CCED -- The Best English Dictionary I've ever seen.

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2. Dictionary: Get a good English dictionary.
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Why you need a good English dictionary

If you get a good English dictionary, you will be better than 90% of English learners. It's unbelievable, but most people (even people who want to learn English very much) simply go to a bookstore and buy the first dictionary they see.

That is a big mistake! A bad dictionary will give you problems sooner or later — maybe in two months, maybe in one year — and you will have to buy a good one anyway! Isn't it better to buy a good dictionary the first time?

Getting a good English dictionary is important because:

* A good dictionary will be your guide to English. It will teach you new words, how to pronounce them, and how to use them. It will help you understand English texts. Successful English learners use their dictionaries all the time: when reading books, at English classes, when writing e-mail, when doing homework, when surfing the Web.
* It is an easy first step in your English-learning program — you only need to spend a little money (much less than you would pay for an English course). Once you've made the first step, it will be easier for you to do the rest.
* It requires spending money. Yes, this is a good thing. :-) Spending some of your money on learning English will give you an impulse to keep learning and work towards your goal of mastering English.

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How to buy a good English dictionary

An English dictionary is the most important thing you will need when learning English. A good dictionary will help you learn hundreds of new words, improve your pronunciation and grammar. You can read more about why it is important to get a good English dictionary in another article.

English-English dictionaries

When you think of a dictionary, you usually think of a bilingual dictionary. For example, an English-German dictionary or a French-English dictionary. There is also another kind of dictionary: an English-English (monolingual) dictionary.

Such a dictionary is written only in English. English words are not translated, but they are defined or explained in English. For example, if you look up the word criticize in an English-English dictionary, you will read something like this:

> to criticize = to say negative things about; to talk about the mistakes of

Why English-English dictionaries are better than bilingual dictionaries:

* English definitions are real English phrases with grammar and words. If you read them regularly, you will automatically memorize the grammar and words.
* English definitions let you learn more. You will often look up a word because it was part of the definition for another word. For example, if you look up the word naughty, you will read:
>   If you say that a child is naughty, you think that he or she is behaving badly or is disobedient. [Collins COBUILD English Dictionary]
If you don't know the words disobedient and behave, you will have to look them up. So instead of one word, you will have learned three words!

Don't be afraid of using an English-English dictionary. If you can understand this article, you can definitely understand the definitions in an English-English dictionary.

Dictionaries for learners and for native speakers

There are two kinds of English-English dictionaries: dictionaries for learners and dictionaries for native speakers. Dictionaries for native speakers are used by Americans, Britons, etc. to look up very difficult words, such as tintinnabulation. Dictionaries for learners are used by people who are learning English as a second language.

Dictionaries for native speakers usually have more words than dictionaries for learners, but the definitions are complicated, and there are fewer example sentences. Therefore your first dictionary should be a dictionary for learners. Later, you will need other dictionaries — for example, a dictionary of phrasal verbs and a big dictionary for native speakers.

Software dictionaries

If possible, get a software dictionary instead of a paper one. Here are some reasons why:

* Quick searching. Software dictionaries let you look up words very quickly. Typing a word on your keyboard is much, much faster than turning pages in a large, heavy book.
* Easy copying. If you're making your own SuperMemo collection for learning English, you can select whole sentences and definitions in the dictionary, and copy them to your new items.
* Recordings. In many software dictionaries, you can listen to recordings which show you how to pronounce a word. Recordings cannot replace phonetic transcriptions (see below), but they are certainly a useful feature.
* More information/clearer layout. Paper dictionaries have limited space, which is why they are printed in a small font and the layout is very crowded. A computer dictionary has more space, so it can give more information (e.g. more example sentences) or it can present the same information in a clearer way (bigger font, blank lines, etc.).

Why is quick searching so important? Because if you want to learn English well, you should look up lots of words, and a paper dictionary discourages you from that. You want to look up a word, you look at the huge book with 1500 pages, think "Ah, never mind", and you never learn that word. With a software dictionary, once you see how easy it is, you will start looking up hundreds of words every week. And your English will get a huge boost.

Note: The advice in this article applies to both book dictionaries and to software dictionaries. However, the quality of a software dictionary also depends on other features (e.g. ease-of-use, software speed), which are not discussed here.

Phonetic transcription for every word

A good dictionary must give phonetic transcription for every word. Phonetic transcription tells you how to pronounce a word. Without it, you can't say the word properly — you can only read it or write it.

