two dictionaries

Question

I would like to buy one of these dictionariesLongman Dictionary of Contemporary EnglishandLongman Advanced American Dictionary May I have your suggestions about them?

Kooyeen · Accepted Answer

Hi,
I'm the expert!

Seriously, I never tried L.A. American D., only LDOCE. LODCE deals with both American and British English. The other one, although I haven't tryed it, only deals with American English.
The are others like those, like Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary but... don't think if you buy the best one it'll be your bible. They are all "faulty", that is, something that is not accurate in one is more accurate in another, something that is missing in one is found in another, etc. I have yet to find the perfect dictionary, and it's obvious it'll probably never exist. By the way, all of those dictionaries for learners that are available come from British publishers, and most of the English corpus they consider is made up of British English (even if they also deal with American English). The result is that you find a lot of examples inside and you have no idea where they come from, so just because you learn from those examples doesn't mean you are going to sound natural.
I am waiting for a new dictionary to come out now... Merriam Webster Learner's Dictionary. It'll be the first for learners that comes form an American publisher and that will contain examples from the largest American corpus. They say it'll come out in 2008.
Anyway, if you want to be sure you are not wasting your money, I'd suggest Longman's dictionaries. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, for example , is very clear and it's simpler to use than the others, and has an awful lot of examples. That's the best you can find so far, in my opinion.
Oh, I was forgetting... make sure you get a version with the CD-ROM. That's the most useful thing in modern dictionaries... you know, you click on a word and there you go, you just type the word and you get the meaning at once...
That's all.

Osee · Answer

That's great! I'll go grab a copy of that dictionary with CD-ROM. You know what, I think, Microsoft needs you ASAP; you can help them convince Yahoo or make a bigger sale on Vista by just using words.

BTW, Can you tell me wether that CDROM is compatible with Windows Vista?

Kooyeen · Answer

Nope, I really don't know, and I don't know if there might be any problems. You should check before buying, and be careful. On the net there is definitely some info about that.<img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Pter · Answer

However, you have to put the CD-ROM in your computer from time to time to prove that you have a valid licence.

Osee · Answer

Thanks for this mention. But it seemed that the software had been modified. I am not quite sure about this. Anyway, I have ordered the newest version or print.

Osee · Answer

Hi Kooyeen, the dictionary you mentioned has online version http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/ ,

the only essential difference is just it does not have pronounciation for all words. So I am gonna cancel my order with amazon.ca. This is great, isn't it?

Kooyeen · Answer

OseeHi Kooyeen, the dictionary you mentioned has online version http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/ ,

Hi,
yes, I thought you already knew about it. I literally abuse online dictionaries... I use them so much! Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary is available online too, and Cambridge dictionaries too. The only thing you can't do is listen to the words, but if you know IPA there's no problem.
If you think the online version is enough for you, then you don't need to buy it. But you'll have to type every word and use the website (which means no double-click-on-word feature and no availability if the servers are down or you can't access the net for any reason).

Osee · Answer

Hi Kooyeen, can you leave the links here for the dictionaries you mentioned below? I can not google them. Thanks a lot. Osee

Kooyeen
Osee
Hi Kooyeen, the dictionary you mentioned has online version http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/ ,
Hi,
yes, I thought you already knew about it. I literally abuse online dictionaries... I use them so much! Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary is available online too, and Cambridge dictionaries too. The only thing you can't do is listen to the words, but if you know IPA there's no problem.
If you think the online version is enough for you, then you don't need to buy it. But you'll have to type every word and use the website (which means no double-click-on-word feature and no availability if the servers are down or you can't access the net for any reason).

KooyeenOxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Kooyeen · Answer

Alright, let me post some good dictionaries here:

http://www.oup.com/oald-bin/web_getald7index1a.pl --- Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/ --- Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
/ --- Cambridge Dictionaries
/ --- Merriam-Webster Dictionary (not for learners but very good to check American pronunciations)
http://www.onelook.com/ --- It looks up a word in a lot of online dictionaries
/ --- Dictionary based on the American Heritage dictionaries (Warning: audio clips for pronunciations are not good from an American English point of view, as far as I remember)

That's all!

Tanit · Answer

May I add one?

/ -- it has a , quite useful sometimes.

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