Read Your First English AI Story Today

Quick facts about English

Speakers

About 1.46 billion speakers in total (2021): roughly 380 million native speakers and 1.08 billion second-language speakers, according to Wikipedia's English language article.¹

Did you know?

English spelling began to be standardised in the 15th and 16th centuries, while the Great Vowel Shift (roughly 1400–1700) was changing how vowels were pronounced. This is the major reason English spellings often don't match pronunciation.²

The main challenge

Phrasal verbs such as give in ("yield") or grow up ("mature") usually can't be understood from their parts, so each has to be learned as a unit.³

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb

About the English language

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet
3. https://www.un.org/en/our-work/official-languages
4. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/languages_en

English reading proficiency benchmarks (ACTFL)

The ACTFL column is approximate and describes reading. ACTFL publishes how its ratings convert to CEFR levels, not the reverse, so read it as a rough guide rather than an official equivalence.

Reference corpora

Three widely cited references for English vocabulary and usage:^1,2,3

• COCA: Mark Davies’s Corpus of Contemporary American English holds more than one billion words from 1990 to 2019, spread evenly across genres that include speech, fiction, magazines, newspapers, academic journals and TV and film subtitles.¹
• British National Corpus: About 100 million words of late-20th-century British English, roughly 90% written and 10% transcribed speech, built by a consortium led by Oxford University Press (first edition 1994).²
• English Vocabulary Profile: Cambridge’s profile shows which words, meanings and phrases learners know at each CEFR level from A1 to C2, drawing on learner writing in the Cambridge Learner Corpus.³
• Register: Stichos uses standard General American or British vocabulary and spelling, avoiding regional slang, archaic terms and rare jargon.

1. https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/
2. https://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
3. https://englishprofile.org/?menu=english-vocabulary-profile

Readability design principles

The classic English readability formulas are built on sentence length and syllables per word.¹

• Flesch Reading Ease: Rudolf Flesch’s score (“A New Readability Yardstick”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 1948) rises as sentences and words get shorter. A score of 90 to 100 is rated very easy, readable by an average 11-year-old.²
• Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level: Kincaid, Fishburne, Rogers and Chissom (1975) recalculated readability formulas for the US Navy using 531 enlisted personnel, expressing difficulty as a US school grade.¹
• Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits rather than a formula score. A0 has no conjunctions at all; and, but and so unlock first, and because, although, unless and whereas follow at higher levels.

1. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/istlibrary/56/
2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18867058/

Script & grammar scaffolding

• Tenses: A0 uses the present simple of a few core verbs (be, have, like, want, drink, eat). A1 adds the present continuous, the past of be only, and can for ability. A2 opens the past simple, going to and will, and must and should. The present perfect, past continuous, first conditional and passive arrive at B1.
• Later forms: B2 adds the past perfect, the present perfect continuous, second, third and mixed conditionals, and modal perfects such as should have. C1 adds the past and future perfect continuous, the subjunctive, negative inversion and cleft sentences.
• Automatic checks: At A0 and A1 Stichos’s rule checker also flags would have, had been and have been + -ing in any sentence, to catch third conditionals and perfect continuous forms in a beginner text.
• Requests and imperatives: Beginner requests use a noun phrase and a politeness word (A coffee, please). A0 allows imperatives only inside fixed formulas such as Here you are; A1 adds five: look, come, take, wait and sit down, used between friends.

Related academic & framework resources

• ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines: ACTFL’s description of what learners can do in reading, listening, speaking and writing, from Novice to Distinguished.
• Assigning CEFR Ratings to ACTFL Assessments: How ACTFL ratings correspond to CEFR levels, in one direction only.
• English Vocabulary Profile: Cambridge’s free online profile of English vocabulary by CEFR level.
• Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): Mark Davies’s corpus of more than one billion words, searchable online.
• British National Corpus: The home page of the 100-million-word collection of written and spoken British English.
• Derivation of New Readability Formulas for Navy Enlisted Personnel: The 1975 report by J. Peter Kincaid and colleagues.
• A new readability yardstick (Flesch, 1948): The PubMed record of Rudolf Flesch’s 1948 paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Frequently asked questions

What writing system does English use?

Latin alphabet (26 letters)

Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?

Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.

Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?

Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.

Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?

Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.

Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?

Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.

How does word lookup work while reading?

Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.

Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?

Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.

Do stories include audio or narration?

Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).