The transcription should be based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is the main phonetic alphabet used all over the world. Here is what IPA-based phonetic transcription looks like:


[Longman Active Study Dictionary of English]

Here, the phonetic transcription is marked in yellow. It tells you that image is pronounced like this. (sound recording in .wav format)

Many dictionaries (especially ones published in the US) use their own phonetic symbols (and not IPA symbols). These are a little hard to use, and we do not recommend them to beginners. Some dictionaries give phonetic transcription only for "the most difficult words" (usually less than 5% of all words). Such dictionaries are almost useless to learners, because all English words are difficult if you are not a native speaker. We do not recommend them.

If you want to check if a dictionary uses IPA-based transcription, look at the pronunciation symbols used in the dictionary and compare them with the IPA symbols in our table of phonetic symbols.

Example sentences for every word

A good dictionary must give example sentences for every word. Example sentences are English sentences which contain the word. Some dictionaries give them after the definition of a word. Example sentences are marked in yellow in this picture:


[Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture]

Example sentences are not just helpful — they are actually more important than definitions. While a definition tells you the meaning of a word and (sometimes) gives you some grammatical information, example sentences have at least three advantages:

1. They let you check if you've understood the definition correctly. The meaning of a word can become much clearer if you read a few sentences with the word.
2. They show you how to use a word in sentences. Many words "go with" certain grammar structures (e.g. important is often used in the phrase "It is important to...") or words (e.g. weather goes with forecast and not e.g. prediction). Example sentences present this information in a clear way. You can easily imitate them to make your own natural sentences.
3. They program your brain to produce correct English sentences. If you read an English sentence, there is a good chance that it will stay in your head, and that you will be able to build a similar sentence (or part of a sentence) to express your thoughts another day. So the more English sentences you read, the more you can produce.

(Read more about why example sentences are so important)

Other things to look for

* Simple definitions. The definitions should be easy to understand. If something can be simple, it should be simple. See example of a simple dictionary definition.
* Useful definitions. If possible, the definitions should tell you how to use the word. Generally, longer definitions are better, because they give more information. See example of a useful dictionary definition.
* Both British and American English. Your dictionary should have both British and American words. Also, both British and American pronunciation should be given, because both are used in today's world.
* Phrasal verbs and idioms. There are special dictionaries for these, but every English dictionary should have the most common phrasal verbs and idioms.
* Pictures. Sometimes you can understand a picture better than a definition. See this example.

How many and how big?

It is a good idea to have at least two dictionaries: a large one (about this size) to use at home, and a small (pocket) one to carry with you. For example, you can bring your small dictionary to English classes.

It is an even better idea to have at least two large dictionaries. What for? Well, it's about example sentences. Two example sentences are better than one; four are better than two. With more examples, you have a more complete picture of how a word is used and you can express more in English yourself.

Recommended English dictionaries for learners

For your first learner's dictionary, we recommend the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (our review of this dictionary). It's a large dictionary with IPA-based phonetic transcriptions and great example sentences for every word. But the best thing are the definitions: they are very friendly, and they really tell you how to use a word. The CD-ROM (included with the book) allows easy and fast searching, and also includes a Wordbank with lots of additional example sentences.

You can buy the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary at Elearnaid in hardcover ($37) and paperback ($28). Both include the software version of the dictionary on CD-ROM.

For a small dictionary that you can take everywhere you go, we recommend the Oxford Learner's Pocket Dictionary. It is very small (it will fit in your palm), but has a lot of information. You can get the dictionary from Amazon.co.uk.

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Example sentences in dictionaries: More important than definitions

In an English dictionary, example sentences are even more important than definitions. A definition does one job: it tells you what a word means. Example sentences, on the other hand, perform at least three tasks:

1. They let you check if you've understood the definition correctly.
2. They show you how to use a word in sentences — how to connect it with other words and with grammar structures.
3. They program your brain to produce correct English sentences.

Understanding meanings

After reading the definition of a word, you can read the example sentences which contain the word. If you can understand them, you know you've understood the definition correctly. For example, it is nice to read that surpass means "to go beyond in amount, quality or degree", but it is even nicer to see an example:

> The results surpassed all our expectations.

You'll probably agree that after seeing the sentence, the meaning of the word surpass becomes much clearer and easier to remember.

Sometimes a definition is so complicated that the example sentences are your only hope. Consider this definition from the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary, an otherwise fine product:



"That part or proportion consists of that thing"? Yeah, whatever. Let's see the example sentence, which makes things a lot clearer:



Grammar and usage

A definition tells you what a word means, i.e. it helps you understand the word when you see it. However, the meaning is only half of the picture. In language, there are not only meanings, but also grammar and collocations. Some words simply "go with" other words.

