Easy German news from Austria, at the level you read.

One story, five levels

Open a German news site at A2 and you will often lose the thread by the second sentence. The problem is density, because a real report packs several new words into most lines. Stopping for each one makes a four-paragraph story take half an hour.

So every piece in Langvie is rewritten at up to five levels, and one rule holds across them: the headline, the facts and the paragraphs stay the same. What changes is how much each sentence carries. In one piece the A1 version runs 116 words across fourteen sentences, and the C1 version 181 words across ten.

That rule means an A2 reader and a C1 reader have read the same story and can talk about it. It also means you can climb: read a piece at your level, then switch the level picker up one step and read it again.

Tap a word, keep a word

Every word in the text answers a tap with its meaning, including names and abbreviations. The words above your level are glossed as you go, so an A1 piece about hospital appointments can still say Termin and Spital. Under the text, the words the piece teaches wait as a deck, and Train words starts a session with them.

If one paragraph will not come, Show translation puts your own language under the German.

Austrian German, on purpose

The stories come from Austria and keep the words Austrians use. A hospital is a Spital, and January is Jänner. That makes the desk useful for anyone living in Vienna, Graz or Linz, and for anyone preparing for the ÖIF test. It also shows a learner in Germany which words change across the border.

What the stories are about

New pieces arrive through the week from seven desks: politics, economy, technology, science, culture, sport and society. Recent ones covered the 1450 health line for hospital appointments, new rules for consumer loans, a museum turning 25, and a lemur that sings like an opera singer.

Getting the most from one piece

• Read it once at your level without tapping, to get the shape of the story.
• Read it again and tap every word you guessed.
• Train the piece's words, then come back the next day and read it one level up.