Extremely Useful Dictionaries for English Learners
FOR
DOWNLOAD, resident in PC tray
WordWeb
http://wordweb.info/free/
ONLINE
English-English, with audio files of pronunciations:
Merriam-Webster OnLine: Collegiate
Dictionary and Collegiate Thesaurus
http://www.m-w.com/home.htm
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online
(online version
of the CD-ROM of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Updated Edition.)
http://www.ldoceonline.com/
OneLook Dictionary Search
Check many dictionaries simultaneously; do word pattern searches
*ive (find all words ending in -ive); b?t (find all words with one letter
between b and t)
http://www.onelook.com/
Standard British English pronunciations:
h
o w j s a y . c o m
An English Pronouncing Dictionary with Instant Sound
Standard British English (RP) pronunciation
http://www.howjsay.com/
For new slang and rude words (User edited, so quality varies widely):
Urban Dictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Thesauri (Checks many different thesauri simultaneously):
thesaurus.com
http://thesaurus.com/
This is much better:
The Synonym Finder. Rodale,
J.I., ed. New York: Warner Books, 1978 (originally published by the Rodale
Press).
Not officially online, but you can in fact search it via Google
Books - use the "Search this book" box on the left.
English, Chinese, many languages
Google Dictionary Audio files
in standard US and British pronunciation
English: http://www.google.com/dictionary
Chinese,
traditional characters:
http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=zh-TW|en&q
English-Chinese Chinese-English (limited number of entries)
Yahoo! 奇摩 Yahoo-Kimo
http://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/
English/Chinese/many languages
Lingoes
Offers lookup dictionaries, full text translation, capture word on screen,
translate selected text and pronunciation of words in over 80 languages.
http://www.lingoes.net/
Chinese-Chinese:
重編國語辭典,修訂本
(1994)
ROC Ministry of Education online Mandarin dictionary,
revised edition
http://140.111.34.46/newDict/dict/
成語辭典 花蓮縣國風國中
http://www.gotop.idv.tw/content/word/word0_n.htm
Taiwanese:
教育部 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典
Ministry of Education Taiwan Southern Min Dictionary
of High-frequency Words
http://twblg.dict.edu.tw/tw/index.htm
台語辭典(台日大辭典台語譯本)查詢
Taiwanese Dictionary (translation of Taiwanese-Japanese Dictionary)
http://taigi.fhl.net/dict/
Japanese-English:
Jim Breen's Online Japanese dictionary
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jwb/wwwjdic?1C
WordReference.com online dictionaries:
English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian
http://www.wordreference.com/
LEO (Link Everything Online) Dictionaries
German plus: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese
http://dict.leo.org/?lang=en
MORE ONLINE DICTIONARIES:
English:
http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/linguistics%20links.htm#dict
Chinese:
http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/linguistics%20links.htm#chindict
Other languages:
http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/linguistics%20links.htm#otherdict
PAPER DICTIONARIES
English-English:
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
with CD-ROM
Excellent student dictionary, with US and British vocabulary differences and
pronunciations, example sentences, practice exercises.
5th Edition. 2009. Essex: Pearson Education.
Thesaurus:
The Synonym Finder. Rodale,
J.I., ed. New York: Warner Books, 1978
(originally published by the Rodale Press). Taiwan reprint available at
書林 Bookman Books; paperback version possibly available at Lai Lai 來來 Books;
Cave's 敦煌 may also have it.
English-Chinese:
The English-Chinese Dictionary 英漢大詞典
(unabridged), 2 volumes. 上海譯文出版社. 陸谷孫主編. 1989.
(other similar sets now available; check at mainland bookstores, like 若水堂)
Chinese-English:
新世紀漢英大辭典 A
New Century Chinese-English Dictionary. 外語教學與研究出版社,
2003. Can be ordered at 秋水堂,
or try other mainland bookstores, like 若水堂;
takes about six weeks to arrive.
Chinese-Chinese:
新華字典 Xinhua Zidian.
北京:商務. Simplified characters, with traditional characters also given.
Arranged according to Pinyin spellings, with radical 部首 index. Light, portable,
and surprisingly comprehensive for a pocket dictionary. Available very inexpensively
at 若水堂.