Stories, audio, and videos can all help you learn Belarusian when you can follow what they mean. That is the idea behind comprehensible input: learning from Belarusian you can mostly understand. Easy Belarusian takes some looking for. In the 2019 census, only about a quarter of people in Belarus said they speak Belarusian at home, and a learner on Reddit notes that most Belarusian learning materials are made for Belarusians who want to use their own language more.
These apps and free sites give you Belarusian at your level, or help you follow the Belarusian you pick yourself. For courses, speaking practice, and tutors, see our Belarusian app comparison.
Custom Lessons Made for You
Bubblegum
Learn Belarusian with a path made just for you. Start with your level, what you like, and why you want to learn. Your path grows as you learn, with new lessons that fit you. Bubblegum also has news and stories, so you can read and listen to a mix of Belarusian about music, food, family, or daily life.
Poppy, your AI tutor, writes each lesson for your level and goals. If a sentence is hard to follow, just ask her to explain the words or the grammar.
The trade-off is that Bubblegum can't help you read Belarusian you found yourself. For a book, an article, or a video you already picked, the tools in Read and Watch Belarusian You Choose are the better fit.
- Read and listen to lessons, news, and stories about things you like.
- New lessons fit your level, interests, and goals.
- Regenerative Review™ brings saved words back in new lessons, so you review them by reading instead of using flashcards.
- Ask Poppy for help as you read.
- Lesson audio uses AI voices, not recordings of Belarusian speakers.
- You cannot bring in your own books, articles, or videos.
- A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so you can ask Poppy for a free one, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn.
- Regenerative Review™
- Teaches Cyrillic
Mobile
Read Stories for Learners
LingQ
LingQ lets you read Belarusian from its library or from things you bring in. It highlights the words you have not met yet and the ones you are still learning. Several learners on Reddit suggest it for Belarusian.
- A Mini Stories course of more than 60 lessons for beginners, with lots of repetition.
- More than 40 Belarusian courses, from folk tales to Agatha Christie stories in Belarusian.
- Bring in your own Belarusian articles, books, and videos.
- Flashcards
MobileWeb
Read and Hear the News in Belarusian
Radio Svaboda
Radio Svaboda is the Belarusian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Its news is written for people who already speak Belarusian, so it suits learners who know the basics. A learner on Reddit says they started reading Belarusian with its articles.
- The latest news from Belarus and the world, in Belarusian.
- Live broadcasts, videos, and photos.
- Podcasts in Belarusian, such as one about Belarusian history.
- Doesn't teach Cyrillic
MobileWeb
Listen to Books in Belarusian
Kamunikat
Kamunikat is the online library of the Kamunikat.org foundation in Poland, which collects what has been published in Belarusian. Learners and Belarusians on Reddit point to it when someone asks where to find Belarusian books.
- More than 50,000 Belarusian books, audiobooks, newspapers, and magazines in one library.
- Audiobooks of modern Belarusian writers, some read by actors from the Kupala Theatre.
- Includes Svetlana Alexievich's five-book cycle, read aloud.
- Doesn't teach Cyrillic
MobileWeb
Кніжны Воз
Кніжны Воз, which means “book cart,” is an app of audiobooks read in Belarusian. A Reddit user looking for Belarusian books gives it as an example of the kind of app they want.
- Audiobooks in Belarusian, many of them for children.
- Listen on your phone or in a web browser.
- The books are made for Belarusian families, not graded for learners.
- Doesn't teach Cyrillic
MobileWeb
Read and Watch Belarusian You Choose
These tools help you follow web pages, books, and videos you pick yourself. They suit learners who already know what they want to read or watch.
Readlang
Readlang helps you read Belarusian on the web, such as the news and library sites on this page. A learner on Reddit says it is the tool they prefer for reading Belarusian.
- Tap a word or short phrase on a Belarusian web page to see what it means.
- Save new words and review them with flashcards.
- With Premium, upload Belarusian audio and read along with its transcript.
- Flashcards
- Doesn't teach Cyrillic
WebBrowser extension
Language Player
Language Player turns YouTube videos, TV shows, and live TV into lessons. It lists Belarusian among its 110 languages, so you can watch real Belarusian videos and tap the words you don't know.
- Watch Belarusian YouTube videos as lessons.
- Tap a word in the subtitles to see what it means.
- Save words and review them with spaced repetition.
- Flashcards
- Doesn't teach Cyrillic
MobileWebBrowser extension
Skarnik
Skarnik is a Belarusian dictionary app, also on the web at skarnik.by. Several learners on Reddit who read Russian recommend it for looking up words.
- Russian-Belarusian and Belarusian-Russian dictionaries with more than 100,000 words each.
- Shows which syllable to stress in each Belarusian word.
- Works offline.
