DualBook 8 languages

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Make an English-Hebrew bilingual book

Each English paragraph with its Hebrew translation directly beneath it, in one EPUB — the English running left to right, the Hebrew running right to left, each marked as such.

The first 15 pages of text are sent to our server to be translated. The file itself stays on your device.

Stacking Hebrew under English makes the file bidirectional, and that has to be stated rather than assumed. Unicode orders the letters correctly by itself, which is exactly why the mistake survives: the Hebrew looks right and is aligned to the wrong edge, with its final punctuation on the wrong side of the line. One attribute per paragraph is the whole fix, and it is written here.

For a learner the parallel form is unusually valuable in this pair, because Hebrew is written without vowels. Seeing the English above tells you which of several possible readings a word has — which is the thing a dictionary cannot tell you, since the dictionary does not know your sentence.

Your browser does the assembly: it opens the EPUB, walks each paragraph, inserts the Hebrew beneath it inside the original file, and rewrites only the chapter documents that actually received a translation.

How it works

  1. Choose an English EPUB

    A DRM-free EPUB. The bilingual file is assembled in your browser, not on a server.

  2. The model reads the whole book

    The cast and their relationships are mapped first, which is what makes the gendered verb forms come out consistently.

  3. Hebrew is inserted under each paragraph

    Each Hebrew block is marked right-to-left and tagged as Hebrew, with its accent rule drawn on the right edge.

  4. Read it here, or on any device

    A complete EPUB carrying the book's own fonts and stylesheets, with the English still reading left-to-right.

The trap, and the honest limits

Your eye will go to the Hebrew. Read the English paragraph first, every time. The moment of not understanding is the practice.

No nikud. The Hebrew is set the way adult Hebrew is published — unvowelled. The English above it is what disambiguates, which for a learner is arguably better than vowel points anyway.

Fifteen pages get translations. The rest of the book stays in English inside the same file.

The text is sent to a server and discarded when the job ends. The file never leaves your device.

Questions

Does the Hebrew align to the right?

Yes. Each inserted paragraph carries an explicit right-to-left direction and a Hebrew language tag, and the rule that marks it out is drawn on the right edge — a left-edge rule would sit at the end of a Hebrew line rather than at its start.

Which side should I read first?

English first, every paragraph. Give yourself the few seconds of not understanding before you look down.

Why is this good for learning Hebrew specifically?

Because Hebrew is written without vowels, so the same letters can be several words and only context decides. The English sitting directly above is that context, delivered exactly where you need it and at no cost in time.

Do the cover and table of contents survive?

Yes. The browser rebuilds the archive entry by entry and only rewrites the chapter files that received a translation, so everything else passes through untouched.

The whole book, in parallel

The app builds the bilingual version of the entire book, with tap-to-look-up and your reading position synced across devices.

Open DualBook