Read translated web novels without losing the original.

Some of the best web novels in the world are not in English. Chinese cultivation epics that run to four million characters. Korean tower-climbing webtoons whose source novels never get a license. Japanese light novels with translation gaps of years. If you only read in your native language, you're missing most of the genre. The fix isn't waiting for the official localization team to catch up — it's reading with translation built into your reader.

For years that meant juggling browser tabs: source on the left, Google Translate on the right, copy a paragraph, lose your place, switch back, repeat. Modern inline translation for web novels makes that obsolete. You long-press a line, the translation appears under it; the original stays. You translate a chapter; the translated text caches so you only pay for it once. You read on, and the language barrier becomes a small tap, not a different app.

Why translation is the unlock

Three things change when translation is part of the reader, not a separate tool:

• You discover novels by genre, not by what's been licensed. The Korean cultivation novel that's untranslated in English — you can read it. Now.
• You don't lose your place. Translation that requires switching apps gets quietly abandoned. Translation that lives in the same scroll position you were already in gets used.
• You can read alongside an official translation. If the licensed version is three years behind raws, you read the latest chapters in their original language and translate as you go.

The user the feature serves: a reader who'd rather read a rough translation of now than a polished translation of three years ago. That's most of the active web-novel audience.

Inline vs full-chapter translation

Both modes matter. They serve different reading rhythms.

Inline

Long-press a sentence (or a paragraph). The translation appears underneath, in a slightly smaller, slightly dimmer style. The original stays. You read the original and dip into the translation only on the lines that matter — usually a piece of dialogue, a name, a turn of phrase. This is the right mode when you mostly understand the source language and need help on the edges.

Full chapter

Tap "translate chapter". The whole chapter swaps to your target language. Reading speed roughly triples (you're reading at native speed, not glossing). You can flip back to the original at any moment with a single tap — useful for an ambiguous sentence, a poetic passage, or a name with multiple romanisations. This is the right mode when you don't read the source language well, or when you want to binge.

A good reader gives you both, and never loses your place between them. Tapping "back to original" should not scroll you to the top of the chapter.

The translation should cache

Translation isn't free — either to the user, or to whoever runs the API call. The first time you translate a chapter, the request goes out, the result comes back. The second time, it should be local.

Translation caching is the difference between "this is a feature I use" and "this is a feature I avoid". With caching, a chapter you've translated is offline-ready in both languages, the cost is paid once, and you can re-read freely. Without caching, every revisit is another round-trip and another bill.

The same caching rule applies to TTS and offline downloads: anything that costs network or money to do once should be local on the second pass.

Languages worth reading in

If you read in English, the languages that unlock the most great untranslated material:

• Chinese (Simplified / Traditional). The largest web-novel ecosystem on the internet. Cultivation, transmigration, system-novels, slice-of-life. Quanben, Qidian, 17K, JJWXC. A lifetime of reading.
• Japanese. Narou (syosetu.com), Kakuyomu, Alphapolis. The light-novel pipeline before things get licensed. Many famous LN series are still raw-only on the latest volumes.
• Korean. Munpia, Joara. Tower / dungeon / regression genres in particular. Often years ahead of any English version.
• Vietnamese, Spanish, Indonesian, Thai. Active fan-translation communities and original works in their own right.

And in the other direction: if you read in Vietnamese, Spanish, French, or Portuguese, the same translation feature opens up the entire English-language Royal Road catalog — and the active translation feature in Arc Reader works either way.

How Arc Reader handles translation

Arc Reader bakes translation into the reader, not as a separate mode:

• Inline translation: long-press any sentence to see a translation underneath. The original stays in place; the translation is dimmer, smaller, and clearly marked as such. Tap again to dismiss.
• Full chapter: tap "translate chapter" in the reader toolbar. The whole chapter switches; "show original" is one tap away.
• Languages: Vietnamese, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, and more — any pair the underlying engine supports.
• Caching: translated chapters are stored alongside the original. Re-reading is offline. Cancel Premium and translated chapters you've already read stay readable.
• Quality: by default, fast on-device translation. Premium subscribers get higher-quality cloud models for the binges that deserve them.
• Privacy: the original chapter never leaves your device for inline translations of single sentences (handled on-device where possible). Full-chapter translations route through a translation API and are stored on your device only.

More about the reader on the home page.

FAQ

Is the translation good enough for novels?

For reading-for-meaning, yes — modern translation models do dialogue and prose well. For reading-for-style (poetry, deeply idiomatic writing), nothing replaces a human translator. Most readers settle on a hybrid: read the official human translation for completed arcs, use machine translation to read past the cliffhanger.

Can I translate Royal Road novels into Vietnamese?

Yes — Royal Road is mostly English-source, and Arc Reader can translate any chapter into Vietnamese, full-chapter or inline. More on Royal Road specifically.

Does translation work offline?

First-pass translation needs network. Once a chapter has been translated, it's cached on-device and works offline. Inline single-sentence translations sometimes run on-device (no network) depending on the language pair.

Will TTS read the translated text?

Yes. The reader picks an appropriate voice for the target language and reads the translation. More on TTS.

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