Sunday, 19 January 2014

Which dictionary is best?

As you can see from the previous entry on the definitions provided for the verb 'to follow up' in English there is great deal of difference between the results.

I think that the first two dictionaries have the advantage that they provide concise definitions however, I think that learners should be 'trained' to use the wordreference dictionary because it encourages them to investigate the various meanings that a word has depending on its context.  Context is hugely important when learning the meaning of word in my opinion, therefore, I think students would benefit from realizing that there are many different translations and uses for almost every word in a language.

However, I also recognize that many learners would be incapable of expending the mental effort in order to be able to find the 'correct' translation or meaning of a word and therefore, the first two dictionaries would be more appropriate in these cases.

The learner's dictionary does not give a definition for the verb 'to follow up' therefore, in my opinion it is useless.

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