Snap a photo, get instant pinyin, translations, and read-aloud — build Mandarin fluency one story at a time.
Free to start. No credit card required. 7-day full-access trial.
Take a picture of any page from a physical Mandarin storybook.
Add Pinyin and translations to the text, instantly.
Practice reading with the annotations and tap to hear native audio read-aloud.
Highly accurate text recognition for both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. Designed specifically for children's storybooks.
See the pinyin displayed above every character. Tap individual words to hear them read aloud.
Understand the story at a glance with full-page translations alongside the original Chinese text.
Listen to stories read in natural Chinese with multiple voice options. Perfect for pronunciation practice or bedtime listening.
Organize your growing library into collections by theme, level, or however you like. Search across titles in Chinese, pinyin, or English.
Refine any story annotations. Edit text, pinyin, or translations. Reorder and manage pages with drag-and-drop.
Share individual stories or entire collections with friends and family. Control permissions — view-only or full editing access.
A responsive experience designed for phones, tablets, and desktops. Capture on your phone, study on your laptop.
Our guided camera walks you through capturing the storybook. See live thumbnails as you go, and when you're done, jump right into reading with pinyin annotations ready to go.
Characters you know? Skim the pinyin. New vocabulary? Tap to explore. Want to hear it? Hit play. Every page is a multi-layered learning experience — Chinese characters, pinyin, and English all in one view.
Borrow storybook companions from your friends and family. Storylens makes it easy to share and collaborate on storybooks. Everyone gets real-time access, and changes sync instantly.
Start free. Upgrade when you're ready. Every new account includes a 7-day free trial of StoryLens.
7-day free trial included. Cancel anytime.
We built StoryLens because we believe every family should be able to read Chinese storybooks together, at any fluency level.
We are product-obsessed people, who believe technology should be in service of our humanity.
We strip away complexity so you can focus on what matters — learning and reading together.
From capture to classroom-ready in seconds, not hours.
Your stories are always there when you need them. We work to earn your trust, every day.
We build tools that bring people together. Storylens makes it easy to learn and read together.
StoryLens is an AI-powered reading companion that turns any Chinese storybook into an interactive learning experience. Take a photo of a page, and StoryLens instantly recognizes every Chinese character, adds pinyin pronunciation guides above each one, provides English translations, and reads the text aloud in native Mandarin. It works with both simplified and traditional Chinese.
StoryLens is designed for anyone who wants to read Chinese storybooks — parents reading bedtime stories with their children, heritage language families maintaining Mandarin at home, homeschool educators and Mandarin tutors looking for engaging reading material, and adult learners building reading fluency through real stories rather than textbook exercises.
Google Translate gives you a block translation of text you type or paste in. StoryLens is purpose-built for storybooks — it recognizes characters directly from a photo of the page, shows pinyin above each individual character so you learn pronunciation as you read, preserves the original page layout, reads aloud in natural Mandarin, and lets you save and organize your story library. It's the difference between a translation tool and a reading companion.
Yes. StoryLens turns physical storybooks your child already loves into guided reading sessions. The character-by-character pinyin helps children connect sounds to characters, the English translations provide comprehension support, and the read-aloud feature models correct pronunciation. Parents can read along even if their own Mandarin is limited.
StoryLens works best with printed Chinese storybooks — children's picture books, graded readers, and similar materials. This works surprisingly well for creative fonts and more free-form picture books with Chinese characters.
StoryLens provides high-quality character extraction, pinyin, and translations. You can also manually edit any pages to fine-tune accuracy.
StoryLens uses a local-first architecture, so stories you've already captured and opened on your device are available offline. You'll need an internet connection to capture new pages and to share with collaborators.
Yes. Your stories are synced securely. Each story is its own private document — you choose exactly who to share it with and at what permission level.
Absolutely! Share individual stories or entire collections with friends and family. You can grant view-only or full editing access, and revoke access at any time.
After 7 days, you'll move to the Free plan. You'll keep access to up to 2 stories you've captured and 2 shared stories. Upgrade to StoryLens Standard anytime to unlock unlimited stories and full features.
Yes — StoryLens handles both Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters.
Join families and educators who are transforming the way they learn Chinese — one story at a time.
Start ReadingFree for up to 2 stories. Standard trial included — no credit card required.