BP #2. Dictionary Daze 

Hello dear reader. Welcome to the second blog about words management. And today I tell you about dictionaries: what are the best to use in different cases, and how to use.

Dictionary – is a “Magic Wand” for every person who is studying a foreign language. It helps us to be aware of definitions, translations, pronunciations of the words. You should take the question of choosingappropriate dictionary for you seriously, because this thing is very helpful in building your vocabulary.

In video tutorials I find really useful information for students. If English isn’t your mother tongue you should use descriptive dictionary. Prescriptive dictionaries are better for native speakers.

Also you should pay attention for all details that are shown in dictionary (what part of speech the word is; is there some other possible forms of this word).

Moreover, in that videos were mentioned some effective methods and advices. They could help to expand your vocabulary (of course, if you are a hardworking and motivated person). The main advice - don't be scary to make a mistake. Try to explore different ways of learning and work out the easiest one.

The next is making notes of unknown words. As I mentioned in previous blog every student, who is studying a foreign language must have his own dictionary. In additional there are mentioned exercises for easiest word remembering. For example: open your dictionary on different pages and choose three random words, and try to make a sentence with them. It'll improve your imagination and make it easier to keep words in mind.

During the studying you get enough experience to guess the meaning of some words from the context. If you work on something, it will work for you in future and you'll definitely make some progress.

As I am student, sometimes I have some troubles with pronunciation and spelling. For example, there is a word maintenance, which I usually misspell.

Maintenance /ˈmeɪn tə nəns/ (n) – the repairs, painting etc that are necessary to keep something in good condition.

One more pair of words, which always confuse me - "quite" and "quiet".

Quite /kwaɪt/ (adv) – fairly, or to a small extent, but not very. The film was quite good, but the book was much better.

Quiet /ˈkwaɪət/ (adj) – not making much noise, or making no noise at all. It's a nice car. The engine's really quiet.

And here are words that were added in March, 2017 to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Genericide /dʒəˈnerɪcid/ (n) –  genericide refers to the process by which a brand name loses its distinctive identity as a result of being used generically to refer to any product or service of its kind.

Screecham  /ˈskriːxəm/ (n) – in Scotland, especially the Shetland Islands, screecham is an evocative slang term for whisky. 

Eephus /ˈifəs/ – in baseball, an eephus is a type of slow pitch with a high arcing trajectory, associated especially with the pitcher ‘Rip’ Sewell of the Pittsburgh Pirates, to whose pitching the term was first applied in 1943. 

I hope you, my dear reader, found something new and interesting in my blog.