How to use a dictionary

The article I am reading today is titled " How to use a Dictionary". So, I decided while reading to write some notes to share what I have learnt: 

1. The English Language consists of approximately 1 Million words among which a native speaker knows only 60 000 ones

2. The use of dictionaries is a helpful tool to enrich one's skills in reading, and a fruitful way to improve one's level of English.

3. Purchase a good dictionary to use all the time, but if you already have one on your phone or laptop try to upgrade it on a weekly or monthly basis to have access to neologisms that is new words.

4. Keep a good dictionary near where you study, work, or read. 

5. Illustrated dictionaries are useful for somebody who is interested in learning a language. 

6. If you study in a narrow field of science you must check a special dictionary dedicated to the science you are interested in, as an example a biology dictionary, an ICT dictionary.

7. If you want a dictionary specific to the country that you want to learn their language, you can check these ones as an example: the Macquarie dictionary in Australia, Oxford dictionary in England, Webster's dictionary in the United States, etc. 8.Familiarize yourself with the dictionary, use the introductary section to see how the entries are arranged to get accustomed to the way the dictionary is organized. 

9. Enrich your items search through following this method: Look up the word's: . Definition . Pronounciation . Irregular endings . Antonyms and Synonyms . An etymology, derivation, or history of the word. Even if you don't know Latin or Ancient Greek, you may find that this information helps you to remember or understand the word. . Context . Plurals of nouns. . Idiom constructed with the word under scrutiny. .Spelling. . a dictionary can be another tool not used to look up a word only but also to be useful as a resource, you can find also in it: Standard letters for jobs, RSVPs, filing complaints, official writing, etc. Maps and geographical information. Statistics on population. Weights, volume and measurements. Lists of countries, cities, capitals, etc. Flags of countries, states, provinces, regions, etc. Lists of famous or historical people. Lists of facts. 

10.Online dictionaries are easy to use nowadays, have one on your browser to be handy. 

11. The last step in using a dictionary for fun, that is try to open the dictionary haphazardly and read the page to enlighten yourself about new words.

Written By Idriss El Mahdali