Read The Sorrows of Young Werther in English — and understand every line.
Read “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in English. Tap any word for its meaning, hear how it sounds, and save it to a memory-driven review schedule.
Start for free · no card, no signup wall
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 “The Sorrows of Young Werther” begins
How happy I am that I am gone!
My dear friend, what a thing is the heart of man!
To leave you, from whom I have been inseparable, whom I love so dearly, and yet to feel happy!
I know you will forgive me. Have not other attachments been specially appointed by fate to torment a head like mine?
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 “The Sorrows of Young Werther” at level B2 and above, with how many times each one appears.
- soul
- tear
- heaven
- being
- exclaim
- observe
- joy
- possess
- existence
- inquire
- approach
- stream
- seek
- presence
- creature
- grave
- forgive
- conceal
- wretched
- bear
- pursue
- sensation
- leave
- recollection
- fate
- wander
- seize
- desire
- thus
- circumstance
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 “The Sorrows of Young Werther”
How much of each kind of grammar “The Sorrows of Young Werther” uses, counted in the sentences the Reader marks: per 10,000 words, compared with the other books in the library.
- Relative clauses
- Perfect tenses
- Passive voice
- Modal verbs
- Phrasal verbs
- -ing forms and to-infinitives
- Reported speech
- Conditionals
Constructions to look for
- Whose (possession) And oh, those bygone days, whose memory now torments me!
- At/on/in (time) I wait for day, and at sunrise the horses are to be at the door.
- Phrasal verb with 'down' She asked some questions: he gave short answers, and sat down to write.
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
-
Tap to translate
Tap any word to see what it means in this exact sentence — with pronunciation and a clear example.
-
Save what matters
Add a word and it comes back on a spaced-repetition schedule timed to how memory actually works.
-
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 The Sorrows of Young Werther is a great book to read in English
The novel that made the young Goethe famous overnight in 1774: a sensitive young man pours his hopeless love for Lotte into letters to a friend. The epistolary form means short, emotionally charged sections — very readable in English, with the German original a glance away.
On LangOrbit you read “The Sorrows of Young Werther” 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.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Read “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 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