Frequently asked questions

What devices does Bookverse run on?

Three ways in, one account:

• Web — the full app runs at bookverse.com/app in any modern browser, desktop or phone. Nothing to install.
• Android — in beta: install it from the QR code on the home page, or through Google Play’s testing programme.
• iOS — built from the same codebase, not downloadable yet. The web app works well on an iPhone in the meantime.

Your progress, streak, and settings belong to your account, not a device — sign in anywhere and continue where you left off.

Which languages can I study, and in which language?

Twelve language courses are in the catalogue — Mandarin (the deepest, aligned to HSK 3.0), Korean, English, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Russian — see the roadmap for each one’s status. The app itself runs in the same 12 languages, and course content is translated line by line, so you can study any course from any of them. Where a specific translation hasn’t been written yet, English is shown.

How much does it cost?

Bookverse is free during the open beta. The long-term model is a subscription with the first chapters of every course free to try — there are no ads and no selling of your data either way (see quiet by design).

Does it work offline?

Not yet — chapters and progress live on the server, so you need a connection to study. Listening audio is generated on your device, and on most phones speech recognition can run on-device too, but the course content itself streams from your account.

The Listen button plays no audio

Bookverse speaks with the text-to-speech voices installed on your device — it does not stream audio from a server. If your device has no voice for the course language (for example Thai), Listen stays silent and the app shows a note under the button.

Android

1. Open Settings → General management (or System) → Text-to-speech output.
2. Select Speech Services by Google as the preferred engine. Vendor engines on some phones list languages they cannot actually speak.
3. Tap the gear next to the engine → Install voice data → download the course language (e.g. ไทย / Thai).
4. Restart the Bookverse app.

On some phones — especially China-region models without full Google services — Google’s engine may be unavailable or unable to download voice data. In that case install any third-party text-to-speech app that ships the language you’re learning and select it as the preferred engine.

iPhone / iPad

1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices.
2. Choose the course language and download a voice.
3. Restart the Bookverse app.

Web (desktop browser)

The browser uses your operating system’s voices. On macOS add voices under System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System Voice → Manage Voices; on Windows under Settings → Time & language → Speech. Reload the page afterwards.

Speaking practice says it didn’t hear me

The Speak / Record button uses your device’s speech recognizer. If it keeps answering “didn’t hear any speech”:

• Check the microphone permission for Bookverse (or for the browser on web).
• Start speaking within a second or two of tapping the button — it stops itself on silence.
• On Android the recognizer may not have your course language installed: open the Google app → your profile → Settings → Voice → Offline speech recognition and download the language.
• Where the device recognizer can’t handle the language, Bookverse falls back to cloud transcription automatically — that path needs an internet connection.

Audio worked before and then stopped

Force-close and reopen the app. If that doesn’t help, switch the device’s text-to-speech engine to a different one and back — engines occasionally get stuck after system updates.