Reasons for using a dictionary

　　A dictionary is a very important tool for anyone who is learning a new language. With a good dictionary you can do the following:

　　● look up the meaning of an English word you see or hear

　　● find the English translation of a word in your language

　　● check the spelling of a word

　　● check the plural of a noun or past tense of a verb

　　● find out other grammatical information about a word

　　● find the synonym or antonym(同义词和反义词) of a word

　　● look up the collocations of a word

　　● check the part of speech of a word

　　● find out how to say a word

　　● find out about the register of a word

　　● find examples of the use of a word in natural language

　　To be a good dictionary user, however, it is not enough to know what to use the dictionary for. You must also decide which is the best dictionary for any of the purposes listed above. As well as this, you need to be able to find what you are looking for quickly; you need to be sure that you have found what you are looking for; and, most importantly, you need to know when to use your dictionary.

　　Knowing which dictionary to use

　　If you are looking up an English word, it's often best to use a good monolingual dictionary(单解词典). Then you will not have to keep switching between two languages in your mind, and you will get extra reading practice. However, if this is taking you a long time or if your English is not good enough to understand the definitions(定义), then it's better to use a bilingual dictionary(双解词典). And, of course, you have to use a bilingual dictionary when you want to know the English translation of a word in your language. Good electronic dictionaries which say the English word for you are very useful, especially if they have the translation in your own language plus the definition and some examples in English.

　　Finding words quickly

　　This is a skill that you need to practise. Ask someone to write down 5 words and see how long it takes you to find them. Of course, you will need to know the English alphabet perfectly, so practise this too. Use the guide words at the top of each dictionary page; and keep practising until you can find any word within 10 seconds. You should also practise finding words in your own language in your bilingual dictionary. If you use an electronic dictionary(电子词典), take some time at home to learn how it works and, again, practise finding words quickly.

　　Finding the right meaning of an English word

　　Very often when you look up a new English word, you find that it has more than one meaning. If you are not sure which one is correct, here's what you can do:

　　First, check through all the meanings and find the one that makes most sense in the context where you found the word. (Very often, many of the different meanings are similar and this should be enough to give you a good idea what the word means.)

　　Second, if you really want to make sure, think what the word is in your own language and look it up in a bilingual dictionary. If one of the English translations is the original word you look up, then you can be satisfied that you have found the right meaning.

　　Finding the right spelling

　　Another problem you may have is when you want to check your spelling but you can't find the word you are looking for. What can you do?

　　If you are sure of the first few letters, just look down the page until you find the right spelling. (Again, it is helpful to check the meaning is the one you expect.)

　　If you are not sure of the first few letters, try some other possibilities. You know for example that some words that start with an -n sound have k as their first letter; e.g. knife, knight. So if you can't find the word under N, try looking in the K pages. If you still can't find the word, think what it is in your language and look it up in your bilingual dictionary.

　　Finding the right English translation of a word in your language

　　When you look up a word in your own language in a bilingual dictionary, you will probably find that there is more than one English translation. If you are not sure which to use, you could try a back translation. This means that you look up the English translations one by one in a monolingual dictionary. If a word has a definition that matches the word in your language, you are safe to use it.

　　Knowing when to use the dictionary

　　If you look up every new word you see or hear, you will spend your whole day with the dictionary in your hand. That's no good! You have to be clever and choose the right words to check and the right time to do it. Try to follow the advice below and you will become a much more efficient(高效的) language learner:

　　When you find a new word while reading, finish the sentence (better: the paragraph). If you haven't guessed the meaning of the word and it still seems important, then you can look it up.

　　When you hear a new word in class (or the teacher has written it on the board), wait and continue listening. What the teacher says next may help you to understand the word. If you look in your dictionary, you will not hear what comes next, and this will make understanding the lesson more and more difficult. If you think the word is very important, you could copy it from the board or write how you think it is spelled. Then later you could ask the teacher or another student what it means.

　　(文/刘耀辉 ； 英语辅导报高二版 03~04学年度第45期；版权归英语辅导报社所有，独家网络合作伙伴新浪教育，未经许可，不得以任何形式进行转载。)