Do you want to improve your English proficiency? Or want to learn a new word to impress your friends over the next cup of coffee you have together? This new feature from Google might be all you need to keep the queen’s language fresh in your brain.
The tech giant has introduced a feature that once subscribed to, a user will get daily notifications with a new word every day and some interesting facts behind it to increase the curiosity of users. This feature mirrors what dictionary.com’s app does by sharing a new word daily for users to learn about.
However, at the time of writing this article, the feature is only available on the Google app on both Android and iOS. Google emphasizes that the feature is not only tailored to English learners, but to fluent speakers as well.
How to get started with learning new words from Google
To get started with learning new words every day:
- Search for the definition of any English word on the Google app.
- Write ‘Define’ followed by the word you want to get the meaning of.
- You will see a bell icon on top of the search result
- Tap on the bell icon to subscribe to receive the daily words with their respective meanings.
The notifications you will be now receiving will include a one-line explanation, and an option to see synonyms and further information about the word. Tapping on the notification will open a new search result page with detailed information.
The feature is currently only available for the English language, but I expect support for more languages to be rolled out in the coming weeks or months as Google already has the data even for obscure languages.
Google in their blog also mentioned that the ability to choose different difficulty levels will be rolled out, which is definitely more interesting for me. This will be particularly useful in separating learners from native speakers or those already proficient with the language. It also minimizes the risk of someone opting out of the feature if they keep getting words that they are already familiar with, instead you will be able to increase the difficulty.
The new word feature follows other innovative features in the recent past from Google, including an instrument tuner that the tech giant announced earlier this month. The instrument tuner helps guitar players to tune their devices.
To activate it, search ‘Google Tuner’ and you will get a fully functional tuner that will use your mic, either the phone mic or computer mic if you are using a PC. The mic will then listen to the sounds coming out of your guitar and tell you whether it is in tune. However, you will first have to give permission to Google to allow the usage of your mic.
The quality of the work done by Google’s tuner is hard to tell, as I can barely hold a guitar in the right way. However, if you are in a pinch and have to tune your guitar, it’s nice to know that you can rely on your phone and Google to get the job done.
