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When can one adopt a native dictionary? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 97 of 124 29 November 2011 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I really admire @cainntear's ability to wiggle out of grand statements. Where are all these specialist bilingual dictionaries? The truth is, like so many grand statements here, that statement about plenty of specialist bilingual slang dictionaries is without any foundation. Bilingual slang dictionaries are extremely where. I have seen some English-language dictionaries of Italian and Russian slang, among others, but I have yet to see a French dictionary of American slang. It may exist. And there are certainly no truly bilingual slang dictionaries, i.e. L1-L2, L2-L1. Edited by s_allard on 29 November 2011 at 10:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5065 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 98 of 124 29 November 2011 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I have a rather huge bilingual IT<>EN economics and business dictionary - Dizionario Enciclopedico Economico e Commerciale, about 1500 pages - that I use on occasion for translation purposes. Doesn't get more specialised than that. While I've not seen bilingual slang dictionaries, I have seen many, many bilingual dictionaries of nothing but idiomatic expressions. I don't own any, though. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 99 of 124 30 November 2011 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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This question of whether "grandaddy" is slang is a red herring. It is highly debatable whether the usage in question is slang, and it is definitely not so simply because @cainntear decrees that it is. None of the dictionaries mark it as slang. They all mark it as informal. In fact, it could be argued that "grandaddy of" in the sense of "greatest of" is perfectly neutral English because in this context "grandaddy" is not interchangeable with "grandfather".
But what is quite clear here--but not to everybody--is that the translation into French "pépé" and "papi" are poor guides to how to use "grandaddy". And here it's important to make the distinction between looking for a translation of "grandaddy" and looking for a guide to the meaning and usage of "grandaddy." In this latter case, the bilingual dictionary is somewhat useless relative to the original example and only does the monolingual dictionary help us. But the problem still remains of how to use "grandaddy" properly. We have some definitions but not many examples. How are we going to distinguish between "best or greatest of" from "ancestor of". A really good bilingual dictionary is probably good at this as well. For the time being, we have to work with what we have. This is where syntax and contextual knowledge are so important. Compare the following examples: A.The Petit Robert is the grandaddy of current French one-volume dictionaries. B.The Littré is the grandaddy of modern French dictionaries. We would interpret A to mean that the Petit Robert is the best or most respected of contemporary French one-volume dictionaries. On the other hand, B refers to the fact that modern dictionary making in Frence started with the Littré. We can interpret B this way because we know that the Littré was the most respected 19th century dictionary. A monolingual dictionary is geared towards those who are looking to use the target language accurately. The bilingual dictionary is for those who want to translate from the target language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5388 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 100 of 124 30 November 2011 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Certainly not in this country (Norway), with the possible exception of English–Norwegian/Norwegian–English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6638 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 101 of 124 30 November 2011 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The Big read book of Spanih idioms isn't a slang dictionary, but part from being an idiom dictionary it is a good example of what bilingual slang/idiom dictionaries should be like. True slang dictionaries will typically be in the local language because language learners aren´t expected to keep up with the development in this field - if they do, they can live with a monolingual source. On the other hand they are often so fun (and dirty) that the indigenous population may want to buy them. Actually you don´t use them to look up words - you read them in your closet to be amused.
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| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4684 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 102 of 124 30 November 2011 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Monodic are much superior.
The aim of learning a language is to learn it, to think in it, to absorb it to the fullest. Bilingual dictionaries are good for translators and interpreters, and that's it. I have no use in knowing what QUAINT means in Portuguese. I learned the definition of it in English ''old-fashioned but pleasant'' , and I see no need to know the exact equivalent of this word in Portuguese. I never make any translations. I learn English to communicate with English-speaking people, and not to translate books from English to Portuguese. So, I don't really need to know what words mean in Portuguese. I learn the language visually, and not by memorizing an English-Portuguese dictionary. A monodic is part of the linguistic immersion. By using a bilingual dictionary, you show that the language you learn is still considered foreign to you, it's just one barrier more. Immigrants in the 19th and 20th century did not learn language with the help of bilingual dictionaries, they learned it by speaking with natives. And they learned it a lot faster that people of today with all these courses. Immersion is the key. Edited by Camundonguinho on 30 November 2011 at 11:02pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 103 of 124 01 December 2011 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Well, most dictionaries I know don't use the term "slang" anyway. Most simple distinguish between formal and informal. I've got one dictionary here (French<->English) that leaves formal language unmarked and marks informal and slang terms as Fam or Vulg or similar.
No, this is clear to everybody. But the point is that the editor chose to include one sense of the word. If you consider individual senses as individual "vocabulary items", then your complaint is essentially equivalent to them omitting a particular word.
It seems very unusual to me to use the informal "grandaddy" for "respected ancestor" -- to me it's a far too formal a context. The "grandfather of the modern French dictionary" sounds more natural to me.
The majority of dictionaries -- both monolingual and bilingual -- are designed primarily to aid comprehension. There are dictionaries out their that specifically can themselves "dictionary of usage", but these don't have as many words as comprehension dictionaries. And that brings us back to a point that we often debate: idiom. The phrase "grandaddy of" is related to a wide range of family analogies, and a single dictionary entry cannot get you to fully appreciate it. "Necessity is the mother of invention." "Whose your daddy?" "The grandfather of ...." "The godfather of ...." Dictionaries are intrinsically limited. You've put monolingual dictionaries on a pedestal, but they're not really everything you think they are. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 104 of 124 01 December 2011 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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PS, guys, can we stop saying "monodic" please? The last thing we should be doing here is inventing new jargon, as it only makes it harder for newcomers to understand us.
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