* For example, the verb to suffer goes with the preposition from (as in "Alice suffers from insomnia"), and not with some other preposition.
* Lethal and mortal both mean "deadly", but we only talk about a lethal injection, not a mortal one.
* The adjective major has the same meaning as important, but it must come before a noun (as in "Drug abuse is a major problem" or "Religion has played a major role in the history of mankind"), so it would be wrong to say "It is major to remember people's birthdays".
* Danger (definition: "the possibility of something bad happening") is often used with in ("Our lives are in danger"), with of ("The building is in danger of collapsing"), or with a that-clause ("There's a danger that the plan will fail").

Such information is often not found in the definition, and you need to read the example sentences to learn how to connect a word with other words to produce correct sentences.

But — you might say — most dictionaries for English learners include grammar/usage information in the definitions. You would be right, of course. For example, the entry for suffer might include the label +from; or major might be labeled with something like ADJ + N to show that the adjective must come before a noun.

However, such "codes" can be tricky to interpret. A person who only knows that suffer means "to feel pain" and goes with the preposition from may produce the perfectly logical sentence "I suffer from doing homework" rather than "I suffer when I have to do homework". It is also easier to remember one or two example phrases (e.g. major problem, to play a major role) than to remember the abstract rule that "major has to be followed by a noun".

Brain programming

When you speak your native language, you don't have to think about grammar rules to produce a sentence; phrases just appear in your mind and they are all correct. You don't have to be especially intelligent or have an exceptionally good memory to speak your native language without mistakes.

This is possible because the brain contains a special language module. The module collects sentences from your environment, and imitates them and re-combines them to produce new sentences. This is exactly how you learned to speak as a child: you listened to your parents and other people around you, and then you were able to imitate those sentences.

You learn a foreign language in the same way. As you hear (or read) more and more correct English sentences, your language module gets more and more information, and you can express more and more in English. Antimoon calls this learning by input. Stephen Krashen calls it the Natural Method.

Now you see why it is a good idea to read the example sentences when you look up a word in a dictionary. For each sentence you read, there is a good chance that it will appear in your head when you need it, and that you will be able to re-use it (or part of it) to produce your own correct sentence.

One more example

We have said that example sentences give important grammar/usage information and program your brain to produce its own sentences. Let's see one more example of how this works.

Suppose we look up the word shroud in a dictionary and find this definition:


[Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture]

Great, so now we know what shroud means. It means "to cover and hide". We even know that we usually use shroud in the passive voice with the preposition in. But can we really use the word shroud, i.e. can we make our own sentences with it?

For example, you could say "I was hidden in the corner" — but would it be OK to say "I was shrouded in the corner"? Or, you could say that "The street was covered in darkness" — but could you say "The street was shrouded in darkness" instead?

Well, we don't know that. All we know is, shroud is probably NOT used in the same way as cover and hide, but the definition does not say in what situations (contexts) it IS used. So after seeing the definition, we know what shroud means, but we still can't do anything useful with it.

Now let's read the definition with example sentences:



What do these examples tell us? They tell us many things:

* We usually say that something is shrouded in something, and not, for example, that something shrouds something. (We could have learned this from the definition, which says (in) usually pass., but examples are nicer than codes.)
* Both physical (hills) and nonphysical (affair) things can be shrouded in something.
* Things can be shrouded in mist or shrouded in mystery. "Shrouded in the corner" will probably sound strange to native speakers.

With this information, you are finally prepared to use the word shroud in speaking or writing. For example, you can imitate the example sentences and say "The negotiations are shrouded in mystery" or "The street was shrouded in fog". This imitation can happen consciously (if you look at the examples while writing your own sentence) or in the magical "learning by input" way (if, say, in a week, you're writing a composition and the phrase "shrouded in something" appears in your head because you have seen the phrase before in the example sentences).

Final advice

1. First, make sure your dictionary has lots of example sentences. Better yet, use two or more dictionaries.
2. The next time you look up a word in a dictionary, and you want to use that word in your own speech or writing, concentrate on the example sentences — maybe even try to memorize them. You will not only learn incredibly useful information on the word's usage; you will program your brain to produce similar sentences. You'll be surprised at how much your brain can do if you feed it with enough input.

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Review of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary

The Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (4th edition) is the latest dictionary for learners from HarperCollins Publishers. The previous (third) edition of this dictionary (published in 2001) was titled "Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary" and the second edition (1995) simply "Collins COBUILD English Dictionary". There are important differences between the current edition and the previous one.





In this review, we will often write "CCED" instead of the dictionary's long name.

