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New title! Designed to help advance students master spoken and written English as it is actually used, this groundbreaking new dictionary provides in-depth and up-to-date coverage of basic English vocabulary, grammar, and usage. Outstanding features include nearly 100,000 words and phrases, more than 160,000 usage examples, more than 22,000 idioms, verbal collocations, and commonly used phrases, and more than 1,000 original drawings--including 16 pages of full color art. Abundant supplemental information includes 25 pages of grammar.
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 Merriam-Webster's at its best |
| Review Date: September 27, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Holger Metzger, |
The list of Advanced Learner's dictionaries is as long as my arm: Oxford, Cambridge, Collins...---and now there's Merriam-Webster's. I guess it was about time: the market for this kind of thing is huge. It is not surprising that M-W finally wanted its share of the pie.
Well, M-W did not re-invent the concept: If you know the layout of one, you know them all: headwords are in bold, pronunciations are in the International Phonetic Alphabet, definitions come next, usually followed by one or two examples (in blue) to clarify the meaning of the word in question. Usage notes and illustrations are interspersed throughout the book. Like the Oxford Advanced Learner's, M-W highlights approx. 3000 basic English words as the most important words a learner needs to know. Also included in the book: 16 pages color art (again, most dictionaries have those), an English Grammar review, often confused words, spelling rules, a handbook of style (mostly punctuation, capitals and italics), weight and measures, e-mail and letter writing, etc.
The dictionary covers both British and American English. But the focus is definitely on the latter: in spelling and pronunciation, American is the norm (which is fine by me: it is an American Learner's, after all!). The definitions are written in a clear and simple language (as far as I can tell). Entries are up-to-date. Last but not least, a free eBook download is included (but not yet available as I'm writing this).
What is mssing is an accompanying version on CD. The online edition makes up for it, though.
But the nagging question remains whether there is a compelling reason to buy it... in all fairness NOT if you already have one of the latest Advanced Learner's available out there: Oxford is still the gold standard (a bit overrated I think), and Cambridge is getting better and better with each edition.
But make no mistake: M-W's Advanced Learner's is an excellent dictionary and a worthy addition to the Advanced Learner's Dictionaries market. It is quality throughout. If you are thinking about getting an ESL dictionary (especially if you want to focus on American English), you may want to give it a shot.
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Large number of example sentences, and free partial download
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| Review Date: July 19, 2009 |
| Reviewer: science-buff, Fremont, CA, USA |
Ease of use rivals that of the 7th edition of Oxford Advanced Learner's but word-completeness is about half as much (100K words vs 183K). This limitation is made up by its large number of well-selected example sentences/phrases - very useful for both native and foreign speakers.
The free online Mobipocket-download version of the dictionary is easy to use but unfortunately the very useful "Geographical Names" section (16 pages of place names with IPA pronunciations) is deleted from the online version. When the Mobipocket application is invoked on your PC, you can turn on a feature so that pressing the "F2" key will give you an instant small pop-up window of the word-definition of any highlighted word on your Windows screen. It's great for reading any heavy-duty online documents or web pages. I'm getting addicted to this feature! But then the Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionary (7th edition) is available on Mobipocket too so maybe this F2 feature is similarly available.
If you have young children using this dictionary, try picking the paperback version instead of hardback since the former is more kids-friendly for page flipping, and less intimidating than the bulkier hardback one - even though the latter costs just a few dollars more.
Overall, highly recommended if you treasure good examples more than word completeness. If not, you should probably pick Oxford Advanced Learner's.
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Wonderful Dictionary!!!
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| Review Date: February 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: L. Rui, Riverside |
| This is an amazing dictionary. For an English student, I found this dictionary has a wonderful categories of words. It's easy to use and understand. There are beautiful illustrate inside. I love this dictionary. |
Worth buying!
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| Review Date: December 10, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Lisa White, |
| My high school purchased these dictionaries for the Special Education/struggling students and they are a great resource. |
Learn English from America's language experts
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| Review Date: February 11, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Veikko Karppelin, Finland |
Merriam-Webster(tm) has served users of the English language over the past 160 years and now introduced a dictionary aimed specifically for learners of English as a second language. The dictionary provides coverage of both American And British English, and contains over 160,000 usage examples, demonstrating how the language is used in real life. "Our feeling throughout has been that the real heart of the dictionary is its examples."
I have found Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary to be comprehensive and absolute valuable. Combined with another advanced learner's dictionary, like that of Oxford, for example, you have a gold mine of English usage. This dictionary certainly will benefit anyone desiring to understand and use English. Highly recommended! |
Best buy for " Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary ", Lowest Price Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary + Free shipping. Get Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary Now! |
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