Build vocabulary while you read ebooks

Short answer: to build vocabulary while reading, look up words that block understanding or recur, save a small selection, and review them regularly. In Lectern, long-press a word to use the dictionary and save it to Vocabulary; the available definition depends on the language and installed dictionary.

Vocabulary only grows from words you actually meet, so the book matters more than any setting in the app. Something you already want to finish beats something impressive on a shelf: you stay with it long enough to run into new words more than once, which is when they start to stick. If you are reading in a language you are still learning, aim for a book that sits slightly below your comfort level rather than above it; see learning a language by reading books for how to pick that level.

A rough test works for either case: if nearly every sentence holds a word you do not know, you are decoding, not reading, and looking each one up will wear you out before the book does. If you rarely stop at all, the book will not hand you much either. The sweet spot is a book you can read at a normal pace with the odd word standing in your way.

Decide which words are worth stopping for

The instinct is to look up everything unfamiliar. Resist it. In Lectern, a long-press on a word opens a definition in a popup without leaving the page, so the lookup itself is fast, but the interruption still costs something, and not every word deserves it.

• Stop for it if the sentence stops making sense without it, or if it is a word you keep meeting and still cannot place.
• Skip it if you can guess the meaning well enough from what is around it, or if it is a name, a one-off invented word, or something you already know you will not need again.

When you do stop, the popup shows the definition, its part of speech and, where the dictionary has them, a couple of example sentences and related words you can tap to look up in turn. That is often enough to decide the word is not worth keeping at all: a definition that clicks the moment you see it rarely needs to be reviewed again.

Save it with enough to find your way back

Tap Save to vocab in the same popup and the word joins your vocabulary list with its part of speech, its definition and the book it came from. Lectern does not save the sentence you found it in, only the word and where it was saved from, so if you want the fuller context later you will need to reopen that book.

Two honest limits are worth knowing before you rely on this. Only English ships with a full dictionary built in; other languages return nothing on a long-press until you import a dictionary file for that language, and until then Save to vocab still stores the word, just with an empty definition and part of speech. Second, even in English, an obscure or misspelled word can come back with no match and gets saved the same way: present in your list, blank where the definition should be. Both are worth a glance before you trust the review queue with a word.

Review without turning reading into homework

The review lives away from the book on purpose, under Settings → Dictionary & catalogs → Vocabulary, so it never has to interrupt what you are reading. The screen shows how many words you have saved in total and how many are due right now. Tap a card to reveal the definition, then grade yourself honestly: Again if you did not recall it, Good if you did, or Easy if it barely needed thought. Again resets a word to tomorrow; Good and Easy step it out, first to a day, then to six days, and from the third review on the gaps grow faster for Easy, so words you already know stop taking up your time. Once every due word is graded, the screen tells you that you are done for now, which is your cue to close it and get back to the book.

If a word turns out not worth tracking, you can remove it from the same card. For the exact taps, screenshots and a walkthrough of exporting the list to Anki or Quizlet, see looking up, saving and reviewing words in Lectern.

A routine that fits in ten minutes

1. Read for however long you were going to anyway. Long-press a word only when it actually blocks the sentence, not on reflex.
2. Save a handful of words a session, not twenty. A short, honest list gets reviewed; a long one gets ignored.
3. Once a day, open Settings, then Dictionary & catalogs, then Vocabulary. Check the due count before deciding whether today needs a review at all.
4. Work through the due cards. Reveal, grade yourself honestly, move to the next. A handful of words takes a couple of minutes.
5. Stop when it says you are done. There is nothing left to review until tomorrow, so close the app and go read something.

None of this promises a word will stick after one pass. What the routine does is put the word in front of you again right before you would likely forget it, and leave the rest, whether it actually sinks in, up to you.

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