The basics

* The CCED is an English-English (monolingual) dictionary, so it is written only in English. Beginners may be afraid of this, but we think that learners should begin to use an English-English dictionary as early as possible. If you can understand this article, we think you should use a monolingual dictionary.
* It has example sentences for almost every meaning of every word. Example sentences are the most important thing in a dictionary for learners, because they show you how to use a word.
* It has phonetic transcriptions, so you can read how to pronounce every word. The transcriptions are based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) — the most popular phonetic alphabet in the world.
* It is a software dictionary as well as a paper one — a CD-ROM is included with the book.

In conclusion, the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary has all the necessary features of a dictionary for the serious learner. Now let's see what is special about this dictionary...

A corpus-based dictionary

The name COBUILD stands for "Collins Birmingham University International Language Database". It means that the dictionary is based on a "corpus" — a collection of British and American newspapers, books, TV programs, real-life conversations, etc. The editors analyzed the corpus with a computer, getting useful information about the English language.

This method has serious advantages (more on that below), and the latest dictionaries from other big publishers (like Longman and Oxford) are now based on a corpus, too.

Full-sentence definitions

Probably the most interesting thing about the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary are its definitions. They are full sentences, not phrases. For example:

> If something comes to fruition, it starts to succeed and produce the results that were intended or hoped for.

Because this definition is a full sentence, it gives you a lot of information. It shows that fruition is usually used in the phrase "come to fruition". How did the editors know that? They used a computer to analyze the COBUILD corpus.

What does this information give you? You can easily build your own correct sentences with the word. For example, you can say "His hopes finally came to fruition" or "Will my plan ever come to fruition?".

Look at a typical definition of fruition in a dictionary which doesn't have full-sentence definitions:

> fruition = the realization of something that was desired or hoped for

After reading this definition, you might use the word fruition in incorrect ways. You might think it is correct to say "What about your fruition?" or "Is this book your greatest fruition?". But both sentences are bad English.

Look at another definition from the CCED and compare it with a definition from the the Oxford Wordpower Dictionary:

> When a dog wags its tail, it repeatedly waves its tail from side to side. [CCED]
> wag = to shake up and down or move from side to side [Oxford Wordpower]

The first definition tells you that the word wag is often used to talk about a dog. The second definition does not tell you that. It is too general. Besides, you can probably see that the CCED's definition is easier to understand.

The definitions in the CCED do not simply tell you what a word means, they tell you how to use it — in what phrases, in what grammar structures, in what context. At the same time, you can understand them easily.

The definitions are also very "natural". They are sentences that could be said by your English teacher or any native speaker of English. Having this dictionary almost feels like having a native speaker friend to answer your questions about English.

We encourage you to look at other examples of definitions from the CCED with our comments.

Example sentences

Our rule for dictionaries is: The more example sentences, the better. The Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary has at least one example sentence for almost every meaning of every word. The number of examples per definition is about the same as in other modern dictionaries for learners.

The interesting thing is how these examples were chosen. For example, to choose the example sentences for the verb play, the editors used a computer to search the corpus and find all the sentences with the word play. The results showed that people often use play in phrases like "play an important role in something" and "play an active part in something". So there should be at least one example sentence which has the word play in such a phrase.

Thanks to this kind of corpus research, the example sentences in the CCED show how a word is really used by speakers of English. They are not invented by an editor; they are natural. Just like the definitions, the examples focus on the most important phrases, grammar structures, contexts, etc. which contain the word.

Pronunciations

Phonetic transcriptions in the CCED are based on A. C. Gimson's phonemic system, which uses symbols of the IPA to represent English phonemes. Gimson's system was first used in 1967 in the English Pronouncing Dictionary, and is now used by most dictionary publishers.

* Like most new dictionaries, the CCED uses a couple useful (non-phonemic) symbols not used by Gimson:   and . For an explanation of these symbols, refer to our phonetic chart.
* Unfortunately, this edition of the CCED ignores the fact that vowels like , , and are often pronounced like . For example, this goes for the in admonish and admit, the in possible and private, the in careful. In all these cases, the CCED simply omits the "" version, which is the standard in normal speech. If you followed the transcriptions in the CCED, your pronunciation of some words would sound quite unnatural.
* In some cases, the CCED takes the "no " policy to the extreme. Who pronounces adventure and advance with an at the beginning?
* The CCED shows stress by underlining the stressed syllable(s); other dictionaries use the apostrophe. The COBUILD way is easier to read and more intuitive.
* The dictionary tries to represent both British and American English with one transcription. The transcriptions use mostly British phoneme symbols and the dictionary gives rules for "converting" these symbols into American sounds. For example, it explains that all symbols are really in American English. We think this is a sensible system, because it results in short, readable transcriptions. (In fact, we use it ourselves in our phonetic chart and our PerfectPronunciation product.)

