ESL dictionary:
If I can only choose one dictionary, I will choose this one without hesitation. Longman Ying Ying Dictionary is the most comprehensive dictionary with a large number of words, many examples and rich contents.
Main features:
1.3,000 words with the highest frequency in spoken and written English are highlighted-Longman Newsletter 3,000 marks 3,000 words with the highest frequency in spoken and written English. The red "W3" in the picture above indicates that delay is one of the three thousand most commonly used words in written language. If a word is marked with "S 1", it means that it is one of the most commonly used words in spoken language. We need to pay attention to all the words with this mark.
2. Under the explanation of each entry, the common collocation of words (such as long/reasonable/light delay in the above picture) and example sentences will be listed, which is very helpful to master the usage of words. Every example has a real person pronunciation. When reading example sentences, you can listen to pronunciation, correct pronunciation and deepen your memory of vocabulary.
3. Synonym library function (synonym function)
This paper lists words with similar meanings to delay: postpone, postpone, defend, and proceed, and compares them with examples, which can help us understand the connections and subtle differences between these words.
4. Matching function (i.e. matching function)
This paper lists common word collocations, such as the cause/lead a delay in the above picture and the example that bad weather delayed the dispatch of rescue workers for three hours, which can help us to master and use words better and is very helpful for writing.
Main features:
1. Common word collocations will be listed under the explanation of each item (denial of accusation/? Blame/? Claim/? Charge), similar to Longman.
2. You can look up phrases directly, and the number of included phrases is very large. Many phrases that can't be found in other dictionaries can be found in this dictionary, and there are many example sentences.
3. Word frequency. Based on the corpus, according to the usage frequency of words, the vocabulary of one star, two stars, three stars and ***7500 words is marked, which is similar to Collins dictionary. These 7500 core words need to be mastered.
Main features:
1. There are a lot of words, many phrases and rich examples.
2. Point out many common mistakes to help beginners avoid mistakes in using words, such as:
3. Matching function.
Main features: there are many examples, and many examples have explanations or synonyms. In the process of sorting out notes and reading dictionaries, we can often find some examples that make people smile.
Main features:
1. Use the whole sentence to explain. The advantage of this explanation is that it makes it easier for learners to understand the meaning of words and know the common collocations of words. As the picture shows, the definition of delay is: if you delay doing something, you don't do it immediately or at the planned or expected time, but leave it for later. This explanation is easy for beginners to understand, and they can also learn the usage and collocation of words.
2. Word frequency. The most frequently used words 14600 are marked with 1~5 stars. In the picture, delay has a 4-star sign, which means that it appears frequently and needs to be mastered skillfully.
Mother tongue dictionary:
Personal most commonly used mother tongue dictionary. The definition is concise and accurate, including many examples and phrases, taking into account many characteristics of ESL dictionary, and has practical functions such as synonyms and etymology.
Many examples come from newspapers and books by famous writers.
Collocation dictionary:
Only when you are familiar with the collocation of English words can you really master and use vocabulary flexibly. Collocation dictionary is an artifact to transform the passive verb into the main verb, and it is also one of the common tools for writing. This Oxford English Collocation Dictionary contains more than 20,000 entries, which are introduced by nouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions and phrases. It is well organized and has many examples. This is a necessary dictionary for learning English.
Generally speaking, it is very good, but the vocabulary is too small, with only more than 4,000 entries, which can be used as a supplement to the Oxford English Collocation Dictionary.
Synonym dictionary:
Synonym dictionary is also one of the common tools for learning English, which can be used to enlarge vocabulary and replace synonyms in writing. When you look it up in the dictionary, you can look up its synonyms at the same time. It is better to remember these words together. This Oxford English thesaurus has a large number of words (more than 65,438+08,000 entries), which distinguishes formal terms from informal terms, puts the words with the closest meaning first, which is convenient for reference and learning, and can also find phrases.
This book is basically the same as the Oxford English thesaurus. You can choose one of them to use.
Usage dictionary:
In alphabetical order, these two books explain the characteristics and usage of commonly used words and phrases in English, clarify related problems and clarify some key grammatical problems. They can be used as a supplement to general dictionaries, and repeated reading and digestion will be of great benefit. (When reading the Handbook of Difficult Usage of Common English Words, don't leave out Appendix 2 "English Verbs")
Others:
Lexicon's explanation of words can help you understand the meaning and usage of words and deepen your memory of words:
In addition, these examples come from mainstream publications such as The Economist and The New Yorker.