About Lectitō

Lectitō is a free Latin reader. It presents real Latin texts, from stories written for Victorian beginners to the histories of Tacitus, in a form that lets you read them without a dictionary and a grammar open beside you. Tap any word to see its dictionary entry and how it is formed in that sentence: the case, number and gender of a noun, the tense, mood and person of a verb, and the headword it comes from. Each sentence has an English translation that you can open when you need it and leave closed when you do not. Words you want to learn can be saved and reviewed by spaced repetition, and the built-in dictionary can be searched directly. The aim is a text you can read straight through, with help at hand only when you ask for it.

The library covers the authors most often read in schools and universities: Caesar, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, Pliny, Seneca, Horace, Catullus, Phaedrus, Nepos and the Latin Bible, together with Ritchie’s Fabulae Faciles for those just beginning. The Latin comes from public-domain editions, mostly by way of the Perseus Digital Library; the Bible is the Clementine Vulgate. The English translations, the notes and the dictionary were written for the site. Every section also has a public translation page and a Latin page with notes and vocabulary.

The analyses of individual words are made in two ways, and the difference matters. In the core course texts, every word’s analysis has been checked by hand. In the further-reading library, which runs to whole books, the analyses are drafted by the site’s own tagger and the words it is doubtful about are checked by hand; the rest have not all been reviewed, so occasional errors remain. If you find one, we would be glad to hear of it.

Lectitō is for students moving from a textbook to real authors, teachers who want to set reading for a class, people coming back to Latin after years away, and anyone curious to see what the Romans actually wrote. Teachers can create classes and set assignments. Reading is free; there is also an optional paid plan.

Questions, corrections and suggestions are welcome at support@lectito.app.