Here are example transcriptions from the CCED and what they mean in British and American English:

word CCED transcr. British American
pot    
go    
fair    
near    
lure    
barn    
mother    
bird    

Note: Phonetic transcriptions are not included on the CD-ROM.

Word frequency and the grammar column

The dictionary gives information on word frequency. The most frequently used English words are labeled with 1 to 3 "diamonds" ( to ). These are words which occur most frequently in the COBUILD corpus.



Grammatical information — for example, whether a noun is countable or uncountable — is given in a separate column (see picture to the right). It is not mixed with the definition, as in most dictionaries. Because of this, the definitions are easier to read.

"Access to English" section

see entire page (170k GIF file) The CCED has a 30-page "Access to English" section which provides useful example sentences and phrases that you can "steal" when writing essays, giving presentations, telephoning, writing business correspondence, and applying for a job (there is a chapter for each of these activities). Reading such sentences is a great way to build your English writing/speaking skills in a short time.



Note: The "Access to English" section is not included on the CD-ROM.

Our personal experience

We first saw the CCED (the 2nd edition) in 1999, when only the paper version was available. We immediately felt it was something special. Normally, we use only software dictionaries, but we started using the paper COBUILD dictionary, because we liked the contents so much.

Today, we still like learning with the dictionary very much. When we need to look up a word, it helps us understand it and use it in our own sentences. Often, we look up one word, and then we feel like reading another one — the definitions and examples are so nice. Sometimes, we even like to read the CCED just like a book.

Conclusions

When you look up a word in a dictionary, you should be interested in what the word means. But you should also ask the question "What can I do with it?". The CCED answers this question very well by giving the most important phrases and grammar structures containing the word — both in the definition and example sentences.

Together, the definition and the example sentences give you an almost complete picture of how a word is used in the English language. After you read them, the word is usually "yours" — you can use it easily in your own sentences.

Example pages and prices

You can look at two example pages (first page, second page) from this dictionary. (Warning: large GIF files, about 180 KB each)

You can get the following versions of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary, 4th edition:

* Hardcover + CD (about $35) — buy from Elearnaid or Amazon.co.uk — If you're in America or Asia, Elearnaid will deliver the dictionary faster than Amazon.co.uk, and will usually be cheaper (if you include the cost of shipping). If you're in Europe, Amazon.co.uk will often be a little cheaper and faster.
* Paperback + CD (about $25) — buy from Elearnaid or Amazon.co.uk
* CD only (about $35) — buy from Elearnaid — Also contains Collins thesaurus, grammar, and usage. We only recommend this version if you have another dictionary with phonetic transcriptions (the CD does not have transcriptions).

See our review of the CD-ROM >>

We would like to thank Maree Airlie and Jennifer Kidd of HarperCollins Publishers for providing copies of the 3rd and 4th editions of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary.

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Review of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary CD-ROM

This review describes the 4th edition of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary CD-ROM (published in late 2003). If you have the 3rd edition (2001), check out what's new in this edition.



<< See our review of the book

The content

We love software dictionaries, so we were very excited to learn about the software version of the excellent Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary from HarperCollins Publishers. As we expected, the CD-ROM has the same great definitions and example sentences as the paper edition. You can read more about them in our review of the book version. Here, we'll just quote part of it:

> When you look up a word in a dictionary, you should be interested in what the word means. But you should also ask the question "What can I do with it?". The [Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary] answers this question very well by giving the most important phrases and grammar structures containing the word — both in the definition and example sentences. Together, the definition and the example sentences give you an almost complete picture of how a word is used in the English language.

The CD-ROM also contains a "Wordbank" — a collection of sentences from English-language books, articles, conversations, etc. The Wordbank is part of the "Bank of English", a much larger collection which HarperCollins used to create the definitions and choose the example sentences in the dictionary.

The Wordbank is a very useful thing. It gives you lots of example sentences, and, if you are a reader of Antimoon, you should know that example sentences are the proper way to learn English words. The Wordbank is especially helpful when the dictionary doesn't explain a word, or when it doesn't give enough example sentences. For example, the dictionary does not explain weltanschauung, but we found a nice example sentence in the Wordbank (see picture to the right).



The CD-only version (called the "Resource Pack") also contains the Collins COBUILD Guide to English Usage, the Collins COBUILD English Grammar, and a thesaurus.

