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
