LingoBlend blended books now read on e-ink, and the first reader we built the whole loop for is CrossPoint, the open-source firmware that runs on Xteink's X3, X4, X4 Classic and X4 Pro readers and a handful of other small e-ink devices. Download a blended book and its dictionary today with no account, or pair a reader to a free LingoBlend account — on CrossPoint 1.7 or a Nightly build — and start clipping words into your practice.
What a blended book is#
A blended book is an ordinary novel with a chosen share of its words — usually one in five — swapped into the language you're learning, each one picked so the sentence around it still carries the meaning. It's a standard EPUB 3 file, so it opens on any EPUB reader; what makes it worth reading on CrossPoint specifically is the dictionary that comes with it.
The loop: book, dictionary, lookup, clip, practice#
Here's the whole thing in order. You open a blended book on your reader and read normally, meeting a Spanish word every few words inside English prose — at the usual one in five, a couple per sentence. When one stops you, you look it up the way you always would — the reader's built-in dictionary lookup, pointed at a companion dictionary we generate from that exact blend, answers with the word it replaced and its base form (look up mantuvo and you get "held · mantener"). If it's worth keeping, you Clip it — written to the SD card instantly, no network needed. Next time the reader's on WiFi, you open a page it shows you and press Sync clippings; the words appear in your LingoBlend Dictionary tab with no pull-to-refresh, already carrying the meaning the book gave them, and they start coming up in the app's five spaced-repetition games. Reading stays reading. Once the words are synced, the review scheduling happens on its own, from words you cared enough about to tap.
What you get for free, with an account, and with Pro#
| Tier | What you get | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| No account | The free library (today: The Great Gatsby, English to Spanish, three editions), its companion dictionary, and the OPDS catalog | Nothing — though the LingoBlend Dictionaries plugin itself needs CrossPoint 1.7 or a Nightly build |
| Free LingoBlend account | Pairing a reader, Sync clippings, optional reading-time credit toward your daily goal | A free account, and CrossPoint 1.7 or a Nightly build — Clip itself needs only the firmware; pairing and Sync clippings live in the LingoBlend plugin |
| Pro | Blend a whole book of your own — a public-domain classic or your own pasted text, any of 17 languages, 5% to 50% | Pro, drawn from the same monthly Smart Blend word allowance as the app |
The library needs no sign-in because there's nothing personal in it. Pairing does, because a paired reader has to know whose dictionary to sync words into. Blending your own book needs Pro because it's a real blend — the same engine and the same selection that skips words you've mastered as in the app.
Which reader you need#
| Reader | What works today |
|---|---|
| CrossPoint (any reader running it) | Everything — the book, the companion dictionary, and on 1.7 or a Nightly build, Clip and Sync clippings |
| Any other EPUB reader (Kobo, PocketBook, phone apps, Kindle via Send to Kindle) | The blended book itself. It's an ordinary EPUB, but looking a word up and clipping it need firmware we can't install there |
| DinoReader | Nothing shipped — we're in conversation with its author about the companion dictionary |
| Xteink's stock firmware | Nothing yet, before a reader has CrossPoint installed |
No CrossPoint reader? The book still works — see which editions need nothing but an EPUB reader. Choosing hardware for language learning? CrossPoint, Kindle and Kobo compared covers what each one does with a foreign-language text.
Firmware: 1.6.0 reads, 1.7 does the rest#
| Firmware | What you get |
|---|---|
| 1.6.0 and newer (current stable: 1.6.5) | Blended books and the companion dictionary, copied over by USB. Look up a word via Reader Menu → Look Up, then tap it — one word at a time |
| 1.7, or a Nightly build (1.7 itself isn't released) | Both SD plugins, Clip, and pressing and dragging across several words at once for a phrase |
That split exists because dictionary lookup shipped in CrossPoint 1.6.0, while plugins, clipping, and multi-word selection are still in development. We won't promise when 1.7 ships; a Nightly build gets you there today, flashed from crosspointreader.com, which documents what a flash does and does not touch — read that before you start.
Quick start: three steps#
- Get a book. Download the free library from the e-reader page, or add our OPDS catalog on the reader itself so books arrive over WiFi — covered step by step in downloading blended books with OPDS.
- Add the dictionary. Either copy it over by USB alongside the book, or install the LingoBlend Dictionaries plugin — from a store, or as a direct download on the e-readers page — and download it on the device. The companion dictionary explains what it shows and why; the full install walkthrough, USB cable and all, is in the step-by-step setup guide.
- Read, and look things up. Blended words are underlined. Look one up the way your firmware does it, and — on 1.7 or a Nightly build — Clip the ones worth keeping. Saving words from your e-reader covers getting those clips back into the app.
Why e-ink, and why no firmware changes#
We built this on an e-ink reader because that's where people already do long, undistracted reading — a book, not a feed, which is the condition comprehensible input needs. Why e-ink suits language learning makes that case properly; unlike a phone it has no feed, no badges and nothing else to switch to over the length of a novel.
We chose CrossPoint because the whole integration runs on what it already does — open an EPUB, look words up in a dictionary file, clip text, download from a catalog, run SD plugins — with no firmware code of our own merged into it. Nothing had to be merged upstream for it to work, so the parts that ride on 1.6 shipped as soon as our own pieces were ready.
Where this honestly stands#
CrossPoint 1.7 isn't released, so clipping, the two SD plugins, and multi-word lookup need a Nightly build rather than 1.6.5, the stable release most CrossPoint users are running. The reader uses one dictionary at a time, so while a LingoBlend dictionary is active, looking up an ordinary word returns "not found" — expected, not a bug; switch back in Settings when you finish the book. The loop is verified end to end on an X4 Pro; the same functions exist on the button-controlled X3 and X4 through the Reader Menu, but we haven't tested them there. We've submitted both plugins to CrossPoint's official catalog, but until that's accepted you add our catalog URL by hand. DinoReader and Xteink's stock firmware don't have any of this yet.
Where to go next in this series#
- CrossPoint for language learners — what the open-source firmware itself can do, beyond what LingoBlend adds.
- Step-by-step setup — the full USB-cable walkthrough, start to finish.
- The companion dictionary, explained — why a lookup shows the word a blend replaced instead of a dictionary's usual entry.
- Saving words from your e-reader — what Clip and Sync clippings actually do, in detail.
- Downloading with OPDS — skip the cable and get books over WiFi.
- Blend a whole book of your own — classics or your own text, in any of 17 languages.
- Underlined, glosses above, or linked — which of the three editions to pick, and why.
- Why e-ink for language learning — the case for this screen over a phone or a backlit app.
- CrossPoint vs Kindle vs Kobo — a straight comparison if you're choosing hardware.
- Pairing your e-reader: what it can and can't see — exactly what access a paired device gets, and what it never touches.
- Read The Great Gatsby in blended Spanish — the free book the library starts with, free to download today.
- A 30-day plan to finish a blended book — a pace that actually gets you to the last page.
- Blended EPUBs without CrossPoint — what works on Kobo, PocketBook and phone apps today.
The takeaway#
The book was always an EPUB; the work was making an e-ink reader's own dictionary teach you the word a blend chose, and making words you clip show up where your practice actually happens. That's live on CrossPoint today, starting with a free book that needs nothing but the reader itself. Start with the e-reader page for the download, or setup, step by step if you already have the hardware.