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When can one adopt a native dictionary? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| fomalhaut Groupie United States Joined 4838 days ago 80 posts - 101 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 124 14 November 2011 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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There must be a point where a simple X-Y dictionary will no longer suffice, and one requires then a dictionary in the language itself. Is that only for C1 and above speakers? or can meager B1's and 2's try to begin with this special type of native material? About how big should ones vocabulary be before attempting this?
It's seeming to be the earlier that one can get rid of direct translations, the better, letting the words simply mean what they mean. And of course, native dictionaries will have a much deeper explanation and list of adjectives than a simple Oxford X-English, or what have you. 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 2 of 124 14 November 2011 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are two reasons for using a monodic:
1: There are no good dictionaries that translate into your native language (not gonna happen if you're a native English speaker) 2: You speak the language as well as you speak your native language. If you're not in one of these situations, use a dictionary that's designed for people doing what you're doing: learning a foreign language. (I rewrote this post a couple of times and removed a bunch of "No." and "Wrong." and "Bull.". Sorry if it still seems confrontational, but this kind of thinking comes from fuzzy "translating is bad" baseless thinking and ends in pointless effort and wasted time. Don't buy into it.) Edited by Ari on 14 November 2011 at 8:24pm 6 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 3 of 124 14 November 2011 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I completely agree with Ari.
A bilingual dictionary usually gives a more straightforward explanation of a word, so is always better (in my opinion). A monolingual dictionary has to explain in a far more tortuous way. If a good bilingual dictionary exists for your language pairs, use it. And as the OP is an English speaker and most bilingual dictionaries are English, I don't see a need for a monolingual one. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4800 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 124 14 November 2011 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was about 3 months into studying Spanish when I picked up a monolingual dictionary as a supplement to my bilingual one. I used them both, usually choosing one or the other on a whim. As time went on I began using the monolingual one more. Now after about 10 or 11 months I use the monolingual one about 50% of the time.
--gary 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7091 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 124 15 November 2011 at 3:03am | IP Logged | ||
It depends on the language that you're studying and the kind of information that you're looking for. I have found that most dictionaries between English and one of the "popular" choices in languages for study are sufficient until you reach something like C1. However when you deal more in less popular languages as I like to do, then you'll not only need to a comprehensive bilingual dictionary but may also find it useful to get a monolingual dictionary before having reached fluency. For example, the newer bilingual dictionaries between English and Slovak that I've seen or used can be fairly good when you're looking for idiomatic translations or several examples of usage. On the other hand, all such dictionaries that I've seen so far do not show aspectual pairs or conjugational patterns for verbs nor patterns or core inflections/stems for nouns. For these, the best complete resource is the 6-volume monolingual dictionary of Slovak "Slovník slovenského jazyka" which is out of print but still available online (check off "SSJ") and currently being released in hard copy in revised volumes as we speak. Even when I can't make out the translations or explanations for unfamiliar words, the fact that the entries show aspectual pairs and core inflectional stems is invaluable. I assume that your question also deals with bilingual dictionaries of all sorts involving your target language. While studying Estonian and Finnish, I've found some excellent bilingual dictionaries of these languages that are combined with a language other than English but provide all sorts of useful grammatical information or lists of paradigms for words inexplicably lacking from those meant for speakers of English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6594 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 6 of 124 15 November 2011 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like the word "monodic." For years, I've used the term "one-way dictionary" and have had to explain myself.
I have monodics for French and Spanish, but I would never go so far as to say that I speak French or Spanish as well as English. I agree with Fiziwig about using a monodic as a supplement to a bilingual dictionary. At least for me, there's something satisfying about input in my target language that is aimed at native speakers. 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 7 of 124 15 November 2011 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I totally agree with Ari and Cainntear: stick to bilingual dictionaries until you are almost nearnative.
If a certain kind of information for a certain language is only available in a monolingual dictionary then this could of course be a compelling reason for buying one - but not before you can read the language fluently. Below that level you'll just become more confused by contrived circumlocutions and half explanations, and it would be a sinister irony if you had to consult a bilingual dictionary to make head and tails of your monolingual dictionary. The most important types of information which in a pinch could make me buy a monolingual dictionary would be 1) etymology, 2) grammatical information, 3) lots of examples. Etymology is no. 1 because it often is absent from bilingual dictionaries, but I like to know such things because they give each word a background, and backgrounds help me to memorize. Grammatical information should be present in every good dictionary, both mono- and bilingual. If not, then you have got a rotten product, and you should start the search for something better. Unlike Chung I have not tried to learn Slovak, but my Russian-Danish Gyldendal and my Polish-German Pons do specify aspect-couples of verbs - and this is a very important information. But the other way (from L1 to L2) there are many cases were such explicit grammatical annotation is more or less absent. And that's totally idiotic because it is precisely in that direction you need it most. But consider the alternative: with a monolingual dictionary you would not even know which word to look up. And finally: examples. Yes, and lots of them. But my best 'dictionary' of idiomatic expressions is actually the 'Big Red Book of Spanish Idioms' . which is English <-> Spanish. It is fine to absorb expressions directly from genuine texts, but sometimes I know what I'll say in English, but not in Spanish (more often than the other way round), and then it is sheer bliss to get a number of possibilities served on a silver plate - even if each of these may not be an exact translation they can teach me some idiomatics in a situation where I'm motivated to remember at least some of the proposals. If I want to/have to stick to monolingual sources then encyclopedias and specialist guides (for instance field guides to birds or commercial catalogues) have the advantage of a more precise and detailed description than the one given in most monolingual dictionaries. And if you haven't got a book about medieval heraldry or tulips then you get more information through the internet than from a standard monolingual dictionary. And finally: for dictionaries of roughly the same size I get more information from a bilingual dictionary because a word in Danish (or another language I know well) is the pathway to a lot of knowledge I already know, but just didn't know how to reuse in the language. Edited by Iversen on 15 November 2011 at 10:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JiriT Triglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4732 days ago 60 posts - 95 votes Speaks: Czech*, English, German | Message 8 of 124 15 November 2011 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||
I also believe, monoligual dictionaries are not much useful for beginners. For more advanced learners they are useful. But even for an advanced learner, a bilingual dictionary can be better. The definitions in monolingual dictionaries are often not very exact, whereas equivalent in the mother tongue provide more exact information. My approach: monolingual dictionaries often provide more grammatical information about the word, eg. a noun is countable, a verb can be used with such prepositions etc. They often provide sentence examples. But the main information is still in the bilingual dictionary. But sometimes the equivalent in the mother tongue is a word with more meanings. Here it is useful to consult a monoligual dictionary. On the internet one can find the use of a word in many sentence contexts. This can give you the same information about the word as a monoligual dictionary.And also, one can use online monolingual dictionaries and encyclopedias. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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