G'day mate. How are you doing? Today, I am going to talk about how to make maximum use of Longman Dictionary.com for your English learning. As you probably know this English-English dictionary, it's very useful and easy to use for elementary learners. So I highly recommend it. Let's discuss how to use it in the most effective way!
Online version has so many useful features such as Exercises and Quizzes, which are both fun and offer beneficial information for building your vocabularies
First up, as for Exercises, here are the features:
There are so many subcategories in each section, so you won't be bored death! This includes pretty much everything you should be after in terms of English learning. If you are preparing for the English exam such as TOEFL, IELTS, PTE or Cambridge, then you click Exam preparation so that there are heaps of useful practical questions. On the other hand, if you reckon you might lack basic grammar rules, then you can select Intermediate or Advanced grammar. The information given here is all written in English obviously, so if you think it's too early, then please wait for my grammar text, which is slated to be published before the end of this year. Currently I've been researching and analysing some famous grammar texts, and I will write the easiest and simplest grammar text in Japanese.
You just type any word that you want to know on the main page like other online dictionary services. In order to get used to vocabularies, you should frequently check pronunciations and word accents, because people often tend to mispronounce or put a word stress on an incorrect position. This makes people difficult to understand what you are trying to convey. Here is a sample image:
The left (Red colour) is British pronunciation symbol and the right (Blue colour) is American one. They are sometimes exactly the same, but sometimes quite different. So, you can choose whichever you prefer. Basically, almost everyone can understand both British and American pronunciations. One of the things I want to underscore is that the position in which word accents are put is a huge problem for English learners. Correct word accent is crucially important!
You should read some example sentences aloud after listening to the audio recording, and simultaneously you can learn some collocations and useful phrases
First, you listen to the audio recording, which is either British or American pronunciation. You understand the sound, rhythm, intonation and word stress, etc. Then, you try to regurgitate the sentence as clearly as you possibly can. After that, you read them aloud with a natural speed, and don't think too much about pronunciation, instead focus more on word stress, intonation, and phrasing. That is, oral fluency is the most important feature of speech.
Collocations are very useful and fun to learn, so every time when you consult this dictionary, I highly recommend checking all collocations and phrases, and stealing them as fodder for your self-talk.
Check 'Word of the day' in every morning is a great opportunity for English learners to get immersed themselves in new vocabularies
Every day gives you a chance to learn a new vocabulary ranging from a basic to advanced one. You can be sort of forced to memorise new vocabularies, which is sometimes good for someone having a proclivity for hard yakka, or maybe vice versa. For a busy business person, this learning style suits very well indeed. At least you learn new words day by day, but within one word there are so much thing you could learn such as correct pronunciations, word accents, collocations and phrases, and much more. So, every day, when you come back home from work, you try to find some time for doing self-talk using the new word you checked, and expand the talk using your knowledge.
Last but not least, 'Pictures of the day' is quite useful for English learners to visualise a word as a means of remembering
The images vary every day, so you never know which vocabulary might pop up, which is kind of fun! If you click the left image, then you'll see this:
The name of this sort of housing architecture is called 'bungalow'. Have you ever heard of this name? If it's new to you, that's awesome mate. Even if it's not, you still can learn some new phrases. Even one word every day means a lot to you!
That's all for today! Thanks for reading.
Have a lovely Sunday mate!