taihaa vs LanguageCrush: a free reading app

Both tools start from a text you bring: look up the words that stop you, and meet them again later. LanguageCrush also has chat, essays, and a forum. taihaa stays on the reading loop. The prices below are list prices, not a verdict.

Price and the free plan

LanguageCrush does not publish a numeric cap on saved words. Its pricing page lists vocab export, copying passages, full-page text-to-speech, and join or split parsed words as Supporter features. Supporter is $6.99 a month, $60 a year, or $120 lifetime. Taihaa Plus is $4.99 a month or $39 a year.

What you get in taihaa

• Free, no card. Unlimited saved words and text imports (paste, file, or URL).
• YouTube: paste a link with subtitles, or paste a transcript if none are found. 3 new video lessons a week on the free plan.
• Nine languages: Cantonese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish.
• Jyutping for Cantonese, pinyin for Mandarin, romanization for Korean, and furigana with romaji for Japanese.
• Mandarin and Cantonese: Split (Fix word split) lets you tap between characters to break a compound into characters or join characters into one word. The fix is saved on that lesson for you.
• Tap one word at a time for an English translation, then save it with its sentence.
• Review at the end of each lesson, with the original sentence, plus a Match 4 game and the taihaa Daily word puzzle.
• A levelled library in every language and a News tab with fresh headlines from public news sites.
• Natural voice for words, sentences and whole lessons: 5 plays a day free.
• Optional Taihaa Plus adds Why? grammar explain, AI lessons, more natural voice and sentence translations, lesson quizzes, and more YouTube video lessons. Buy it on the web or in the Android app through Google Play.

Dictionary lookups are not capped. A new AI word translation, used when the dictionary has no entry, is 8 a day on the free plan and up to 500 a day with Plus. Cached translations stay free.

Where they differ

• LanguageCrush lists 100+ languages. taihaa has nine: Cantonese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish.
• LanguageCrush's pricing page includes community chat, essay corrections, a forum, and teachers for paid lessons. taihaa does not.
• LanguageCrush's pricing page says you can upload passages from books, newspapers, and videos. taihaa can take a YouTube link and build a lesson from the subtitles. Creator captions are used when they exist; otherwise auto-generated captions. If none are found, paste a transcript.
• YouTube lessons are 3 new ones a week on the free plan. Plus removes that weekly cap, within fair use. Text imports (paste, file, URL) stay unlimited on the free plan.
• Join or split parsed words is a LanguageCrush Supporter feature for Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean. taihaa does not teach Thai or Vietnamese. On Mandarin and Cantonese, Split (Fix word split) is on the free plan: tap between characters to break a compound into characters or join characters into one word. The fix is saved on that lesson for you.
• Cantonese in taihaa uses Jyutping, not Mandarin pinyin. See the Cantonese Jyutping reader.

Who should try which

• Try taihaa if you want saved words and text imports without a card, Jyutping for Cantonese, or YouTube subtitles as a lesson.
• Stay with LanguageCrush if you want its community, 100+ languages, or join/split for Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, or Korean. Those last three are not taihaa languages, and taihaa's Split chip is Mandarin and Cantonese only.
• A shorter list of other reading tools is on LanguageCrush alternatives.