My favourite monolingual print dictionary

Having looked at a number of monolingual print dictionaries in class this week, I have decided to buy the Cambridge Advanced Learner´s Dictionary. Even though it was very hard to decide which one of them I liked the most, the Cambridge Advanced Learner´s Dictionary became my favourite. It has many colorful pictures, which makes studying easier and more fun. In the middle of the book is a short grammar section, which would certainly be very helpful in my education. The last chapter offers some extra information about writing and communication skills and also, a pronunciation table. The part that I especially liked was the CD-Rom, which includes the whole paper dictionary in a handy, searchable format. I have always been a fan of modern technology and a dictionary like this would be quite useful for fulfilling my needs. Since this dictionary is perfect for me, I have decided to buy it in order to improve my English.

    

Last week we got our second piece of homerwork back. The task was to write a paragraph about our favourite monolingual print dictionary. I chose to write about the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Luckily, my paragraph was not as bad as my previous essay. However, I made a really horrible mistake. I wrote my own topic sentence, instead of using the given one. I must pay more attention on our tasks!

A letter to Fiona

Dear Fiona,

I am writing to tell you about my passion for languages, including English, and my ways of learning them. Since I was a little child, I have always been interested in different cultures, people and their language. My love for languages developed when I started to learn English. I was only four years old and learning this language represented something fun, new and interesting. I used to listen to songs, watch films or series and read books in English. I was always interested in finding the meaning of lyrics or different texts, and eventually, I learned many new words. Studying English became a routine. My English improved after my trip to Canada. Even though I was visiting my relatives and often spoke my mother language, I was able to speak with native English speakers and listen to English on a daily basis. This helped me to improve my vocabulary, learn useful phrases and communicate better. Despite this, I am not very confident about my knowledge of English grammar. For instance, I can sometimes be quite insecure when choosing the right verb tense.
I hope I will continue developing my language skills in the future, but also wish to see more of the world and experience the culture of different nations.

With kind regards,
Vanja

This was the correction of my first English piece of homework. We were supposed to write a letter to our teacher about how we see ourselves as a language learners. I was quite satisfied with my essay until I saw the correction. After that, I felt totally disappointed. I made really stupid mistakes with the word since. Few times! However, I am here to learn, so I decided to take this course more seriously and try my best. I hope next time I will have better results.

Dictionary review transcription

After having a look at various monolingual online dicitonaries in our English class, my colleges and I got an assessment to record a review. My group chose to talk about vocabulary.com- dictionary and tried to give information about its special features, but also its flaws. I was supposed to talk about the things that we didn't like about this online dictionary.

What we didn't like about this online dictionary is that, even though it has pronunciation, we can only hear it, we can't see how the word is pronounced. We can't see, if the word is formal or informal and if it is a noun, is it uncountable or a countable noun. And the phonetics is not written.

When I first heard my voice, I had a strange feeling. Firstly, I didn't like that I sounded so shy and quiet. I will certainly try to speak more clearly and louder in the future. After looking at the transcript, I noticed that I said that our dictionary had a pronunciation, which is quite weird. I should have said something like: This is a dictionary with free audio pronunciation. It would sound a lot better. I also consider it would be more understandable if I had said in formal or informal language, rather than is formal or informal. My presentation also sounded pretty fast. Therefore, I hope I will improve my diction and sound clearer in the future assignments.

To add, I want to recommend everyone vocabulary.com- dictionary. Even though we can't see how the word is pronounced or if it is used in informal or formal language, this online dictionary can be really helpful in understanding the meanings of the words.