Gong Logic

Read Thomas Mann's novella Der Bajazzo in the original German beside a clear English translation, one sentence at a time. A merchant's son with a small inheritance and a talent for mimicry decides he need never work, settles into a comfortable town, and spends fourteen chapters discovering that a life arranged entirely around one's own pleasure will not hold — the story of a man who was the clown at every party and is nobody at all.

Every sentence is aligned German-to-English, so you always know exactly what you are reading. Tap any word for an instant definition, listen to natural audio in both languages, and follow the highlighted word alignment as the story is read aloud.

Mann wrote it at twenty-two, in the first person, and the voice is unusually direct for him — self-mocking, conversational, and easier to follow than his later work. Fourteen short chapters averaging about 730 words make it comfortable to read one at a sitting.

This reader is part of a growing collection of bilingual story apps that pair great writing with modern language-learning tools.