No phonetic transcriptions

The software does not contain phonetic transcriptions (unlike the book version). The editors thought that if the dictionary has recordings, phonetic transcriptions are unnecessary. Big mistake! There are three reasons why we think removing the transcripton was a bad move:

* Your ears are not perfect. Even if the dictionary has high-quality recordings, it is always good to see all the sounds in a word. Sometimes you hear a "t"; then somebody tells you it should be a "d", and then you start hearing a "d".
* Recordings are never perfect. The ones in CCED are of a high quality, but it's still difficult to recognize the sounds in some words. For example, here is the recording for the word back. Not very clear, is it? Phonetic transcription (//) is always clear, because it represents each English sound with a different symbol.
* In order to listen to a recording, you have to turn on your computer's speakers. Then you have to press a key (Ctrl+W) or click an icon in the program window. This is too much work if you want to look up something fast. If the dictionary had phonetic transcriptions, you could just quickly read it.

Because there are no phonetic transcriptions, the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary CD-ROM cannot be your only dictionary. You will have to use another software dictionary (or the paper version of the CCED) to learn pronunciation. (You should use many dictionaries anyway, so this is not a huge problem.)

Recordings

The software has British audio recordings for all words. American recordings are available only for some words, for example:

> lieutenant, resource, advertisement, dog, new, flashlight

Here are some words for which only a British recording is available (even though all these words are pronounced differently in American English):

> car, heart, fire, hour, hair, near, lot, claw, more, lure, turn, forget, castle, fast

We liked one thing about the recordings: You can listen to all the forms of a word (only in British English). For example, in the page for open there is a recording for open, but also for opens, opening, and opened. Many learners pronounce such inflected forms incorrectly, so the recordings can be helpful.

The software lets you record your own speech and compare it with the recordings. This is a helpful feature, because it lets some learners notice the mistakes they make in pronunciation. Of course, because the dictionary contains so few American recordings, the feature will be useful mostly for learners of British English.

Looking up words

Some CD-ROM dictionaries have complicated graphical interfaces, which are difficult to learn and to use. (The idea is that customers want "multimedia", and a simple Windows interface is not multimedia enough.) Fortunately, the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary CD-ROM is different. There are no colorful animations — just a small, fast, reliable, easy-to-use interface, which supports the main function of a dictonary: looking up words.

The software lets you look up words really quickly. You can simply type a word and press Enter. You never have to press an additional key beforehand. With most dictionaries, you have to press a key every time you want to look up a word. When you look up a lot of English words, it really is a problem.

However, the search does not always work well. For example, if you try to look up the phrase "fall to pieces", the dictionary will show the page for the word fall. The page has explanations of 21 meanings of the word and you have to find the right meaning yourself ("fall to pieces" is number 20).

The dictionary has a nice feature called "full-text search". It searches for a word or phrase in all the parts of the CD-ROM: the entries, definitions and examples in the dictionary, the Wordbank, the Collins English Usage, etc.

Install to hard drive

The setup program has an "install to hard drive" option. In our opinion, the option is necessary for every serious learner. Here's why:

If you want to learn a lot of words, looking them up should be easy. If it's too hard, you will ignore many words because you will be scared of the time and effort (paper dictionaries are scary like that). This means that your dictionary should be quickly available. You should be able to look up a word in a few seconds. An application on a CD is not "quickly available", because:

* It takes time to insert the CD into your CD-ROM drive.
* Even when it's inserted, a CD works more slowly than a hard drive.

So if you want to use your dictionary comfortably, you need to have it on your hard drive. Many dictionaries are quite difficult to install to the hard drive (often you have to edit the Windows registry), but the CCED CD-ROM makes it all easy by having a special option in the setup.

Poor copying & pasting

You cannot select part of a page (for example, one definition or one example sentence) and copy it to another program. When you're making a SuperMemo item, you have to copy the entire page with the option "Copy entry". If a word has 100 meanings, you have to copy 400 lines of text. Then you have to erase 399 lines to leave only the one that you want.

We don't know if this is a programming error or some kind of copy protection. Maybe HarperCollins did not want people to copy their definitions?

Bugs

There is only one annoying bug in the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary. Under Windows XP, there is a 5-second pause when you first try to play a recording. Afterwards, all recordings play immediately. Otherwise, the software is fast and reliable.

Conclusions

We recommend the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary CD-ROM. In our opinion, it is a good software English dictionary for learners. The content is excellent — great example sentences and definitions from the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary plus the Wordbank with even more examples. The program's interface is quite good, so you can look up English words quickly and pleasantly.

The CCED CD-ROM is a source of super-friendly and super-clear definitions and example sentences, but not of phonetic transcriptions. If you're learning English pronunciation, you will also need another software dictionary with transcriptions (or the book version of the CCED).

