Language Learning Notes | Look Up Words and Pronunciation While You Read

Sound familiar?

Looking things up breaks your reading
You switch to another app for every unknown word, and by the time you are back your concentration is gone
You learn words without ever hearing them
You check the meaning, move on, and end up with words you can read but cannot say
You never revisit the words you wrote down
They sit in a notebook, with no clue which book or page they came from
You cannot see your progress
How far into that novel or workbook are you, and when will you finish it?

Reading Forest lets you look a word up and write it down without leaving your notes.

Select it, open it, write it down

Three steps, without leaving your notes

Inside your notes, drag to select the word you do not know and choose [Edit] → [Web Search] from the menu bar. Dictionaries, translators, AI search and video sites are listed by category, and the one you pick opens in a new window. Your notes stay where they are, so you can write down what you found straight away.

The destinations language learners use most:

Pronunciation — Google

Search a word and the result page shows the phonetic spelling and a speaker button you can play on the spot.

Meaning and usage — Wikipedia / Weblio Dictionary / Kotobank

Check definitions, example sentences and etymology.

Translation — Google Translate / DeepL

Select a whole sentence and read it back in your own language.

Explanations — ChatGPT / Perplexity / YouTube

Ask why a phrase is worded that way, or find a video that explains the pronunciation.

The dictionaries and the audio are not ours. Reading Forest hands your selected text to the services above and opens them, so you keep using the dictionary you already trust.

See Web Search step by step, with screenshots

Why it suits language learners

One selection away

[Edit] → [Web Search] takes you to dictionaries, translators, AI and video without closing your notes.

Keep the context

Save the sentence you met the word in, not just the word. Context makes it stick.

Review schedule

Spaced repetition brings a note back the same day, the next day, a week later and a month later.

Progress you can see

Graphs for every book or workbook, plus an estimated finish date.

Films, series and audio too

Series and podcasts can be recorded exactly like books.

Free to use

Web search and notes are unlimited on the free plan.

How to use it while studying

1

Add your material

Add the novel, vocabulary book or workbook by barcode, by ISBN, or simply by typing it in

2

Look it up, write it down

Select the word, choose [Edit] → [Web Search], check the meaning and the pronunciation, then note it

3

Come back before you forget

Use the review schedule, and search your notes when you cannot remember where a word came from

What to write down (an example)

Do not save the word alone

A list of words and translations is hard to recall later. Saving the sentence, the pronunciation and what struck you makes the word far easier to bring back.

What to keep	Example
The word and its meaning	inevitable — impossible to avoid
The sentence you met it in	The change was inevitable. (p.128)
Pronunciation	Stress on the second syllable; checked on Google
A note to yourself	in- (not) + evitable (avoidable)

Colour the words you have not learned yet, and they are easy to spot when you look back.

Ways people use it

Novels and extensive reading

Words with page numbers - note where you met a word so you can reread the passage around it
An honest finish date - see when your current pace will finish the book, and adjust before you give up
Chapter summaries - a sentence in your own words per chapter keeps the plot from slipping away

Exams and certificates

Mistakes worth keeping - what you got wrong and which word you did not know
Workbook progress - how far through the book you are, on a graph
Review schedule - the same day, the next day, a week later, a month later

Series, films and podcasts

Record them like books - films, series and podcasts all have their own records
Catch the phrasing - save an expression together with the scene it appeared in
Look it up on the spot - send what you could not catch to a translator or to AI

How it differs from a flashcard app

They are good at different things

Flashcard and memorisation apps are built to drill. Reading Forest has no card quizzing and no scheduling of questions.

What Reading Forest is good at is keeping the book, the page and the sentence where you met a word. A word kept with its context is easier to recall than a word alone.

A sensible split:
🃏 Drilling to memorise → a flashcard app
📖 Looking things up while reading, and keeping the context → Reading Forest

Use both and you keep the words you have drilled and the words you have actually met.

Frequently asked questions

Does Reading Forest include a dictionary?

No. It does not provide its own dictionary or audio. It hands the text you selected to an outside service — Google, Wikipedia, Weblio Dictionary, Google Translate, DeepL, ChatGPT and others — and opens it in a new window, so you keep using the dictionary you already trust.

Can I hear how a word is pronounced?

Select the word and search Google: the result page shows the phonetic spelling and a speaker button you can play. The audio comes from those services, not from Reading Forest.

Can it replace a flashcard app?

No — there is no card quizzing. What it does well is keeping a word together with the sentence it came from, and bringing it back for review on a spaced schedule.

Is it free?

Yes. Web search and notes are unlimited on the free plan. Each reading notebook holds up to 20 titles, and you can create as many notebooks as you like.

Reading Notes for Language Learners