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When can one adopt a native dictionary? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 113 of 124 01 December 2011 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
There is nothing inappropriate about any of the examples s_allard gave. Less formal, perhaps, but not what I would call inappropriate. And age is not the primary reason for calling something the "granddaddy", in most cases. It might be old, but it might not. Calling something new the "granddaddy of all ..." is not meant to be ironic in any way. The usage is actually a lot like the middle eastern "mother of all", as in "the mother of all battles". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5233 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 114 of 124 01 December 2011 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ok, a final try. As a teacher of English, do you think the following is good neutral style: "I recently had the opportunity to review the grand-daddy of all beach bags: the whale bag sold by SaltwaterCanvas.com. These mesh beach bags are the best thing since sliced white bread, I’m telling you. All I can say about these bags is that they are AWESOME!" Would a dictionary want to include this as an example of the general usability of "grandaddy" in the sense of excellent, outstanding? Would the author of this awesome quote notice if his collocation "grandaddy of all beach bags" might sound strange in the ears of a sensitive listener? You don't find it, hm, a little bit ridiculous? Is it such a common word, so widely used, indeed? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 115 of 124 01 December 2011 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course a good dictionary should include this usage. It would probably mark it as colloquial, but it should still be included. I can't speak for the "sensitive listener" but I don't find it ridiculous. I have no idea what you might mean by "a good neutral style". It is certainly not formal, but that doesn't make it bad. It is very common in America (by which I mean, everyone would know exactly what you mean by it), but it would probably sound odd to British ears. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5233 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 116 of 124 01 December 2011 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you for your native judgments and opinion. Maybe I can add another thought, about the "mother of all battles": I was always suspicious when people used this without any reflection, and a look at The Mother of all ... Wikipedia may make clear why this is not a completely neutral term, and not a very old one, in this sense, either. Whenever i heard and hear it, I hear the quotation marks, but not everybody does, and in the end nobody will hear them any longer. (Matters like descriptive vs. prescriptive or language change are involved here, beside purely semantic or stylistic matters, but in this thread this would certainly go, even more, off topic. Suffice it to say that a sound distrust against the media and their usage of our languages may be as advisable as ever.) Edited by lingoleng on 01 December 2011 at 8:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pobere Triglot Groupie Germany language-learning-lo Joined 5291 days ago 83 posts - 114 votes Speaks: Romanian*, German, English | Message 117 of 124 04 December 2011 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I started to learn German three years ago, from scratch, and I'm using a German-German dictionary after a year or so, and I don't regret this. This dictionary is special for learners ("Deutsch als Fremdsprache"). It has about 77000 explained words, and I think this is enough. Sometimes I check also "Duden - Deutsches Universalwörterbuch" when I need to understand some rare words. And it works great: this year I passed DSH exam with 91%. :-) When can one adopt a native dictionary? IMHO, as soon as one can or it is possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6517 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 118 of 124 05 December 2011 at 7:16am | IP Logged | |||||
How is a dictionary designed for learners a "native dictionary"? All in all, after all these posts, I'm still convinced of the things I wrote in the beginning. You can use a native dictionary if: * You can't find a good bilingual dictionary. If all the bilingual dictionaries you find lack usage examples, you might do well in getting a monolingual one that has some. If you need specialized dictionaries of technical terms or slang or whatnot, and you can't find a good bilingual one, get a monolingual one (but don't be happy about it). * Your level is close to your native language level. If you're already at this really advanced level where your comprehension is close to that of your native language, using a monolingual dictionary is hardly a problem. If you're looking up the same words natives would look up, then go for it. If none of these apply, you're better off getting a dictionary designed for people like you: learners. A native dictionary is designed for natives and a bilingual one for learners. (If you can find a monodic* designed for learners, that's fine, too, I guess.) Using a native dictionary because you want to be like a native makes as much sense to me as wearing tiny pants because you want to be skinny. * I'm sorry, Cainntear, I really tried! It's too awesome a word and I'm too much of a logophile not to use it. Edited by Ari on 05 December 2011 at 7:19am 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 119 of 124 06 December 2011 at 4:45am | IP Logged | |||||
This has to be one of the silliest comparisons I have ever read here at HTLAL. If this is what this discussion boils down to, I think that there is no point discussing the issue furthermore. We all see that a monolingual dictionary is not for everybody. And nobody has suggested replacing bilingual dictionaries with monolingual dictionaries. But to say to say that using a native dictionary because you want to be like a native makes as much sense as wearing tiny pants because you want to be skinny is so laughable that it reminds of that wonderful expression I learned recently in a monolingual dictionary, "to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic." 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 120 of 124 06 December 2011 at 9:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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This question, to me, is a lot like the questions "When can one begin speaking with native speakers?" "When can one read native newspapers?" and so on. The obvious difference being that most of us would see speaking with natives as part of the goal of language learning. But of course, speaking is also a means of learning, and native dictionaries can be a means of learning (leaving aside the question of their value simply for looking words up). Some people here would say you should begin speaking as soon as possible, others prefer to wait to develop their language ability before testing it in what they would see as a difficult environment. Okay, it is possible to learn a language without ever using a native dictionary. It's also possible to learn a language without ever speaking with a native (although less common).
The answer to any of these questions is: how soon do you want to do it? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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