Prices

You can get the following versions of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary, 4th edition:

* Hardcover + CD (about $35) — buy from Elearnaid or Amazon.co.uk — If you're in America or Asia, Elearnaid will deliver the dictionary faster than Amazon.co.uk, and will usually be cheaper (if you include the cost of shipping). If you're in Europe, Amazon.co.uk will often be a little cheaper and faster.
* Paperback + CD (about $25) — buy from Elearnaid or Amazon.co.uk
* CD only (about $35) — buy from Elearnaid — Also contains Collins thesaurus, grammar, and usage. We only recommend this version if you have another dictionary with phonetic transcriptions (the CD does not have transcriptions).

We would like to thank Maree Airlie and Jennifer Kidd of HarperCollins Publishers for providing copies of the 3rd and 4th editions of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary.

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What's new in the 4th edition of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary?

The 3rd edition of the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners and its CD-ROM version, called Collins COBUILD on CD-ROM, were our favorite English dictionaries. This article describes the differences between that edition (published in 2001) and the latest, fourth edition (2003), now titled "Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary".

If you don't have the 3rd edition, you should read the full reviews of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (4th edition) and its CD-ROM version.

What's new in the book?

* "Now with CD-ROM". The most important advantage of this new edition is that it includes the software version of the dictionary. For about $25, you get the book and CD. Previously, the CD alone cost at least $35.
* Fewer example sentences. The smaller format and more readable layout come at a price. The editors threw out 1 out of 4 example sentences, bringing the total number of examples from 105,000 down to 75,000. According to my estimates (I ran 10 random pages from the 3rd and 4th editions through OCR software and counted the number of characters), the new edition contains 20% less text than the previous one.
* Fewer meanings. Many word meanings have been removed. It's difficult to say how many, but it took me about 15 minutes to find 10 meanings which are missing from the new edition.
* More pleasant to use. The book is smaller and easier to carry around. The headwords and other elements of the layout are printed in blue. The paper is better (in the previous edition it was so thin you could almost see through it), so you can turn the pages more easily. The font is slightly larger. In short, this edition is very pleasant to use (for a paper dictionary).
* "Dumbed down" pronunciations. Phonetic transcriptions in the 3rd edition used the italicized , , , etc. to show that a sound is often pronounced as a schwa (). In the 4th edition, italics are not used. For example, admonish is transcribed as //, which is not accurate, because the word is usually pronounced //. What's even more misleading, words ending in -ful are transcribed /-/.
* "Access to English" section. The 4th edition contains an "Access to English" section, which provides useful example sentences and phrases that you can use when writing essays, giving presentations, telephoning, writing business correspondence, and applying for a job.
* Shorter list of most frequently used words. The 3rd edition had a list of 1700 most frequently used English words. The new edition only lists about 700 words. The list is a good idea for learners who want to learn vocabulary or pronunciation in a systematic way. For example, my friend Krzysztof Wikar added the phonetic transcriptions of the 1700 words to his SuperMemo collection. The new, shorter list is much less useful for such purposes.
* Some new headwords, like authoring, bioterrorism, local area network, and low-impact.
* Changed diamond system. The 3rd edition labeled each word with 0 to 5 "diamonds" () to show how frequently the word is used by English speakers. In this edition, words are given 0 to 3 diamonds.
* Pictures. There is a section with pictures of everyday objects (like a bicycle or a lettuce) at the end of the book, but there are no pictures in the dictionary itself.

Here is an example entry in the 3rd edition and the 4th edition:




What's new in the CD-ROM version?

* 20% less information. This edition of the CD has fewer definitions and example sentences than the previous one — just like the paper version (see above). HarperCollins removed useful information from the book to make it physically smaller and more usable. Why did they remove the same information from the CD? Because all dictionary publishers think about the paper version first; then they copy the contents to CD.
* The CD is now included with the paper dictionary ($25 soft cover), but, unlike the 3rd edition, it does not contain the thesaurus, the Collins COBUILD English Grammar, or the Collins COBUILD Guide to English Usage. If you want the full package, you will have to buy the CD separately (the "Collins COBUILD Resource Pack"), as before, for about $30.
* Still no transcriptions. Apparently the people at HarperCollins still think transcriptions are unnecessary as long as you provide sound recordings.
* American pronunciations... sort of. This edition has recordings of American pronunciations, but only for certain (not too many) words. See the main review for details.
* Copy & paste still broken. You still can't copy part of a definition and paste it into another application. You have to copy the entire entry (which can have many pages).
* Wordbank sentences no longer contain strange tags. In each Wordbank sentence, the software colors the word you're searching for, and does it much more reliably than the previous edition (the previous edition would often mark the wrong word; now such mistakes are rare).
* Scrolling works much faster.
* According to the information on the CD, the software now works on Macs (OS 8.6 or higher required).

Summary

Surprisingly, the 4th edition of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary is a worse product than the 3rd edition. The editors removed 20% of the information from both the book and the CD — many definitions and example sentences were thrown away. In addition, the editors managed to mess up the (previously excellent) phonetic transcription system in the paper version.

