Customer Reviews

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 4 with CD

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is an extraordinary document. Contains your normal 100,000 english words BUT they have trawled TV, magazines, radio, newspapers etc to find what are currently the 3000 most commonly used words. These words are shown in the dictionary in RED.

Secondly, and perhaps more usefully, the definition of all 100,000 words is written with a limited vocabulary made up of the 2000 most popular out of the 3000. This means when you find a word 1) you know if it is commonly used and 2) you will almost definitely understand all the words used in its definition.

To add to this there is a killer CD which gives access to a whole lot more words from the Longman database but not in the printed version.

Students improving vocabulary, writers striving for plain english and students of english as a foreign language will find the package invaluable.

One more remark about the technical quality of the Longman CD. I have checked it one more time and now my opinion about it is even worse. It took 40 seconds for this CD-ROM dictionary to begin giving me definitions for the verb ?get? and additional 50 seconds to complete this process. The same things for the same word required only 2 and 20 seconds, respectively, for the Cambridge Advanced Learner's CD-ROM Dictionary.
Furthermore, the number of steps required to hear words pronounced in the Pop-up mode of the Longman CD is actually FIVE (not three, as I said in my previous review). After third step, i.e. after clicking on the loudspeaker icon in the pop-up window, main desktop with the text is inactivated and for the next word you must first click on it. Also, you have to point cursor to the loudspeaker icon.
So, in the Pop-up mode of Longman CD when working in the net to hear word pronounced you have to 1. Point cursor to the word, 2. Click mouse, 3. Press ctrl key and wait a lot of time, before word with its definition appears in the pop-up window, 4. Point cursor to the loudspeaker icon, 5. Click mouse again. And repeat all this for every next word!
In the QUICKfind mode of the Cambridge Advanced Learner's CD-ROM Dictionary only by moving cursor from one word to the next, without clicking mouse or pressing any key even once, you can actually hear all words as if someone were reading whole sentences aloud! You can even minimize QUICKfind window if you want to hear words pronounced, but don't want read their definitions.
Also, I think that the SUPERwrite mode (for writing) with SMART thesaurus (for finding synonyms and other related words) of Cambridge CD is much easier to navigate and more helpful, than the Language Activator of Longman CD. First, Activator mode occupies whole screen and you can't work in the Word or write an email and see the Activator window at the same time. In SUPERwrite you can. Second, to get word in the Activator you have to come from the main dictionary or alternatively, type or paste word in the Activator search. In SUPERwrite you only point cursor to the word and it immediately 'jumps' to the SUPERwrite window. Third, the number of the words presented in Activator is very limited and the information provided is sparse, whereas SUPERwrite has SMART thesaurus for every entry and you can also find information about Collocations, Verb Endings, Word Buildings, Common Learner Errors and Usage.

Several reviewers have complained about the CD being slow. My experience was worse than that -- I had great trouble installing it, and when I did finally get it installed, it wouldn't run.
Then I did what I should have tried in the first place. I copied the entire CD to my hard disk and ran the setup program from there. It installed in seconds, it works perfectly, and it's blazingly fast. With hard disk space now at 50 cents a gigabyte, don't even THINK of running the LDOCE dictionary from the CD.
This dictionary is intended for adult learners of English, but it's useful for native speakers as well. Each time you run LDOCE it opens with a random word. The first one that came up was "ibuprofen," which it defines as (a). MS Bookshelf defines it as (b). 'Nuff said.

a) a medicine that reduces pain, inflammation, and fever.
b) a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication C(13)H(18)O(2), used especially in the treatment of arthritis and commonly taken for its analgesic and antipyretic properties.

