Read • Listen • Enjoy
Original short stories for adults, written at your level, in a warm and gently strange world you'll want to keep coming back to. For learners who are past the apps and beginner lessons, while native books and podcasts still feel far out of reach.
Try it now
Story reader demos · Swedish and English
Saga came to the harbour town to write her novel. Then the second-hand shop on the quay put out a model sailboat no one can explain, with a half-eaten fish on its cabin table, as if someone had only just stepped away. Can it sail? A small question, and the start of an evening she never planned.
A cozy fantasy story with quiet wonder. Made for upper beginners, at an A2-friendly level.
One story, in two languages.
The gap
Language apps are excellent at getting you started. Then many learners stall at the same stage: beginner sentences, tourist phrases, the next exercise. Native books, films and podcasts are still a long way off.
Taleferry doesn't compete with those apps. It's the next stage: stories to read and listen to, at a level you can enjoy.
Taleferry is the crossing into the next stage.
Learning through stories
Taleferry is built for learning through comprehensible input. You follow a story pitched just above your level, and the language settles in as you read and listen. No drills, no grammar tables: you pick up words and patterns in context, and start to think and imagine in the language.
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Typical current options
Taleferry writes stories you'd want to read in any language.
Simplified classics
Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, again. They were never written for this level of oversimplification, so shrinking them costs much of the depth and charm they were loved for. And most readers are already too familiar with them.
Educational graded readers
Good for building vocabulary step by step. But the plot is built around the word list, so few readers stay for the story itself.
Everyday dialogues
The bank, the café, the train station, the restaurant, the airport and the post office. Stories with the same everyday scenes that help you get by in a language, but they never go further than survival phrases. There's no curiosity to explore and nothing to find out, so there's little reason to keep reading.
Taleferry originals
Cozy speculative fiction with a light mystery at its heart.
The story comes first. The language follows.
The story reader
The story reader in dark mode, shown on the Elderlight background gradient.
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The story reader in light mode, shown on the Elderlight background gradient.
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The Reader experience
Narration playing, with the spoken word highlighted and its sentence lit.
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Each word lights up as it's spoken, so your ear and eye learn together.
Understand it in context, then carry on reading.
A tapped word with its meaning shown in a small bubble.
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In your language of choice.
A selected sentence with its full translation shown.
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The translation language menu open, with English, Spanish, French, German and more.
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Get the meaning of words and sentences in the language you're most comfortable with – from English and German to Japanese, Korean and more.
Spend more time with the language, in meaningful context, for the pleasure of losing yourself in a story.
Who it's for
You've kept the streak going and you're ready for something you'll actually enjoy.
You're moving abroad or living with a new language and want everyday language that sticks.
You want to acquire a language by living in it: reading, listening, thinking and imagining in it. Drills and grammar courses aren't for you, and native material is still too far ahead.
You read cozy fantasy, speculative fiction and mysteries, and now you want them in your new language.
The Irish chapter · Future vision
Many people in Ireland finished school with years of Irish and little confidence using it, and there's very little contemporary fiction for them to enjoy at their level.
The story reader can carry any language. An Irish-language catalogue would bring original cozy fantasy and light mystery, written for adult learners, to readers in Ireland, across the diaspora and around the world.
Irish-language development is a future expansion.
Upload: future-vision Irish story thumbnail sample.
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Joining Taleferry
Free crossings with Taleferry
The full Taleferry experience
The founder
I speak three languages and plan to learn more the way I believe works best: inside stories. I write the stories, build the worlds, create the art direction, and I've been developing the story reader myself. Every part of Taleferry so far, from the first story draft to the working product, has been made by one person. My goal is to grow it into an internationally recognised publishing house of original stories and premium digital experiences, and then to expand with new collaborations and specialist creative and technical work here in Ireland.
F.M. Taleferry
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The crossing will go on
In development · Not yet launchedTaleferry is in active development. Working story readers already exist for the first stories, with the full immersive reading and listening experience: synced narration, tap-to-translate and reading controls. Memberships open at launch.
Travel with curious little stories, and see your language adventures come alive.