- Doesn't teach Cyrillic
MobileWeb
Free Cartoons, Shows, and Books
Гаварун is a Belarusian studio that dubs well-known cartoons, such as Pettersson and Findus, into Belarusian. It posts episodes free on YouTube, and its site, gavarun.by, has more than 500 episodes for members, with new ones every week. Будзьма беларусамі!, a Belarusian culture group, posts short videos about Belarusian history and culture, and a learner on Reddit suggests its channel.
For news on TV and online, Belsat, a channel for Belarus run from Poland, makes news and shows in Belarusian, and Nasha Niva, first published in 1906, is a newspaper written in Belarusian. The government of Belarus has labeled both of them “extremist,” so people inside the country can be punished for sharing them.
For reading, Беларуская Палічка, an online library started in 1996, has free Belarusian books and audiobooks. A learner on Reddit notes that you can switch on its dictionaries and double-click a word to see what it means in Russian. audiobooks.by lists hundreds of Belarusian audiobooks, from classics to books for children, with links to where you can hear them. For music, a Reddit user suggests Belarusian songs on YouTube, such as the rock band N.R.M.
Learn Belarusian in Your Language
These counts cover menu-language choices, including script variants. Other apps’ counts and full lists come from their iPhone listings, except Readlang (its help forum) and Language Player (Chrome Web Store). Word meanings, lesson explanations, and other platforms may differ.
| App | Supported Display Languages | Full List |
|---|---|---|
| Bubblegum | 74 | Full list
|
| LingQ | 17 | Full list |
| Radio Svaboda | 25 | Full list |
| Kamunikat | 1 | Full list |
| Кніжны Воз | 1 | Full list |
| Readlang | 1 | Full list |
| Language Player | 17 | Full list |
| Skarnik | 1 | Full list |
Other Apps We Looked At (6)
- ШануюAn app for Belarusian words and grammar, with words and sentences read by professional speakers. You can use it in Cyrillic or in the Belarusian Latin alphabet. It is new and growing.
- MOVAMore than 3,000 Belarusian words in over 100 topics, each recorded by a native speaker.
- DuostoriesShort Duolingo stories translated into Belarusian by volunteers, with audio and a listening mode. The Belarusian stories are taught from Russian.
- Natural Russian & BelarusianA YouTube channel with a few short videos in easy Belarusian for beginners, alongside many more in Russian.
- Belarus Podcast HubA catalogue of podcasts made in Belarus, sorted by topic, with a player built in.
- Зайкава хаткаA Belarusian folk tale for small children, with moving pictures and two narrators reading it aloud.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to learn the Cyrillic alphabet first?
Yes, if you want to read. Belarusian uses a Cyrillic alphabet of 32 letters, including Ў and І, which Russian does not have. Bubblegum's free Belarusian alphabet course teaches the letters in eight short chapters, right in your browser.
Why do some Belarusian texts spell words differently?
Belarusian has two spellings. Schools teach the official one, and some writers and news sites use an older one from 1918, which writes “world” as сьвет instead of свет. Belarusian Wikipedia even has a separate edition for each. A Belarusian speaker on Reddit says many people learn the school spelling first and switch to the older one later.
Does knowing Russian or Ukrainian help?
Yes. Belarusian is its own language, but it shares many words with Ukrainian and Russian, and speakers of each can partly understand the others. A Ukrainian speaker on Reddit says that listening to Belarusians talk was enough to start speaking it, and a learner who reads Russian says reading gets easier after a few weeks of new words.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so you can ask Poppy for a free one, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Belarusian language (2019 census)
- Belstat: Results of the 2019 Population Census in the Republic of Belarus
- r/belarus: Sources to learn Belarusian (most materials are made for Belarusians; Skarnik for readers of Russian)
- r/languagelearning: Where can I learn Belarusian? (LingQ, and dictionaries on knihi.com)
- r/belarusian: where to start (Readlang, LingQ, audiobooks, books, and Belarusian YouTube channels)
- r/belarusian: Электронні кніжкі (knihi.com, Kamunikat, and Кніжны Воз)
- r/belarus: Looking for book in Belarusian (knihi.com and Kamunikat)
- RFE/RL: Belarus labels RFE/RL's Belarus Service extremist
- Wikipedia: Taraškievica
- Гаварун: Belarusian dubbing studio
- Wikipedia: Belsat
- Wikipedia: Nasha Niva
- r/languagelearning: Online sources to learn Belarusian? (Belarusian music, such as N.R.M.)
- Wikipedia: Belarusian alphabet
- Wikipedia: Belarusian Wikipedia
- r/belarusian: On old taraškievič book (the two spellings)
- r/belarus: About the Belarusian language (a Ukrainian speaker on learning by listening)
- r/belarusian: How easy is it for someone who speaks Russian fluently to learn Belarusian?
- Bubblegum
- LingQ
- Radio Svaboda
- Kamunikat
- Кніжны Воз
- Readlang
- Language Player
- Skarnik
Checked on October 8, 2026 against each app's own pages.