This dictionary is much more complete, than Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Almost all words required for GRE are presented in this edition. Words, frasal verbs and idioms are easy to find and most common words are printeded in red. Defining vocabulary is shorter, than in Oxford (2000 in Longman, 3000 in Oxford), so definitions in Longman are easier to understand. All pictures in Longman are printed in the full color.
CD version of this dictionary is awkward and not user-friendly. Although number of examples and pictures on the CD is increased, making this dictionary even more complete and language-activator is added as bonus, it is extremely difficult to use, especially if compared with the CD version of Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
1. Pop-up mode of the Longman, for working in the Internet and Word is awful, compared with QUICKfind of the Cambridge. In QUICKfind you must only point the cursor to the word (only one step required) and it pronounces it and gives you definiton almost immediately. In Pop-up mode you must first point to the word (first step), than press on ctrl button (second step), and after this click on loudspeaker icon to hear the voice (third step), and plus - all this steps in Longman CD are extremely time consuming.
2. You have to insert your Longman CD in the drive once a month for confirmation of authenticity
3. You can't make a copy of the Longman CD for your personal use.
To conclude, Cambridge CD is much better - I even think it is the best english CD dictionary on the market.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English has long been a very helpful reference for esl students. This new edition is no exception. Comparing with other recently released learner's dictionaries, Longman has more examples for each entry. All examples are taken from books, magazines, internet, and a database of spoken English. They are natural and show how each word or phrase is used in real situations by a native speaker. There are additional examples on the CD-ROM version. Words normally used together are highlighted in bold. Most frenquently used words are printed in red. There are also information on usages of words. The CD-ROM version also contains the Longman Language Activator and some exercises students can work on.

I currently use several learner's dictionaries. Overall, this one is slightly better than some others. The CD-ROM version defintely contains more information than others. I do find the CD version of the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary easier to use than Longman's when I surf the internet and write papers. If you can, buy and install both on your computer.

The dictionary is very good and very useful. I absolutely love it.Recommend it.Having said that, the CD- though very good- only shows how greedy and pathologically overcautious this company Longman is. Who in the world came up with the idea of authenticating the cd once a month? Why can't we just punch in a registration number at the time of installation? Wouldn't this give Longman peace of mind and make us - customers - happy? Why can't they take care of this problem? What would take to bring their attention to such an obvious flawed feature?
I lost my CD. You know what that means? I lost my money as well.
I don't appreciate that Longman. You should have fixed this problem long time ago. One star you're getting because of that.
I hope you read reviews.

The CD of the updated version (4v2) is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux! The CD offers many extra's in addition to the (expanded) dictionary: headword pronunciations, spoken example sentences, listening exercises, and a writing assistant. There is an issue with the sounds on Mac OS X computers that run Quicktime 7 and higher. A fix is available from http://www.longman.com/dictionaries/support/ldoce_updated_support.html#m5 (note that this support page is different from the one mentioned in the help file!). Unfortunately, the look up function (which allows you to look up a word in the dictionary by selecting it in other applications such as a web browser or a word processor) is only available under Windows (as you can read in the help file after installing the CD). The program starts up VERY slowly (at least under Mac OS), but after start up it is reasonably fast. Under Mac and Linux you cannot install the sentence pronunciations on your hard disk (you need to insert the CD if you want to use this function). These are only minor quibbles. As far as I know the Longman dictionaries of contemporary and of American English are currently the only ones with CDs that support Mac OS and Linux. As several others have pointed out, the content is excellent.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English has long been a very helpful reference for esl students. This new edition is no exception. Comparing with other recently released learner's dictionaries, Longman has more examples for each entry. All examples are taken from books, magazines, internet, and a database of spoken English. They are natural and show how each word or phrase is used in real situations by a native speaker. There are additional examples on the CD-ROM version. Words normally used together are highlighted in bold. Most frenquently used words are printed in red. There are also information on usages of words. The CD-ROM version also contains the Longman Language Activator and some exercises students can work on.

I currently use several learner's dictionaries. Overall, this one is slightly better than some others. The CD-ROM version defintely contains more information than others. I do find the CD version of the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary easier to use than Longman's when I surf the internet and write papers. If you can, buy and install both on your computer.

This is a very good dictionary, but not for native English speakers. The name of it should include something like "Advanced Learners Dictionary." It has tons of usage, something that American dictionaries don't seem to like.

I agree with the reader from Tbilisi (thank you for mentioning an alternative). The worst feature being the necessity to carry the CD-ROM with you. One remark though: since Longman's software is such a nuisance, I uninstalled it. Therefore I'll give the content 5 stars and the CD-ROM 2 star (because you may find it useful sometimes).