How to look up a word without putting your book down

Why lookups break your reading

Picking up the phone to type a word is rarely just a lookup: the notifications are right there, and the evening goes with them. Skipping the word costs something too, since a few unknown words in a passage are enough to lose the thread.

Your options

• Mark it and check later: a pencil dot in the margin, looked up at the end of the chapter. Free, but you read the passage without the meaning.
• A dictionary app or search: accurate, but it puts the phone, and everything on it, in your hands.
• Siri or another general assistant: hands-free, but it doesn’t know what you’re reading, so you get the first meaning, not the one the author meant.
• Faria: hands-free, in context. It knows the book in your hands, gives the sense that fits it, and keeps the word for you.

How it works in Faria

Start a reading session and keep the phone nearby. Ask “what does obsequious mean?” or just “obsequious?” and hear a short definition read in the voice you picked. Follow up with “can you give me an example?” and Faria builds on what you just heard. In books that teach, such as science or history, a word that names a thing comes with a picture.

You can ask about the story as well: who a character is, or what a passage means. The first time you do, Faria asks what page you’re on, and its answers never reach past it.

Reading in another language

Faria works with books in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese and explains words in English, which makes it useful for reading a novel in a language you’re learning.