When and how to use a dictionary – and when NOT to use a dictionary!

Hi. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam.

In today's lesson I want to speak with you about: "How to Use a Dictionary".

Now, for some of you, this might seem very obvious.

You open the dictionary, you look for your word, there it is, everything's good. But

it's not that simple. Now, the reason I say it's not that simple is because a lot of people

have a problem with exactly how to use a dictionary, and also when to use the dictionary. You don't

always need to go look for every word.

So, before I look at a few examples of when you should look for a word in the dictionary,

I want to stress that if you really, really want to build your vocabulary quickly and

have a very wide range of vocabulary, use an English to English dictionary. I'm going

to give you a couple of examples of which dictionaries to use after, but English to

English. Now, I've had many students who use English to whatever language, English to Spanish,

English to Japanese, English to whatever language is their native language and vice versa. This

is good for a very quick check, but don't make it a habit. Okay?

Get yourself an English to English dictionary-you can get the book, I'll show you one in a second-or get online

and find the apps for the more common dictionaries. Now, the reason I say this is because you

will have to look for meanings of words, and if you don't understand the explanation of

the meaning, you will probably learn more words in that explanation and then you can

look those up. So you're actually going to build your vocabulary exponentially. "Exponentially",

very quickly and to a large degree, without end, so you can go very quickly.

So, let's look at three sentences, and I underlined the words we're focusing on. Okay? "Salivate",

"plethora", "mitigate". Now, you may know these words, you may not, but these are a

little bit higher end words, they're not very common. So we're going to think about what to do.

First, use context. What I want you to do is I want you to try to guess the meaning

of a word before you go to the dictionary.

"The hungry dog began to salivate when it saw the steak on the table."

Now, most of you have seen a dog, most of you have probably

seen a hungry dog. Now, you think of a hungry dog, you think of a steak, what do most dogs

do? Even what do humans do? Dogs do it more obviously, they start to salivate. They start...

The little wet stuff comes out of their mouths. Right? That wet stuff is "saliva".

Dogs have it, you have it, I have it, human beings have it, too. It helps us to eat and digest our

food. Now, because of the context, because you have a hungry dog and because you have

a steak, it seems pretty obvious that "salivate" means to start emitting or getting... Letting

out saliva. Now, another thing to keep in mind: The next sentence will probably use

this word, "saliva". So: "The dog began to salivate, and all the saliva gathered in a

pool on the floor. So then when I walked by it and I slipped and hurt myself, it's the

dog's fault, not my fault." Okay? So, now, do I need to or should you go look at this...?

Look for this word in the dictionary? No. You can guess the sentence. You probably are

right in your guess of what this means. The next sentence will probably confirm it. Just

move on. Don't worry about this word. It's easy. Now you have a new word in your head.

But let's look at the next word:

"The forum was a grand success as it had generated a plethora of ideas."

Now, you have a forum. A "forum" is where people exchange ideas or

where they have discussions. On the internet, there are plenty of forums.

At www.engvid.com, there's a forum where you can ask questions, and teachers help, and other students help.

So, if the forum has all these ideas and it was a grand success - why? Because it had

generated, it had made or created a plethora of ideas. Now, you can probably guess what

this means. A "plethora" means many and varied. So, a large amount or a large number, and

a varied number. So, now, if you can guess the sentence but you don't really know this

word, skip it. Don't look for it in the dictionary. When should you look for this word in the

dictionary? When you see it the second or third time. Now, "plethora" is a very high-end

word, mostly used in academics, and even then, rarely used. People don't like this word because

it's a little bit snobby. Okay? Not everybody knows this word, not everybody needs to know

this word. Most people will just use a better word or an easier word. "...generated many

ideas" or "...generated a variety of ideas". If you have a simpler word, use it. So, if

you see this word, don't look it up. If you see it again or the third time, then yes,

look it up so you have it in your vocabulary base.

Next: "Many investors sell off their stocks during crises, thinking that this will mitigate

their losses." So here's our word: "mitigate", notice we have all verbs, but you know because

of context. Now, again, usually the context will allow you to guess the meaning, but this

word is pretty sure to come up again and again. This is a good word, it means to make less,

like less intense, less painful, or weaken the impact of something. So, this word...

Okay, the first time if you can understand the sentence without looking it up in the

dictionary, keep going. The second time, and there will be a second or third time, look

it up in the dictionary. So, this one we're going to look up.

Excuse me.

Now, those of you taking the IELTS or the TOEFL test, you need to know this word. It will show up at

some point on the test. If not the test you're taking, then the next practice test or the

next practice test. This word will come up again. Know it. So look this word up in the

dictionary. Okay?

So, when do you use it? When a word is repeated often enough that you know it's a word that's

commonly used, and if the word... For example: "plethora", if you can't understand the sentence,

again, do you need to go right away, look at the dictionary? No. Do you understand the

paragraph? If you understand the paragraph and you have a general sense of positive or

negative in the sentence, again, skip it. If it comes up again, look it up. If you need

to know this word to be able to make sense out of the whole paragraph, then of course,

look it up. Now, the reason I say this is because many students tell me that it's very

boring to read. Why? Because every few words, they have to go to the dictionary. So, they're

reading with a dictionary in one hand, and the book or the magazine article in the other

and it gets very tiring. And yes, I understand that. So, learn when to skip a word, learn

to guess the meanings of the word, and understand that words that are repeated often should

be looked up and become part of your vocabulary base. Okay? So, now, we're going to look more

detail in what you're going to see in the dictionary when you look up a word, and what

to make of all the information that's presented there. Okay?

Okay. So, now, we're going to look at basically how to use the dictionary. Now, before I get

into all the different aspects of what's in the dictionary, I want to talk about using

an actual book dictionary, a physical book you can hold in your hand or getting online

and using one of the dictionaries online. Now,

I personally prefer the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Because I write mostly for a North American audience-okay?-and I

deal mostly with North American writing, I use a North American or the top North American

dictionary. This is the American dictionary, but it also applies in Canada. If I were in

Europe or in the UK, I would use the Oxford Dictionary. There are lots of other dictionaries;

there's the Collins in Canada, there's the Cambridge in the UK, etc. I use this one.

Now, you're thinking: "Well, look how thick that is", and it's actually pretty heavy.

Do you want to carry this in your bag everywhere you go? Of course not. I don't suggest or

I don't recommend that you do that, but have this available to you when you're at home

or at your local library, at your school, at your office. Be able to access this whenever

you need. Now, this one is full of very tiny writing. I'm not sure if you can actually

see that, but everything that is online is also on here.

Now, my personal opinion, my personal preference is to use the book rather than online whenever

I can. Why? Think about your internet experience, think about how you behave when you're watching

or doing something online. When you go to any of these dictionaries online, you're going

to have advertisements everywhere. You're very easily distracted. Okay? You're clicking

buttons. It's very easy to click off the page, or to give up, or to not scroll far down enough.

Okay? So this makes you use... Makes you search for words actively; you have to open the book,

you have to look things up by alphabetical order. You can't just type in the word, you

have to look for it, so you become active in your search for the word. That's one. Two:

While you're looking for one word, you might come across another word that sounds interesting

or looks interesting, or: "Oh, I've seen this word somewhere before. I wonder what it means."

So you're probably going to build your vocabulary even faster by doing it in a book. When you

search for your word online, you're just getting that one word and that's it. If you're curious

enough, you'll go look for other ones, but you won't know which ones to look for. Here,

they're in your face. Better... Sorry. Better to be distracted by other words in the dictionary

than by diet pills or a new opportunity to go on vacation that you are going to see online.

So, let's move on from there.

However, there are, of course, advantages to the online dictionaries as well. Firstly...

And some of these things will be the same, some of them will be different. All of them

will give you the symbols... The syllables-sorry-and the... I forgot to mention, here, the phonetics.

The phonetic spelling of the word. Now, what does "phonetic" mean? Means the sound of the

word, how to pronounce. So, let's go back to our word "mitigate". The Webster's Dictionary

will give you the pure syllabic or syllable breakdown of how to say it: "mit∙i∙gate".

But for those of you who are a little bit more adventurous, who are... Have a good memory

because you have to study a new alphabet, there's also the phonetic spelling: "mi",

so this is an upside down "e", but it actually sounds like: "ih", and "gate", "a" with a

bar across from it is the diphthong, it's the "a"; not" "ah", not "aw", etc. "mi t ə gāt".

Now, if you go to the Oxford Dictionary, they will give you the same phonetic spelling,

except instead of the "t", they will give you the "d". So, in England, they probably

say: "midigate", in America, they say: "mitigate". So you know the differences, there.

Now, m-w.com, that's the Merriam-Webster's dictionary. You can write MerriamWebster.com

and that'll go to the same place. OxfordDictionaries.com will take you to the Oxford one. Or Dictionary.com,

that's just the generic internet dictionary. If you go to Google and type: "Define" whatever

word you're looking for, it will give you a definition as well. So, these are the internet

ones. So, they give the phonetic spelling, they give the syllables, they give you other

forms. So, if "mitigate", you might also see: "mitigation", which is a noun, "mitigated"

is an adjective, "mitigator" is a noun, person.

It'll give you the other forms that you can look up.

On the internet, not so much in the book, because they don't have that much space...

On the internet, you will see sample sentences. Now, if the sample sentences in the dictionary

are not enough, you want to see more, go to your search box on your search engine. I use

Google, so you can use that. Just type: "Use 'mitigate'"-or whatever word-"in a sentence."

Usually the top entry will be for that page, and you will see many sentences. Keep in mind

that many of these sentences are a little bit old-fashioned or highly academic, but

some of them will be very useful for you to understand the word.

And online, obviously not in the book, there will be a recording so you can actually hear

the word spoken. I've listened to many of these recordings. Some of them I like, some

of them I don't like. I've heard different versions, but it's up to you. You can go check

all three dictionaries and compare how the word is said aloud. Okay? So, now, we have

the reasons to use the book, we have the reasons to use online.

Now, what are you going to see when you get to the book? You're going to see multiple

entries, but before that, you're going to see something... You're going to see the phonetic

spelling, and then you might see something like this. What does this mean? It means verb

and transitive.

This is very important to know. So, "mitigate" is not necessarily a

transitive verb, but it can be a transitive verb. Okay? So we... To mitigate a transitive

verb, it means a verb that must take an object. So, if you have "vt", then the entry will

be for the transitive verb. If there's a non-transitive version of this verb or a non-transitive use,

they will separate that into different entries.

Okay. So, I want to look at the word "cover". Sorry, one more thing. The dictionaries will

also give you the origin of the word, like if it came from Latin or Greek or from French

or wherever. If you're interested in that, it's in the dictionary. If you're not, don't

worry about it too much. But, sorry one more thing, there is something called "false friends".

"False friends" are words that are used... For example, in Spanish, there's a word in

Spanish and then you see the same word almost in English and you think they mean the same

thing. That's not always the case. Sometimes they mean the same thing, sometimes it's a

false friend, meaning that although it looks the same, they're completely different uses

in Spanish or English. So be aware of that.

Now, let's look for this word. If you're going to... If you have the problem with this word:

"cover", you see a sentence and you're not under sure... You're not sure how this word

"cover" is being used, because as far as you understand, "cover" means like cover yourself

with a blanket. But in the sentence you're looking at: "The policy doesn't cover earthquakes."

Policy doesn't cover earthquakes. So, obviously, "cover" doesn't mean like put something over

or put something on top of something else. It means something else. You go to the dictionary

and you see that there are actually 16 entries for the verb "cover".

That means 16 different meanings or uses for this verb.

So, how do you know which one is yours? You don't. You go through each one

until you find the meaning that applies to the context you saw the word

in. Okay? Now, some of these will even have... Some of these will even have sub entries.

So, for example, the first entry of "cover" is to protect, but this has also 1a, 1b, 1c,

1d, 1e, five sub entries. You can protect someone by I'm holding a gun so my friend

can come out of the situation, so I'm covering his retreat. Cover with an insurance policy.

You can cover someone by protecting them, defending them from an attack. In sports,

the defender covers the guy with the ball so he doesn't get around him. So, lots of

different uses. And we have six noun entries for the word "cover". So, right away you understand

it could be both a noun and a verb, and it has many different meanings.

So, you see a sentence like this: "Many artists like to cover Adelle's songs."

Adelle the singer is very famous, lots of good songs, everybody likes to sing her songs. Everybody

likes to cover them. So you're thinking: "Cover? Well, you can't put a blanket on top of a

song, that doesn't make sense. There must be another meaning." So, you go to the dictionary.

This is from Webster's by the way, the 16, Merriam-Webster's. You go there and you go

through all the different meanings, and you find 16, number 16, the last one: "'Cover'

means to record or perform a song." Now... Sorry. To record or perform a cover of a song.

So, now they're using the word "cover" in the definition of "cover", but they're using

it as a noun. So you go to the noun entries, and number six will tell you a "cover" is

a recording or performance of a song already recorded by someone else. So, there you go,

you have a new understanding of the word "cover". If you want, you go check all the other 15,

and you know all the different uses of "cover".

Now, this takes a lot of work, yes, it does, but learning a new language takes a lot of

work. And I've... I've repeated many times, other teachers have repeated many times: If

you really want to improve your language quickly, you have to build vocabulary. If you want

to build vocabulary, you have to read. Now, a lot of people say:

"Reading, oh, but I don't understand. Every word, every 10 words, I don't understand."

Well, that's what the dictionary is for.

Be patient, be motivated, be hard working, and I guarantee you your English

will improve very quickly and you'll be able to speak about anything, read anything, write

about anything because you will have the vocabulary for it. Okay.

So, if you have any questions about this, please go to www.engvid.com.

You can join the forum and take the quiz.

If you like this lesson, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.

And, of course, go out and get yourself a dictionary. Don't forget. A paper... A hardcopy

one so you have it at home, your office, at school, library, wherever you're going to

be so you can check it. And download the apps or save these... These addresses in your browser.

And come back again. See you soon.

Bye-bye.