Best dictionaries for learners-opinions & REVIEWS

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JEEPY
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:56 pm

my dictionary review

Post by JEEPY » Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:47 pm

In my Mac I have an unbridged version of the oxford dictionary (comes built in with every computer that has the Leopard OS) and it is awesome. I also bought the Iphone and ipod touch version called "Oxford Dictionary of English Deluxe" and those tools are awesome. I used them during my practicums and it really helped me and my students to learn English and also grammatical points. Furthermore, this dictionary provides distinctions between doublets and words that are really close in meanings as well as explanations on usage of the words. I have to give that electronic dictionary a mark of 9.5% because of its numerous qualities. The only downside though is that it doesn't have any grammatical sections.

fluffyhamster
Posts: 3031
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again

Post by fluffyhamster » Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:14 pm

The more I've used it, the more I've become a great fan of the OALD's clear grammar codings and separation of words that can be more than one part of speech/word class into discreet sub-entries. The MED is also pretty good in this respect, in that it at least has boxes above the word explaining how the grammatical classification will subtly differ depending to the exact context. The Longman and Cambridge however just leave the various grammatical uses unsorted in largish entries, which won't be as helpful to an inexperienced teacher.

The only relatively new dictionary I have to report is the Macmillan Collocations Dictionary, but I probably mentioned it on the AL forum's 'Brian Browser' thread already. :cool:

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