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🌐 FOR L2 READERS · EXTENSIVE READING

Read a novel.
Let the novel build your vocabulary.

Tap any word for dictionary + audio. Save unknown words with their surrounding sentence as context. Watch them reappear on an FSRS schedule until they stick. For the learner who's past duolingo and ready to read Murakami, Camus, or García Márquez in the original.

Spanish · B1 → C1 French · B1 → C1 Japanese · N3 → N1 German · B2+ Mandarin · HSK 5+

THE PROBLEM

Deck grind plateaus around B2.

The first 3,000 words of a language come from textbooks and pre-made decks. The next 3,000 come from reading. But reading in an L2 means constantly stopping to look things up — and most setups punish you for that. MarginNote is built for comprehensible-input reading: tap a word, keep reading, harvest your unknowns as an FSRS deck. You're building vocabulary out of exactly the texts you want to read.

THE WORKFLOW

Novel → unknown words → recall.

USE CASE 1 · TAP TO DEFINE

Dictionary lookup without leaving the page.

You're reading Norwegian Wood in Japanese. You hit a word. You tap it. A dictionary panel slides out: reading, meaning, frequency, example sentences, audio. You read, tap "save to deck," and keep going. No app switching, no flow break.

  • Built-in dictionaries — plus ability to add Monokakido (Japanese), Larousse (French), DRAE (Spanish), Duden (German).
  • Native audio — Apple's text-to-speech voices for Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Italian, Mandarin, and more.
  • Furigana / pinyin automatically overlaid for kanji and hanzi you haven't encountered yet.
  • Highlight a whole sentence — saved as context alongside the target word.
ノルウェイの森 · 第一章

十八年も前のことだから、僕はもう鮮明には思いだせない。

鮮明 (せんめい)
sen-mei
na-adjective · clear, vivid, distinct
Example
鮮明な記憶 — a vivid memory
▶ native audio · tap to hear
USE CASE 2 · CONTEXT IS THE CARD

Every vocabulary card carries its sentence.

A flashcard that says "鮮明 = vivid" teaches you one thing. A card that shows the actual sentence from Murakami where you first met the word teaches you how the word lives. MarginNote attaches the highlighted sentence to every card automatically. Your review isn't a list of words — it's a catalog of moments in books.

  • Sentence-as-context — the card front is the sentence, blanked at your target word.
  • Cloze variants — test the word, test the verb conjugation, test the gender / particle.
  • Book-as-tag — filter your deck by source: "only show me words from L'Étranger."
  • Frequency-weighted — common words surface first; hapax legomena stay buried.
鮮明 (せんめい)
「十八年も前のことだから、僕はもう___には思いだせない。」
Norwegian Wood · Ch. 1
cloze · context carddue in 3d
étranger
« Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. J'ai reçu un télégramme de l'asile : "Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués." Cela ne veut rien dire. Peut-être était-ce hier. »
L'Étranger · Camus · Ch. 1
context carddue now
USE CASE 3 · READING AS THE REWARD

Your target is a book, not a streak.

Duolingo-style progress optimizes for daily streaks. Extensive reading optimizes for completed books. MarginNote tracks "pages read this week" rather than "minutes of app time." The goal isn't to never miss a day — it's to finish the novel. You measure progress in books on your shelf, not badges on a screen.

"I am a Chinese Leberal arts student learning in America. It's my daily essential application, Most of my reading work has finished on it."

B
Baby20212021 · ★★★★★
Liberal arts student · US App Store · Jan 30, 2021
Verbatim from App Store review titled "It's good for studying" · MarginNote 3 (Mac) · via Appfigures API · review_id 280893313767Lonx6t6aOfxDroIpP5I03ZQ · spelling preserved.
This month · Japanese · extensive reading
Norwegian Wood — Murakami
72% · 287 words saved
Kafka on the Shore
14% · 83 words saved
Botchan — Sōseki (graded)
done · exported to deck

FAQ

What L2 readers ask.

Do I need to be a native English speaker?
No. MarginNote's interface is localized (English, Japanese, Simplified & Traditional Chinese, Korean). The target-language content — the novel you're reading — can be anything the dictionary engine supports.
Which dictionaries are built-in?
Apple system dictionaries (a large set of bilingual dictionaries shipped with iOS / macOS). You can add third-party dictionaries in StarDict or MDict format — many Japanese learners add Monokakido or JMdict; French learners add Larousse. See the dictionary setup guide in our help docs.
Does this replace Anki for language learners?
Depends on your style. If you want pre-made frequency decks (Core 2k/6k for Japanese, Tango N-series, etc.), use Anki for those and MarginNote for your reading-harvested cards. If you build everything from reading, MarginNote alone is enough — and your deck will be entirely your own.
Japanese — does it handle furigana?
Yes. For kanji, the dictionary panel shows reading + meaning. You can set furigana to auto-appear for all kanji, only kanji above a frequency threshold, or none.
Can I import graded readers and Satori Reader material?
Any PDF or EPUB will import. Satori Reader itself is a web-only service (they're great — check them out separately). For graded readers sold as EPUB / PDF, yes: import, read, harvest.

The novel is the textbook.

Free 14-day trial. macOS and iPadOS. Finish the book. Keep the vocabulary.

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