Rehearsing a talk out loud, with the words highlighted as you read

What karaoke readback does

Karaoke readback shows your text and highlights each word as you read it out loud. The recognition is done by Apple's speech recognition on the device, so the highlight follows your voice rather than a timer: pause and it waits, speed up and it keeps up.

The highlight colour is yours to choose, which matters more than it sounds when you are reading from across a room.

Rehearsing a presentation

Paste the script in and read it through at the pace you will use on the day.

• Where the highlight lags behind you, you are probably rushing or swallowing words.
• Where you run out of breath before the sentence ends, the sentence is too long to say. Split it.
• Where you stumble on the same word twice, change the word. The audience will never know it was in the script.
• Read it through three times on different days. The third time shows what is still hard, rather than what was new.

Practising a language

The same feature is useful for learning to speak a language rather than read it. Read a paragraph aloud and watch which words are recognised as you say them. A word that will not highlight is a word you are not yet pronouncing so that a listener recognises it.

Pair it with a translation session to see how the other language handles the same ideas in conversation.

After the rehearsal

A rehearsal is also a draft. In a regular session you can deliver the talk to the assistant and ask what was unclear, what went on too long, what an audience would ask afterwards. That second opinion is cheaper the week before than the minute after.