Finding & Using a Good Dictionary!

USING  A DICTIONARY:
A dictionary or the collection of dictionaries you use when you're learning a language play a very important role in your progress and how fast/ efficient you make that progress. In fact, it might be worth saying that dictionaries & the pursuit of constantly obtaining better & more advanced ones, is a worthwhile pursuit.
When you want to find a word in a  dictionary, you can say: "look up a word" not "look for the word".

In order to make the most of a dictionary, there are a few things you need to know, what kind of information can the dictionary give you besides the meaning of the word?
There are three types of dictionaries:
1. Monolingual (English- English)
2.Bilingual (English- to your language    or from your language-to English)
3.Thesaurus.( arranges words according to meaning).
1.Monolingual:
examples; CALD, Oxford, Merriam-Webster.


CALD: Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary



Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary



COED: Concise Oxford English Dictionary (11th Edition)

CALD is recommended for intermediate learners. Its greatest features are :
- Both American & British pronunciation.
- It has a thesaurus. What's a thesaurus? A thesaurus is a dictionary that arranges words according to meaning & not alphabetically.

In the following video, I look up the word "abysmal" & using the thesaurus I could find tens even hundreds of words that has the same meaning as "abysmal". Which is great when you want to know more words with the same meaning ( for example when you write in essays or some exam, you will need a great range of vocabulary to express the same ideas to convey your fluency & command of the language.)

(sorry, the video won't maximize, so please play it in full screen. & sorry again for the low resolution.)

Merriam-Webster also has a thesaurus, but only American pronunciation (if you're focusing on the American English, this will be no problem.) .It provides the etymology (the origin of words) which might be of interest to advanced learners. It might also be used along with CALD.

So, I hope you enjoyed the reviews, & if you have, share the article. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them below....till next time!

Dictionaries are your best friends!

"Dictionaries are your best friends!" why? they never lie, they tell you everything they know, be there for you whenever you need them....Yes! I know. I sound like I've forgotten they're not people!....
Seriously though, dictionaries, can be qualified to be your best friends!

But are all dictionaries equally good?!
the simple answer is "no".
But no one ever said that you can use only one or two! you can stack up dictionaries as you like. For years, I've been trying & comparing dictionaries restlessly. after some studying, I became able to know the pros & cons of each dictionary that I came through.

REMEMBER: you need at least 2 dictionaries:
1, Monolingual (English-English)
2.Bilingual (English-your language, or your language to-English).
These are the best dictionaries that I've used: