Read Candide in English — and understand every line.
Read “Candide” by Voltaire in English. Tap any word for its meaning, hear how it sounds, and save it to a memory-driven review schedule.
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DICTIONARY
TRANSLATION
apreciar, atesorar
to feel warm affection for; to hold something dear.
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The opening
How “Candide” begins
CHAPTER PAGE I. How Candide was brought up in a Magnificent Castle, and how he was expelled thence 1 II.
IV. How Candide found his old Master Pangloss, and what happened to them 13 V. Tempest, Shipwreck, Earthquake, and what became of Doctor Pangloss, Candide, and James the Anabaptist 18 VI.
What happened to Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss, Martin, etc. 154 XXIX. How Candide found Cunegonde and the Old Woman again 159 XXX.
He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide.
Public domain — the whole book is yours to read in the app.
Vocabulary
Words to know before you start
The 30 words you will meet most often in “Candide” at level B2 and above, with how many times each one appears.
- master
- castle
- tear
- bear
- thus
- vessel
- philosopher
- misfortune
- conduct
- embrace
- whip
- governor
- recover
- scarcely
- soul
- kingdom
- devil
- dispute
- rob
- carnival
- heaven
- fortune
- province
- seize
- surgeon
- evil
- magnificent
- ravish
- observe
- league
The meanings here are the everyday ones. In the reader, tap a word to see the sense this sentence uses.
Grammar
Grammar you will meet in “Candide”
How much of each kind of grammar “Candide” uses, counted in the sentences the Reader marks: per 10,000 words, compared with the other books in the library.
- Relative clauses
- Passive voice
- Perfect tenses
- Reported speech
- Modal verbs
- -ing forms and to-infinitives
- Phrasal verbs
- Conditionals
Constructions to look for
- Relative clauses with where He first took Candide and Martin to La Comédie, where they played a new tragedy.
- Phrasal verb with 'up' (particle) He took up his double-barrelled Spanish fusil, let it off, and killed the two monkeys.
- Past perfect active If a famous surgeon had not taken compassion on me, I should have died.
Counted the way the Reader shows it: one card per construction in a sentence. Open the book in the Reader and tap a highlighted phrase to see the rule.
Library
What you get while you read
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Tap to translate
Tap any word to see what it means in this exact sentence — with pronunciation and a clear example.
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Save what matters
Add a word and it comes back on a spaced-repetition schedule timed to how memory actually works.
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Grammar in context
Notable structures light up in the text, with a short explanation tied to the sentence you're reading.
About the book
Why Candide is a great book to read in English
Voltaire's 1759 satire hurls its naive hero around the world — through war, shipwreck, and earthquake — to test the doctrine that ours is 'the best of all possible worlds'. The chapters are tiny, the irony is sharp, and the plain, fast-moving prose makes Candide a surprisingly manageable classic for an English learner.
On LangOrbit you read “Candide” with a safety net: the translation is one tap away when a sentence runs long, every word opens its meaning in context and can be saved for spaced-repetition review, and the grammar behind the trickier lines is explained right where you meet it.
Keep reading
More books to read in English
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Candide
Read “Candide” by Voltaire in English. Tap any word for its meaning, hear how it sounds, and save it to a memory-driven review schedule.
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