Pronunciation comes right at the end of the page. While most dictionaries carry phonetic form, only few (, for example) carry non-phonetic form. PronunciationĪudio of the pronunciation is a must in any dictionary, but the non-phonetic form too is helpful. They could’ve, however, improved user experience in examples by highlighting (bold or underline) the word in question for quick pinpointing. They provide plenty of examples, by and large the most for the dictionaries covered in this post. This dictionary does the best job of examples too. Also, British and American pronunciations are not on the same page and need to be accessed through different pages. Surprisingly, pronunciation is at the bottom of the page.You can click these tabs to unfurl several examples for each use case of a word. Examples are neatly arranged in expandable tabs after each meaning, which gives the dictionary compact and neat look. Autosuggest (the search bar in the dictionary suggests words when you start typing a word) works well.Lexicoįormerly Oxford Living Dictionary and now ‘powered by Oxford’. They teach you how words are actually used in sentences, the building blocks of writing and speech.) (Examples are arguably the most important feature of any dictionary. ‘Example sentences’ can be the biggest differentiator between dictionaries because they’re important and, second, some dictionaries really struggle to put together enough examples. Good dictionaries not just cover all the use cases of such words, but they also do a good job of presenting so much information in a user-friendly manner. Here is an example of word ‘sink’ that can be used in many, many ways (the screenshot captures only few): Most dictionaries do fine on ‘meaning and synonyms’, and therefore this parameter isn’t a big differentiator unless you search for words that can be used in multiple ways. With that in mind, I’ve taken following parameters to evaluate online dictionaries in this post: User experience, however, is worthless if a dictionary misses out on core offering of meaning, examples, pronunciation, and phrasal verbs & idioms. And last, because it’s all online, people want a good user experience. People also care about idioms and phrasal verbs associated with the word. Pronunciation too is a popular destination. People care the most for meaning(s) of the word and how it is used in sentences. I don’t, at least.ĭo you care for pronunciation? Certainly more than history. Is history of a word important to you? I guess most don’t care when and how the word originated. What parameters would be valuable to users of online dictionaries? Cambridge English Dictionary: it provides both British and American pronunciations.: it provides pronunciation in non-phonetic form as well.If you’re one of the persons who is interested in just the ratings – and not details – here is a summary: DictionaryĪnd the two best dictionaries for learning pronunciation are: In this post, I’ve reviewed (with ratings out of 10) well-known online dictionary brands on parameters that are usually the most valuable to users. It struck me then that many more users of online dictionaries may not be using the best dictionary and I decided to write a review of main dictionary brands at some point in future. Much later, when I tried Cambridge English Dictionary, I realized that, but for pronunciation, wasn’t the best overall option. I’ve extensively used online dictionaries, mainly Cambridge English Dictionary and, to improve pronunciation and transfer thousands of words from passive to active vocabulary.
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