Hi, my name is Daniel. I studied Russian and Neuroscience at Duke.

In my Russian classes, we read a lot of great short stories from some of the best writers in history - Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and more. I came to love and appreciate Russian literature through my classes, especially since I could read the text as the author originally intended.

The problem was, sometimes those texts were really difficult to read. Take, for example, The Word by Vladimir Nabokov. An incredibly beautiful story full of glittering words and dazzling descriptions, yes, but one that's difficult to read in a foreign language.

When I did my assigned readings, I almost always tried to find an English version to read alongside my Russian stories. Google Translate didn't cut it, either. I wanted to see how a professional would translate the sentence so that I could pick up on idioms and other quirks of the language.

As I started reading texts side by side, I realized that no translator could capture the nuances and full beauty of the Russian text I was reading - that's the nature of language! Still, it helped me to not get too lost when things got difficult.

It was tedious to match up each line of text, but it was still well worth the effort. I felt like there should be a better way to enjoy the literature I was reading.

So I built the tool I wish I'd had: ReadAlong.

Future Plans for ReadAlong

My goal is to add stories in more languages to the site over time. Part of the challenge is simply finding high quality, copyright-free stories and translations that I can use as material!

If you know of any stories you'd like to see, please contact me!

About Me

I've always loved to learn languages. I grew up in a bilingual household, speaking English and a dialect of German. In high school, I studied Spanish, German, and French, dabbling in Italian and other various languages. When I got to college, I fell in love with Russian and was lucky enough to spend 6 weeks in Saint Petersburg one summer. I've dabbled with Persian, Polish, and Chinese as well.

You can follow me on Twitter.