Read Notes from the Underground in English — and understand every line.
Read “Notes from the Underground” by Fyodor Dostoevsky 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.
Tap a word for its translation and part of speech — then save it to your list.
The opening
How “Notes from the Underground” begins
I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man.
I am an unattractive man.
I believe my liver is diseased.
However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me.
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 “Notes from the Underground” at level B2 and above, with how many times each one appears.
- consciousness
- desire
- nasty
- insult
- spite
- soul
- tear
- fellow
- afterwards
- forgive
- continually
- conscious
- blame
- dare
- suffering
- bind
- desire
- attain
- despise
- duel
- strike
- observe
- creature
- consequently
- ashamed
- recall
- mean
- fully
- somehow
- wage
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 “Notes from the Underground”
How much of each kind of grammar “Notes from the Underground” uses, counted in the sentences the Reader marks: per 10,000 words, compared with the other books in the library.
- Phrasal verbs
- Perfect tenses
- Relative clauses
- Passive voice
- Modal verbs
- -ing forms and to-infinitives
- Reported speech
- Conditionals
Constructions to look for
- Past participle clause He was the bane of my life, the curse laid upon me by Providence.
- Phrasal verb with 'up' and preposition Misery and spite seemed surging up in me again and seeking an outlet.
- -ing clause as adverbial (Feeling tired, …) Reading, of course, was a great help—exciting me, giving me pleasure and pain.
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 Notes from the Underground is a great book to read in English
A nameless retired clerk argues with the world from his Petersburg 'underground' — bitter, brilliant, and painfully self-aware. Dostoevsky's 1864 novella is short and dense; reading it with the Russian original beside the English is one of the best ways to watch translation wrestle with a singular voice.
On LangOrbit you read “Notes from the Underground” 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
Every title opens with the same dictionary, grammar help, and translation — start reading for free.
Notes from the Underground
Read “Notes from the Underground” by Fyodor Dostoevsky in English. Tap any word for its meaning, hear how it sounds, and save it to a memory-driven review schedule.
Read in the ReaderStart for free · no card, no signup wall