PARDESThe Mishnah, a paragraph at a time, with the commentary that opens it
If the Gemara feels like too much, this is where most people should actually start (Mishnah Berakhot 1:1 is open in the reader). The Mishnah is short, it is in Hebrew rather than Aramaic, and each paragraph is a complete thought. In the app every mishnah comes with Bartenura, the commentary that has explained it to beginners for five hundred years.
What the Mishnah is, in one paragraph
Around the year 200, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi collected the oral law into six orders, sixty-three tractates, about four thousand short paragraphs. Each one is called a mishnah. The Gemara is the record of the next three hundred years of argument about those paragraphs. So when you read a mishnah you are reading the thing everyone else is arguing about, which is a good place to stand.
How each mishnah is explained
By the commentaries that have always explained it, each one optional. The mishnah itself, vocalized. Bartenura on by default, because that is what a printed Mishnah looks like and what a child in cheder sees. Tosafot Yom Tov, its abridgement and the Rambam's commentary are a tap away for anyone who wants the second layer.
In Berakhot, for now, tap a mishnah and its sources show the place on the daf where the Gemara discusses it; from the daf, the same list leads back to the mishnah. The two books were always one conversation, and they are starting to open onto each other.
A mishnah a day, if that's your pace
The app's plan builder takes one tractate, Mishnah Berakhot or any other, and a pace or an end date, and lays out a path on the Hebrew calendar with review days, and a reminder at the time you set. A mishnah a day finishes Berakhot in two months. Two a day finishes the whole Mishnah in about five and a half years, which sounds long until you notice that the years pass anyway.
Questions people ask
Should I learn Mishnah before Gemara?
If you have never learned either, yes, a little. Even a few chapters of Berakhot teach you the vocabulary the Gemara assumes. But nobody has to finish the Mishnah first; most Daf Yomi learners meet each mishnah when the daf reaches it.
Is there an English translation?
Not in the app. The texts are in the original, vocalized, with their classical commentaries, and the app itself is in Hebrew for now, with English on its main buttons.
Which tractates are included?
All sixty-three, with Bartenura on every one.
If you're wondering how any of this fits together, the beginner's guide explains Mishnah, Gemara and the daf in one sitting. Or go straight to the day's Gemara.