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When to start using TL->TL dictionaries? | ||
Tags: Monolingual | Dictionaries | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4684 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 1 of 12 27 October 2012 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||
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(There wasn't space for the word 'monolingual' in the title...)
Also, sorry if this belongs somewhere else, or has already been discussed to death... I didn't find anything.. According to Japaneselevelup.com, you're supposed to start using a monolingual dictionary exclusively after only having added 1000 sentence flashcards. What are your thoughts on this? What are some adventages of using monolingual dictionaries early? What are the drawbacks? And when do you think someone should start using a monolingual dictionary semi-exclusively? I retreated to J-E after only adding 400 flashcards with J-J and realising that I had misunderstood a lot of the words I added. I tried to do the same with German as well, but I was unable to find a good online G-G dictionary. One negative aspect of using Japanese->English is that the Japanese words might not have any corresponding English words. What are your thoughts on this matter? Edited by stifa on 27 October 2012 at 12:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5343 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 12 27 October 2012 at 2:33am | IP Logged | ||
We have some very successful language learners here who rarely use monolingual dictionaries, and they do just fine. Personally, I like monolingual dictionaries. Once upon a time, I had a tendency to translate certain words from French to English. So I started using a monolingual dictionary and I tried to link the French words directly to the concept. For the most part, this worked pretty well. But other people may not have the same problems or needs. To use a monolingual dictionary, you'll need to learn two categories of vocabulary as you go: 1. Specialized dictionary vocabulary. This includes the parts of speech, things like "see also", and other words that show up often in definitions. 2. Basic, generic terms for common things. For example, a cafetière (coffee maker) is defined to be a kind of récipient (vessel, container). It's not an especially common word (no more so than "vessel" in English), but it's great to know if you can't think of a more specific word. Personally, I won't use a monolingual dictionary unless I can successfully extract a rough-and-ready definition after 10 or 20 seconds at most. If that doesn't work, I'll usually try Google Image Search or Linguee. And if that's still totally unsatisfactory, I'll go try a French/English dictionary. There's just no way I'm going to build a pyramid of 15 boring Anki cards containing recursive dictionary definitions to support one interesting sentence. That's cruel and unusual punishment. Edited by emk on 27 October 2012 at 2:36am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5073 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 12 27 October 2012 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm with emk. I use monolingual dictionaries to avoid associating tl words with English. When to start? Well, I don't use flashcards or anki so that arbitrary number of 1,000 flashcards doesn't apply to me, and especially since I'm not learning Japanese, Mandarin or Korean. Start when you feel you are ready. If you feel like bilingual dictionaries are "holding you back" and you are not progressing as you feel you should be, then give the monolingual dictionary a try. My Spanish really took off when I gave up my bilingual dictionary and started using a monolingual dictionary.
When I started Portuguese, I began with a novel by Mozambican author Mia couto and the integrated kindle Priberam monolingual dictionary. Portuguese's similarity with Spanish made this not as difficult as it would've been had I had no knowledge of Spanish. It was a struggle at first, but it got easier over time as I read more. Now, I am quite comfortable and prefer the monolingual dictionary as my first option. I feel, for me, that I have to be uncomfortable first before I can get comfortable. I also use google image, wikipedia and linguee is an excellent resource. The best resource is people. If I don't know a word or idiom used in a conversation, I simply ask for a definition from a native speaker. I'll make a note of the word and later I'll look it up- works every time. Edited by iguanamon on 27 October 2012 at 7:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4477 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 4 of 12 27 October 2012 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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For Japanese, this advice seems bizarre. You should really have 2 J-E dictionaries at hand, one for furigana and one for kanji. When you’re starting out, the “Basic J-E Dictionary” published by Bonjinsha/Oxford is indispensable. It has a two-column layout where all of the entries, definitions and example sentences appear in Japanese on one side, English on the other. You can learn a lot just reading it. Generally speaking, there is a tremendous amount of first-rate bilingual material available for Japanese (grammars and other resources beyond dictionaries as well.) Why not make use of it?
My Chinese is much better than my Japanese, and I’ll admit that I’ve made use of monolingual Chinese dictionaries. However, these have all been rather specialized – a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms, the very large 漢語大辭典 and 漢語大字典 , one work listing classical 4-character sayings, and various other dictionaries of the classical language. I always keep a bilingual dictionary handy in any case. While you are still learning characters, there's no need to frustrate yourself with monolingual dictionaries, or even bilingual ones for native speakers - they just won't have the extra information you need. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6470 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 5 of 12 27 October 2012 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really see the point... I use the one I have at hand, but it also depend on what direction I'm heading. From
English to Swedish either is fine, from Swedish to English I have to use a Swedish based one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4468 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 12 27 October 2012 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that using dictionaries when studying comes down to personal preference and study habits.
People who try to formulate in TL the same as in their native one should probably give monolingual dictionaries a go. It helps to break the habit of word-to-word translating some learners have. When studying, I prefer bilingual dictionaries. I am reading and listening to native material a lot and I need to confirm or to precise the meaning I have got from the context. Usually, I am looking up every word I don't know when reading. The reason is to avoid guessing either completely wrong or not precise enough meaning. When I am working in the other direction (into TL), I am using several dictionaries including monolingual ones and bilingual search engines like linguee or glosbe at the same time, and even confirming the translation online - looking up the word and its usage in real life or even image search. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4684 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 7 of 12 27 October 2012 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do prefer to use a monolingual dictionary in English though. Looking up for instance
"pinnacle" in a English->Norwegian dictionary leaves me confused, and it doesn't really show the nuances of the word. But a monolingual English dictionary explains the different meanings of the word. However, for food-related terms, animals, and so on, I would rather use a English- Norwegian dictionary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6393 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 8 of 12 28 October 2012 at 8:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Sometimes I use a monolingual dictionary as a last resort. For example, when looking up a french word, the bilingual dictionary might give an unhelpful, single-word result, or sometimes it might give me the very same word since it's been sometimes used as a loan word in English. So looking up "déliquescence" in a bilingual dictionary gives me the not very helpful "deliquescence". At this point I might look it up in a monolingual French dictionary, or a monolingual English dictionary (which I think I did with that particular word).
In general I find monolingual dictionaries unhelpful and I prefer to use bilingual ones if I can. The main advantage of monolingual dictionaries is that they're often more comprehensive, with more usage examples and phrases. But if you can get a hold of a good bilingual dictionary, that seems better to me. Languages are mostly very similar and most words have close (but not exact) matches in other languages. Looking ut a word like "bird", you're gonna get a much better explanation if the dictionary just translates it into your native language or one you know well, than if it gives you a longwinded explanation of exactly what is a bird. But of course, everyone has their own preferences. Some people seem to dislike associating words with their English counterparts (I find it very useful), so they prefer a monodic. I don't. To each their own. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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