The dictionary has been one of the longstanding tools of language learners. Today, though, more and more language students are doing their studies without a lexicon in tow. Does the dictionary still have a place in today’s language learning landscape?
Sadly, in my opinion, it’s one of those tools you can probably do without. While the dictionary’s main purpose, to provide a singular reference for a language’s words, remains valid, there’s really no point in keeping one with you.
How many words do you know in English? If you’re like most first-language English speakers, you probably have anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 words in your arsenal. It’s impressive how many words you actually know. Yet, how many of those words have you really looked up in the dictionary in the last ten or twenty years? Fact is, we tend to learn new words based on context, adjusting how we use them over time depending on the results we get. We just don’t learn them from dictionaries.
Additionally, there are literally dozens of options you can use when you need to discover the meaning of a word. When I need to look up the meaning of a word while I’m using my language study software, I almost always tend to use the built-in dictionary in the program. When I’m not using it and feel the need to look up a word’s meaning, I search on Google and get literally thousands of results.
So, should you still get a dictionary? Only if you want one. Just don’t expect it to be more useful than any of your other language training tools.
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