Reading with a dictionary: how not to give up on a book
Look a word up only when it stops you from understanding the sentence, or when you meet it for the second or third time. Skip the rest and keep reading. A dictionary that shows the translation with one tap, inside the text, makes those few lookups cheap enough that they don’t break the story.
Most people who abandon a book in a foreign language do not give up because of one hard word. They give up because of the fortieth lookup in an evening: each one takes them out of the story, and after an hour they have read four pages and remember none of them. The fix has two parts: look up fewer words, and make each lookup faster.
Which words to look up
Before you reach for the dictionary, ask three questions about the word:
- Can I still follow the sentence without it? “She wore a tattered coat” makes sense without knowing the adjective: it is a coat, and the story goes on. If the sentence still works, skip the word.
- Have I seen it before in this book? A word that comes back is a word the author needs, and it will come back again. Look it up on the second or third meeting. Words that appear once can wait.
- Can I guess it from the context or from a word I know? Make a guess, keep reading, and check the guess only if the word matters later. A wrong guess is usually corrected by the next few pages.
If the answer to the first question is no, look the word up at once. This happens more often at the start of a book, when you don’t yet know the characters, places and the author’s favourite words, and less often after the first chapter. If you find yourself stopping more than about once every few lines for words you truly need, the book is probably above your level for now: see Is this book right for my level?
What studies say about dictionaries and glosses
Given a dictionary, learners rarely use it. In a study by Hulstijn, Hollander and Greidanus (1996), 78 Dutch university students of French read a short story by Maupassant. One group had a dictionary, one had translations of the difficult words printed in the margin, and one had neither. The dictionary group looked up on average 1.9 of the 16 target words. The words they did look up were remembered 59% of the time, but because they looked up so few, they learned no more than the group with no help at all. The group with margin translations learned the most, and words that appeared three times were learned better than words that appeared once.
Ready-made translations help. A meta-analysis of 42 studies by Yanagisawa, Webb and Uchihara (2020) found that learners reading with glosses, short translations or definitions of target words, picked up 45% of those words on a test right after reading and 33% on a later test. Without glosses the figures were 27% and 20%. Glosses in the reader’s own language worked better than glosses in the language being learned.
Meeting a word again matters. Across 26 studies, how often a learner met a word while reading was clearly linked to whether they learned it, with a medium effect. About ten encounters is a reasonable rule of thumb, though no single number fits every word.
What this means in practice: a lookup you actually make is worth something, but a slow lookup is one you tend to skip. A reader that shows a translation with one tap sits between a paper dictionary and a gloss: you still choose the word, but the cost is close to reading a note in the margin. We know of no study that tests tap-to-translate readers directly; the evidence above is about glosses and dictionaries.
Ways to look up a word, from slowest to fastest
- A paper dictionary. Accurate and good for learning a word properly, but each lookup means leaving the page, finding the entry and then finding your place again.
- A dictionary or translation app on the phone. Faster to search, but you still switch apps and type the word, often in a form that is not in the dictionary (“went” instead of “go”).
- A pop-up dictionary inside the reader. You tap or select the word and the definition or translation appears over the text. This is the cheapest lookup there is, and it keeps you on the page.
- Glosses and parallel text. Translations already printed in the margin or on the facing page. No lookup at all, but you only get the words the editor chose, and it is easy to start reading the translation instead of the original.
Reading tools compared
Details and prices below were checked on the official websites on 28 September 2026. Prices change; check before you pay.
| Tool | Runs on | What you read | Looking up a word | Saved words | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kindle | Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Kindle apps | Kindle books | Press and hold a word for a dictionary in the book’s language; the lookup window also offers a translation (needs an internet connection). Word Wise hints work only in English books. | Vocabulary Builder with flashcards | Free with a Kindle or the app |
| Apple Books | iPhone, iPad | Books from the Apple Books store and your own EPUB and PDF files | Touch and hold a word, then choose Translate; languages can be downloaded for offline use | Highlights and notes | Free |
| Readlang | Web browser; extensions for Chrome and Firefox; on phones as a web page saved to the home screen | Texts in its library, your own uploads, any web page | Click or tap a word or phrase for a translation; explanations of the context | Flashcards | Free: unlimited single words, 10 phrases a day. Premium $6 a month or $48 a year; Premium Plus $15 a month or $120 a year |
| LingQ | Web, iPhone, Android | Its lesson library and your imports: articles, YouTube videos, podcasts | Tap a word to see a translation and save it as a “LingQ” | Review of saved words; counts the words you know | Free: 20 saved words in total, 5 imported lessons. Premium $14.99 a month, less on longer plans |
| Language Reactor | Chrome extension on a computer; the website also works on phones | Netflix and YouTube with subtitles in two languages; web pages and uploaded books in its reader | Click a word in the subtitles or text for a dictionary entry | Saving words in all features needs Pro; export to Anki | Free; Pro $5.95 a month or $39.95 a year |
| Readlang Mobile our app | iPhone, iPad; no Android version | A library of public-domain books sorted by CEFR level, articles by link, your own EPUB files (Premium) | Tap a word and the translation appears in the line; tap the first and last word of a phrase to translate it | Every translated word is saved; practice in Premium; no export to Anki | Free: 30 translations a day, phrases up to 6 words. Premium: price shown in the App Store |
We make Readlang Mobile, so read that row with this in mind. It is an independent app and is not affiliated with Readlang (readlang.com), which is a different product from a different developer.
Which to choose depends mostly on where you read. If your books are on a Kindle, its dictionary and Vocabulary Builder are already there and free. If you read on a computer and want flashcards, Readlang and LingQ are built for that; LingQ has phone apps, Readlang runs in the browser. Language Reactor is the tool for learning from films and videos. For books on an iPhone, Apple Books translates any word you select for free, and Readlang Mobile shows the translation inside the line and keeps a list of the words.
A routine that keeps you reading
- Read the first chapter with the dictionary close: names, places and recurring words are learned here.
- After that, look up only words that block a sentence or have come back at least twice.
- Save the words you looked up. Reviewing a short list after each session does more for your vocabulary than looking up every word while reading.
- Stop for the day at the end of a scene, not in the middle of a confusing passage. Starting a session in the middle of a problem is the fastest way to stop opening the book.
Sources
- Hulstijn, J. H., Hollander, M. and Greidanus, T. (1996). Incidental vocabulary learning by advanced foreign language students: The influence of marginal glosses, dictionary use, and reoccurrence of unknown words. The Modern Language Journal, 80(3), 327–339. doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1996.tb01614.x
- Yanagisawa, A., Webb, S. and Uchihara, T. (2020). How do different forms of glossing contribute to L2 vocabulary learning from reading? A meta-regression analysis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 42(2), 411–438. doi.org/10.1017/S0272263119000688
- Uchihara, T., Webb, S. and Yanagisawa, A. (2019). The effects of repetition on incidental vocabulary learning: A meta-analysis of correlational studies. Language Learning, 69(3), 559–599. doi.org/10.1111/lang.12343
- Webb, S. (2007). The effects of repetition on vocabulary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 46–65. doi.org/10.1093/applin/aml048
- Tool details, checked 28 September 2026: Amazon, Word Wise; Kindle Paperwhite user guide; Apple, translate text in apps; readlang.com; LingQ, free vs Premium; Language Reactor, Pro; readlang-mobile.com.
Related: Graded readers or original books.