Read a forgotten old book in your own language
Old books nobody ever translated become readable in an evening, one chapter at a time.
Published . Steps as of October 2026.
Can AI translate an old book that was never published in English?
Yes: upload the book one chapter at a time and ask for a faithful, paragraph-by-paragraph translation with footnotes. Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini can all read a PDF chapter, so use whichever you already pay for or have open. It fits hobby scholars, family historians and anyone with an out-of-copyright book in another language. For long books, keep each chapter in the same chat so terms stay consistent from one chapter to the next.
A picture made with AI to show the idea.
Your prompt
Fill in your details. Skip any you like.
Claude and ChatGPT open with your prompt already typed in. Gemini can't be filled in from a link, so its button copies your prompt: paste it into the new chat.
The prompt that gets copied
I've attached a chapter from an old book written in [ORIGINAL LANGUAGE, e.g. German, printed in the 1890s]. Translate it into [YOUR LANGUAGE, e.g. plain modern English] faithfully, paragraph by paragraph, without summarizing or skipping anything. Keep the author's meaning over word-for-word wording, but don't modernize the ideas. Where the scan is hard to read, write (unclear) rather than guessing. Keep the technical terms of [THE SUBJECT, e.g. Latin grammar] and add a short footnote explaining each one the first time it appears. After the translation, list any old-fashioned terms, names or references a modern reader might miss, with one line each. Then tell me which passages you were least sure about.
Upload a chapter of an old book that was never translated and get a faithful translation, paragraph by paragraph, with footnotes on dated terms.
Step by step
- Download the old book as a PDF from a digital library.
- Upload one chapter at a time into Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini.
- Paste the prompt below and fill in the brackets.
- Ask about any passage it lists as uncertain.
What you'll get
A full, faithful translation of each chapter with footnotes on old terms and a list of passages to double-check.
Use books you own or ones that are out of copyright.
- Made for
- Everyone
- Works in
- Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini
