Study skills: using a dictionary

It's really important that you use a good English dictionary to help you to improve your vocabulary. Many students use an electronic translator to translate English words into their own language. However, if you do this, you are only learning half  the language.

A good English-only dictionary will tell you many things more than a translation. A dictionary will:

• tell you what kind of word it is (noun, adjective, verb etc)
• show you what is the plural spelling/ the past tense/ countable or uncountable
• show you how common the word is. The most common words are often in a  different colour
• give you the definition of the word and will give you an example sentence. It's very important for you to see how the word is used in a sentence
• tell you some synonyms of the word (other words that mean the same or similar). You can also find synonyms in a thesaurus
• use pictures to help you understand the word

Let's look at the word train. Train can be a noun or a verb:

This is a train. But what other words are connected with a train? A dictionary will tell you:
to catch a train     to miss a train     to get on a train       a train journey     a train fare    

Train is also a verb:

We often use it to talk about sports and fitness, but it can also talk about education and study eg

I went to college to train to become a teacher

I train every day at the gym

A dictionary will give you this information, but a translation only may not.

In class, we used a Longman dictionary. You can also buy dictionaries published by Macmillan, Oxford, Collins and Cambridge. I like the Longman and the Collins dictionaries because they are in colour, so it is much easier to find a lot of the information. Here are some suggestions for dictionaries: