How to Use Bilingual Dictionaries

By Laura K. Lawless, About.com Guide

Bilingual dictionaries are essential tools for second language learners, but using them correctly requires more than just looking up a word in one language and picking the first translation you see. Many words have more than one possible equivalent in the other language, including synonyms, varying registers, and different parts of speech. Expressions and set phrases can be elusive, because you have to figure out which word to look up. In addition, bilingual dictionaries use specialized terms and abbreviations, a phonetic alphabet to indicate pronunciation, and other techniques to provide a great deal of information in a limited amount of space. The bottom line is that there's a lot more to bilingual dictionaries than meets the eye, so check out these pages to learn how to get the most out of your bilingual dictionary.