By Hu Wo (Cuckoo’s Song)
From Oxford, a dictionary is a book that gives a list of the words of a language in alphabetical order and explains what they mean or gives a word for them in a foreign language; for example, an English-Myanmar dictionary. It even says that a dictionary is a book that explains the words that are used in a particular subject; for instance, a dictionary of science. On the other hand, Longman states that a dictionary is a book that gives a list of words in alphabetical order and explains their meanings in the same or another language; for example, an English-English dictionary. The origin of the word `dictionary’ is supposed to be `dictionarium’, which is derived from Medieval Latin between the years 1500 and 1600, meaning `word’. Whatever is said, the dictionary probably works as a writing tool or clue for would-be authors, especially foreign ones. If a dictionary is used well by a writer, it will become the best reference book for him or her to a certain extent.
Some writers say that grammar does not need to be studied, and a dictionary can never be used, regardless of the type of reading material studied. Contextualized meaning should not always do well in all conditions of reading; they must believe. In actual fact, some writers have had enough reading and others are native speakers who have adequate language acquisition and/ or language learning while living in their own nations. For myself, what I think is that learners who have not yet acquired language acquisition or language learning ought to study the dictionary as much as they can. Of course, the word meanings that native speakers or properly studied language learners without any dictionary apparently differ from those of dictionaries. As there are often many kinds of dictionaries – monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual, they would frequently work like thesauruses, encyclopaedia, or grammar books for future writers. In English dictionaries, nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositional phrases, and conjunctions will be described below in short and to the point as part of most studies.
The two main themes related to nouns in the English language are whether they are countable or uncountable and their singular or plural forms. For example, the word `exercise’, which means a set of movements or activities, can be used as a countable noun, like exercises for the guitar. But for physical or mental activity, it can only be used as an uncountable noun, as in the sentence `Walking is good exercise’. NOT `Walking is a good exercise’. The word `money’ can be used merely as an uncountable noun, e.g., Love and kindness cannot be bought with money. Some words in English, like series, are usually singular as countable nouns – for instance, almost all Korean movies consist of a series of 16 episodes. Other English words, such as notes, are usually plural as countable nouns. For example, this catalogue contains detailed notes on each book. Some English dialogues even get plural nouns right, like the classroom language `Any questions?’ and `Any other questions’. `Any question?’ or `Any other question?’ is wrong.
Among parts of speech in English, verbs are the most widespread, used not only in speaking but also in writing. On English verbs, it should be noted that the verbs are transitive or intransitive, and they are phrasal verbs, idioms, or collocations. In the sentence `I wrote a love letter to my little sister’, the verb `wrote’ is transitive because the love letter is a direct object. The verb `die’ as in the sentence `She died suddenly’ is intransitive since after that, the verb does not go with an object. In the sentences `He is going in for TOEFL’, `The boys may win her over’ and `Not to worry – I’ll see to it’, the verbs `go in for’, `win over’ and `see to’ are phrasal verbs. The word structures of phrasal verbs are `verb × preposition’, `verb × adverb’, `verb × adverb × preposition’, or `verb × particles’. In `His mother passed away the other day’, the verb `pass away’ is an idiomatic expression, which means `die’, as these two words cannot be translated word by word. As in the sentence `It’s a crying shame to spend all that time’, the words `be a crying shame’ serve as a collocation, meaning that we find something extremely bad or shocking. Hence, if we use a verb in English, there is a must question to ask: Whom or what? Verbs that have the answer to whom or what are transitive. If not, such verbs are intransitive. All phrasal verbs, idioms, and collocations should be learnt in clusters, and the last two cannot be used in word-for-word translation.
As regards adjectives in English, they can be found before a noun, after a verb, especially be, or both and are degradable or non-degradable. The sentences `You are sick’ and `You are a sick person’ are able to be written with the meaning of a person having a fever. The sentence `You are ill’ will be written with the meaning mentioned above, but the sentence `You are an ill person’ is not usually written. Some adjectives are degradable, such as in the sentences `This sum is hard’, `This sum is harder than that sum’, and `This sum is the hardest in exercises’. However, other adjectives are non-degradable, and when degraded, they will become illogical. Thus, the adjectives `right’, `correct’ and `wrong’ should not have such degrees of comparison as `righter, rightest’, `correcter, correctest,’ or `wronger, wrongest’ respectively. The word `right’ itself has been meaningful _ there is no need for it to make a degree of comparison, and so have another two.
What is more, good care should be taken to prepositional phrases and conjunctions while looking up words in the dictionary. In `I’m a night person, so I like to study at night’, the words ‘at night’ work as a prepositional phrase. This sentence can be written as I’m a night person, so I like to study by night’ or `I’m a night person, so I like to study in the night’. In the phrase `in the night’, the definite article `the’ will be added. According to Cambridge Grammar, the phrase `by × time’ will mean `before the time’, at the time’, or `not later than the time mentioned later’. The sentence `Everybody must get to the meeting by 10 o’clock’ can say `Everybody must get to the meeting before 10 o’clock’, `Everybody must get to the meeting at 10 o’clock’, or `Everybody must get to the meeting not later than 10 o’clock’. Also, some conjunctions in English, like although and though, should make a noticeable difference. The sentence `Although the kitchen is small, it is well designed’ can be rewritten as `Though the kitchen is small, it is well designed’, `Even though the kitchen is small, it is well designed’, `Although small, the kitchen is well designed’, ` `Small though the kitchen is, it is well designed”, `The kitchen is small, although it is well designed’, and `The kitchen is small, though it is well designed’, without any change of its meaning. But we cannot write the sentence as `Although the kitchen is small, however, it is well designed’ or `Even although the kitchen is small, it is well designed’ for the simple reason that the former faces redundancy, i.e. although it has the same meaning as however, and the latter is not a common usage, i.e. even although.
Language learners will not need to use dictionaries for sure. However, making use of dictionaries cannot be in vain, as mentioned above. Considering the use of a dictionary, we should have had different dictionaries to hand at first. Next, we will have to use a kind of dictionary with example phrases and sentences, which could provide the first step towards accurate and fluent writing in the future, overcoming a limited vocabulary. Lastly, language-to-language dictionaries should also be used so that language learners will see authentically defined meanings of vocabulary in the language. In my experience, using such dictionaries sometimes seems a tedious job, particularly when a learner does not get the meaning of the vocabulary that he wants to know. At such times, we had better use bilingual or multilingual dictionaries rather than monolingual ones. Moreover, what language learners had best be aware of is that some vocabulary has not been inscribed in the dictionary yet, particularly slang and current usages. Therefore, we need to learn new words from daily newspapers, journals, magazines, and television. After all, language learners ought to do extensive reading, keep a sort of dictionary at hand, and use vocabulary as and when.
