "harder" text?

Samsung Tablet - Google Chrome Built In Translation Popup Definition Tool

So if you have a Samsung tablet, and open a webpage in chrome - there is now a feature where if you click a word (or highlight a section), it will give 2 translate options. One option will be right above the text - and use google translate. Another will be a little tab at the bottom of the screen, which will use google translate and baidu translate/search, along with more possible results.

This means reading on a Samsung tablet officially has word lookup options without having to inconveniently copy/paste and switch tabs. I usually use the computer, since I can use Zhongwen chrome extension. (Although mandarinspot.coms Annotation Bookmarklet should work fine on the Samsung tablet too, which has similar definitions to Zhongwen). What I find particularly valuable to THIS feature, is you can lookup whole sentences if needed - instead of being limited to individual words (zhongwen extension and mandarinspot Bookmarklet can only do 1 word or 1 Chengyu at a time).

Maybe this has been a feature for a while? But it’s something I just noticed ;w; anyway, it’s great! It should make reading on my bigger tablet much more useful. (Also, I think Readibu app uses google translate to do its translations too, including it’s paid model you have to subscribe to if you want full sentence translations - so this would be a great free alternative to that app, if you have a tablet).

Also, since the translate feature can translate from Chinese to any-chosen-language you could theoretically use it to practice 2 languages (Chinese-french as an example).

Examples:

Highlight the text and click it.

This is what pops up if you click translate.

This is what you see at the bottom of the screen once you highlight text, you can click it to open it.

They made an app called Readibu, which is free. It is basically a reader with a click-dictionary for any word you need translated (much like Pleco Reader). The benefit of using the Readibu app over another Reader app is that it links to sites to discover chinese webnovels. And that seems to be the main reason the creator made it.

If you’re like me, and you know where to find chinese webnovels... then another reader might suit you better. Still, I really support what the creator set out to do, think it’s a fantastic idea, and for many people this is going to be a very useful app!

Some other free alternatives are Idiom app (which has very basic definitions, is just a simple web reader, benefit is it supports a TON of languages), Chinese Zero To Hero website’s Reader (simple paste-text reader, good definitions, adds pinyin). Pleco Reader costs a one time fee, it’s my personal favorite (reads websites, clipboard, txt files, PDFs, pictures, has thorough dictionary, audio feature, flashcard making feature, bookmarks) - the free version of Pleco has a basic clipboard paste reader with the same audio/flashcard/dictionary features if you want to use the free version, it just can’t handle files/pictures/bookmarking.

I stumbled on this post a while back and one particular thing really stuck out to me. This creator said they learned to read chinese mostly through using Pleco’s E-Reader to read cnovels, at first only recognizing 2 out of 10 characters, and now recognizing 8 out of 10.

This experience was the first time I’d seen someone (besides Steve Kaufman’s marketing his lingQ app) who had actually studied a language primarily by just reading and looking up works over and over. Not a ton of flashcards, not a textbook or classes. Just - like me - they really were passionately into cnovels and wanted to read them. And so they started trying to. And eventually, they got much better at it. They said it took them 4 years, to get to the point where they recognized 8 out of 10 characters, just through reading and looking words up using a reader.

This creator’s experience is what motivated me to start trying to read and watch chinese from very early on in my studies. And to continue trying to every couple of weeks. In the long run, that was something I’m very glad I did, and I have this creator to credit.

I imagine if a learner is doing other things to support their efforts besides just reading like this creator, they might improve a bit faster. Regardless, this person’s story was at least one example of someone actually learning vocabulary and hanzi by primarily reading and looking up words, and successfully improving to a significant degree. 2 out of 10 characters, to 8 out of 10 characters recognized, sounds like a progression of beginner to intermediate. That isn’t bad at all.

So anyway, I take the creator of Readibu as an example that if you want to learn words from reading, it is entirely possible and will happen over time. Using a reader with a click dictionary does improve your vocabulary over time. Yeah, you can probably use other study methods to speed up progress. But at the end of the day, if you want to utilize this method, it does work.