A small press for people who'd rather read a story than study a textbook

I've spent years learning languages, mostly the way everyone does: apps, flashcards, streaks. It worked up to a point. I could recognize words and pass little tests, but I couldn't sit down with a book and just read.

What changed things was finding stories I actually wanted to finish. Not practice texts about ordering coffee, but stories with a plot, where I needed to know what happened on the next page. That pull did more for my vocabulary than any list ever did, because the words turned up inside something I cared about, and they stayed.

The problem was finding those stories at the right level. Most graded readers were written in English and translated afterwards, and it showed. The language felt slightly off, like a recording played at the wrong speed. So I started making the kind of books I'd wanted myself.

Every Taleivo book is written from the start in the language you're learning, never translated into it. Each one stays inside a single CEFR level, so you can read almost every sentence without stopping, and each comes with a glossary and comprehension questions so you can check you're following. The stories are meant to be read for pleasure first and studied second.

Right now there are books in Dutch and Spanish, with French and more on the way. It's a small operation, made carefully, one book at a time. If a story keeps you reading to the end in a language you're still learning, it's doing exactly what I hoped.

Written, not translated

This is the promise everything else hangs on. A translated reader carries its source language with it: English idioms rebuilt word by word, dialogue nobody would say, rhythm that fights the language you're trying to learn. You may not consciously notice it, but you're practicing slightly wrong Spanish or slightly wrong Dutch.

Every Taleivo book is originally written in its language, by writers working in their own language, for one specific level. When you read our A2 Spanish, you're absorbing patterns that Latin American Spanish actually uses at that level — because that's what was written, not what survived a translation.

What's inside every book

• A complete short novel, graded to a single CEFR level (A1–B2)
• A chapter-by-chapter glossary — tricky words explained where they appear
• Comprehension questions after every chapter
• A full answer key at the back for self-study
• A clean, readable PDF that works on tablet and computer, and prints beautifully