Why dictionaries are important

Sums of money and periods of time. Words that indicate portions. Uncountable nouns. Dependent clauses and agreement. Agreement with the right noun phrase. Some important exceptions and words of advice. Atypical nouns. Selective mini grammar. The major word classes. The morphology of the major word classes.

Words and phrases. Noun phrases. Elements in the noun phrase. Classes of nouns. Verb phrases. Elements in the verb phrase. Classes of main verbs. Auxiliary verbs. Primary auxiliary verbs. Modal auxiliary verbs. Meanings of modal auxiliaries. Marginal auxiliary verbs. Time and tense. Simple and progressive forms. The perfect. Active and passive voice. Adjective phrases. Adverb phrases. Personal pronouns. Dummy pronouns. Possessive pronouns. Interrogative pronouns. Indefinite pronouns.

Prepositions and prepositional phrases. Clauses and their parts. More on adverbials. Subjects and predicate verbs. The order of subjects and verbs. Hyphen and dash. English spelling rules. Commonly confused words. Differences between British and American spelling. Focus on vocabulary. Vocabulary awareness. Useful words and phrases. Using abbreviations.

Register and style. Register types. Formal vs. General information on dictionary use. Online dictionary resources. Corpora - resources for writer autonomy.

What is a corpus? Examples of the usefulness of a corpus. Using the World Wide Web as a corpus. Online corpus resources. Different kinds of sources. The functions of references. How to give references.

Reference accuracy. Reference management tools. Using a reference style. Different kinds of reference styles. Style format. Elements of the reference list. Quick guides to reference styles. Documentary note style. Writing acknowledgements. Academic integrity. What is academic integrity? Academic integrity and writing. Academic integrity at LU. Different kinds of plagiarism.

A bilingual dictionary is a dictionary that has the word you are looking for translated into your own language. A bilingual dictionary usually only has a small amount of information about the word you are looking for but it is easy to understand because it is written in your native language. A monolingual dictionary is written only in English.

A monolingual dictionary has lots of different information about every word in English. These dictionaries have lots of information about grammar and pronunciation. A monolingual dictionary can sometimes be confusing because it has multiple definitions for every word. A learner dictionary is similar to a monolingual dictionary because it is only in English and has lots of information about the word you are trying to find.

However, a learner dictionary is a little bit easier to use than a standard monolingual dictionary and has clear examples and simplified language. A subject-specific dictionary is similar to a monolingual dictionary but it does not contain the general meaning of words, only the definitions that are suitable for the specific subject.

Subject-specific dictionaries are very useful when you need to find out how a word is used differently in your subject area but they can be quite difficult to use and might not contain the word you are looking for. Look at the definition of generic in the four different types of dictionary, linked below:. Monolingual dictionary Macmillan dictionary.

Bilingual dictionary Google translate. Subject-specific dictionary Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary. Which dictionary do you think is the best choice? What problems might you have using these definitions in real life?

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This content is taken from Coventry University online course. See other articles from this course. This article is from the online course:. Join Now. Undoubtedly, words have been of paramount importance since time immemorial.

They are the basis of communication; without them, the world would have been struggling immensely. According to the Oxford Dictionary, there are an estimated , words in use in the English language. Each word has its uniqueness; for after all, each has a different meaning it wants to convey.

Thus, we can say that dictionaries are essential. Grammar or function of a word Basically, a dictionary is a book which contains a treasure of words in alphabetical order, their meanings, use and other necessary information about each word. There are various kinds of dictionaries: some dictionaries elaborate pronunciation, whereas some the tell use of a word in sentences to explain the concept of word and its many other uses.

In general, it is not difficult to consult a dictionary to search for a word, its meaning and its usage in different contexts. In the same way, one can find any word in it. Furthermore, a dictionary also shows the grammatical view of a word. For memory purpose one should first find a word in a verb shape. Every word, small or big, has a root by which you can make and memorise all the word. Choice of dictionary: This is the first step to use a dictionary.

The choice of dictionary is important because various types of dictionaries are available in the market, libraries and educational institutions. Some of them are used for specialised purpose in a certain technical field, such as engineering or medical. Others may be bilingual that convert the meaning of a word to another language.