Below are six short texts to read out loud, one for each level from A1 to C2, written for this page. Read each one aloud yourself first, then listen to it read by a natural voice and compare. Under every text there is one thing to practise.
How to practise with them
Read the text silently once so you know what it says. Then read it aloud, slowly, and stop whenever you stumble. After that, listen to it and read along. Short sessions work better than long ones: one text, ten minutes, and then stop.
The levels are a guide, not a rule. If a text feels too easy, move up one; if you lose the thread, go back down one.
A1: a morning with the dog
My name is Anna. I live in a small house with my brother. We have a dog. His name is Max. Every morning I give Max some water. Then we go to the park. The park is green and quiet. Max runs and I sit on a bench. I like mornings.
Practise: speed. Play it at 0.5× and say each short sentence right after the voice. Every sentence is a complete thought, so repeat one until it sounds easy.
A2: the Saturday market
On Saturday I usually go to the market with my mother. We buy bread, apples and cheese, and sometimes a few flowers. Last week it rained, so we took an umbrella and walked slowly. A woman at the bread stall gave me a small piece of cake because it was her birthday. I said thank you and wished her a happy day. When we got home, we were wet but happy.
Practise: repeating a sentence. Pick the sentence you find hardest, such as “A woman at the bread stall gave me a small piece of cake because it was her birthday”, and repeat it five times until you can say it without stopping.
B1: a new city
When I moved to a new city last year, I knew nobody. At first I felt lonely, so I decided to join a walking group that meets every Sunday. I was nervous before the first walk, but the people were friendly and nobody minded my mistakes when I spoke. We talked about food, work and the weather. Now I look forward to Sundays, and I have even started helping to plan the routes. If you feel alone somewhere new, I would say: try one small thing and see what happens.
Practise: hiding the text. Hide it and listen once, then say what you understood in your own words. Bring the text back and check what you missed.
B2: talent or routine?
Many people believe that learning a language is mostly a question of talent, but my experience suggests otherwise. What mattered most was not how long I studied, but how regularly I did it. Twenty minutes every day brought me further than a long session once a week, which I usually forgot by the following Monday. It also helped that I stopped being afraid of sounding foolish. Once I accepted that mistakes were simply part of the process, I started speaking much more and, almost without noticing, much better.
Practise: stress and linking. Listen for the words the voice leans on, such as “regularly” and “mistakes”, then read the text aloud at the same time as the voice, keeping up with it.
C1: reading slowly
There is a curious paradox in the way we consume information today. We have never had access to so much knowledge, yet we seem to retain less of it, skimming headlines and moving on before any idea has had the chance to settle. Reading slowly, and ideally aloud, forces the opposite habit: it obliges us to dwell on each sentence, to hear its rhythm, and to notice when an argument is stronger or weaker than it first appeared. It is a modest discipline, but a surprisingly effective one.
Practise: long sentences. Find the longest sentence, see where the voice pauses, and mark those places. Then read it aloud and breathe in the same places.
C2: a matter of words
It would be tempting to dismiss the matter as one of mere semantics, yet the distinction is anything but trivial. A word chosen carelessly can quietly redraw the boundaries of a debate, lending an air of inevitability to conclusions that, on closer inspection, rest on little more than convention. The skilled reader learns to be suspicious of precisely those phrases that seem to require no justification, and to ask, with some persistence, who benefits from their going unexamined.
Practise: retelling. Listen with the text hidden, then summarise the argument aloud in two sentences without looking. Check yourself against the text.
How to hear them read aloud
There are two ways in Outloud Reader.
- Paste a text. Copy the text above, start a new book, choose Text and paste it. Choose English (US or UK), then a woman’s or a man’s voice, and tap Create. The text is read aloud with each phrase highlighted, at any speed from 0.5× to 1.25×, and a sentence can be repeated up to five times.
- Let the app write a new one. Choose AI stories, pick a topic or tap Surprise me, and choose a level (A1–A2, B1–B2 or C1–C2) and a length of one to three pages. A new text is written at that level. You read it before you decide, and writing it is free; pages are used when you make it into a book.
The second way is useful when you have finished these six and want more at the same level. See the guides on AI stories at your level and on pasting text for the steps in detail.
What to keep in mind
The app reads to you; it does not listen to you or score your pronunciation, so the comparison is yours to make. Making a book needs the internet, and once it is made it plays offline. A few pages are free to start, and after that pages come in packs or with Premium; prices are shown in the app.