On the plus side for the book, it is now smaller and easier to use and the 32-page "Access to English" section is very useful. The only "plusses" for the new CD-ROM are some minor bug fixes and American recordings for some words.

If you already have the 3rd edition of the book or the CD, stick to it. What if you don't have it? Well, I hate HarperCollins for making my favorite dictionary worse, but I have to admit that the 4th edition is still definitely worth buying — especially if you consider that you can get the "book + CD" package for only $25.

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Why publishers are unable to develop a really good software dictionary

It's too bad that the 4th edition of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary contains 20% less content than the previous one, but at least there are some benefits of that: The book is now smaller and the entries use a bigger font size.

What's really puzzling is that the CD version has been sized down to match the book. Let me explain the idea here: You've got the old edition of the CD and the new edition of the CD, and the new edition has fewer definitions and example sentences than the old one.

As the 4th edition CD is virtually the same as the 3rd edition CD in other respects (the CD is hardly smaller and the font size on screen is exactly the same), HarperCollins essentially spent time and money to develop a new version of its dictionary software, which is worse than the previous one.

While it would be easy to poke fun at HarperCollins, their spectacular failure actually demonstrates the shortcomings of the product development model shared by all dictionary publishers. The model looks like this:

1. Develop the book
2. Copy the contents of the book to CD
3. Put in recordings and other "extras" (a grammar reference, a database with additional example sentences, etc.)

HarperCollins followed the model to the letter. First, they decided to remove 20% of the text in the book to make it more usable. Then, they copied the condensed contents of the book to CD without realizing that the reasons for the removal do not apply to the CD format.

What's wrong with the "first book, then CD" model

In the development model described above, the "real" product is obviously the book. The software version is merely an afterthought, something that is added to the book to make it more attractive.

The problem with this approach is that the book format has limited space. When making a paper dictionary, the editors cannot put in as many words, definitions, and example sentences as they would like. They always have to remember how much space they have available. As a result, lots of good examples and useful word meanings get thrown away.

The CD format, of course, has no such limitations. The software version of the Random House Webster's College Dictionary — a book larger than the Collins COBUILD dictionary — is 7 MB in size. This is just 1% of the capacity of a CD, to say nothing of DVDs. But when the CD is just a copy of the book, it can never contain more content than the book. The best you can hope for is more "extras" — for example, you can get more example sentences in a separate unit called the "Wordbank", but not more example sentences in the dictionary itself.

It is perfectly possible to develop a software dictionary which has five example sentences for every meaning of a word, longer, easier to understand definitions, more words, and more meanings than currently available dictionaries. However, such a dictionary will never be made unless publishers break free from the limitations of print and finally utilize the storage technology which has been available since early 1990's.

Bugs

There is only one annoying bug in the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary. Under Windows XP, there is a 5-second pause when you first try to play a recording. Afterwards, all recordings play immediately. Otherwise, the software is fast and reliable.

总算找到原因了，原来是BUG~！！

这篇文章所在的网站（www.antimoon.com ，两个波兰小伙子设的学习英语网站）里面好多内容值得一看。虽然斑竹很辛苦的复制粘贴，但还是有些音标之类的内容没有粘上，所以推荐去看看网站原版内容比较全些。

谢谢提供!

thx

yeah,I agreet.

六级的阅读理解要这么简单多好。。都是简单的词汇

引用

下面是引用淡香美人于2005-12-30 17:04发表的:
六级的阅读理解要这么简单多好。。都是简单的词汇

呵呵，六级有的文章你所有单词都认识也未必就能读懂，我一个同学从大学开始考六级，硕士毕业了也没考过，工作了继续考，谁想到这两年不让在职人员考了，真是抱憾终生矣！感觉4、6级考试真的是打击广大的英语学习者。。。

其实,本人认为学习英语的最终目的并不是考个级啊,证啊什么的.关键是要能够在实际中应用英语,达到能够有效沟通的目的."抱憾终生"似乎夸张了点.纯属个人看法!

引用

下面是引用feiyang于2006-01-06 18:06发表的:
其实,本人认为学习英语的最终目的并不是考个级啊,证啊什么的.关键是要能够在实际中应用英语,达到能够有效沟通的目的."抱憾终生"似乎夸张了点.纯属个人看法!

你说的没错,我那个同学已经翻译了近30万字的国外专业资料,英语水平应该毋庸置疑了，但是六级证书没拿到却是始终比较郁闷的事情!就像是很多人考T、G一样，虽然没打算出国，就是考着玩拿个证而已了，呵呵！