Customer Reviews

Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

Much easier to understand than the default dictionary!

Example:"DEBUNK"
Default dictionary--"expose the falseness or hollowness of (a myth, idea, or belief)"
This dictionary -- "to show that something (such as a belief or theory) is not true"

*FYI*
After you buy this, go to <HOME>
- press <MENU> - choose <Settings> - press <MENU> again
- choose <Change Primary Dictionary> - and pick Merriam-Webster's.

Then you can start using it upon reading.

This dictionary is better than Kindle's original one for foreigners because the definitions are easier and noun words show difference between [count] and [noncount]. I didn't find any other Kindle ready dictionaries to show the difference clearly.
For some reason, the sample had a strange layout but the real one was o.k.

One of the key factors that I bought Kindle was the internal dictionaries.
While, starting to read books, I found it rather difficult with these pre-installed ones because explanation using difficult words, or not clear for me. I had to check words in the explanation, found another difficulty and had to check 3rd word...
After reading several reviews to find solution, I decided to buy this one.
It was much easier to understand, and my frustration much less.
I recommend this learners dictionary to anyone who are frustrated with internal dictionaries but still willing to work with helpful English-English one.

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.

I bought this dictionary for my 3rd grade child, who finds the Children's dictionary is increasingly inadequate for his daily school needs. I like this dictionary as it contains lots of example in plain English. The only disappointment is the E-Book that is downloaded for free from the website does not contain pronunciation of words.

This must be the best American English dictionary in years, and it's the 1st MW dictionary to feature international phonetic alphabet (IPA) rather than some confusing respelling used in other MW dictionaries. Furthermore, the pronunciation given is the ''low back merged'' (or ''cot/caught'' merged) pronunciation, typical of Western US, Canada, southern Florida, Vermont and central parts of Indiana and Ohio: both Don and dawn are pronounced the same [da:n]. This pronunciation is easier for foreigners and is becoming a new standard in Hollywood, so I think it was a good idea to opt for this pronunciation instead of the traditional East Coast pronunciation.

Highly recommended!

(I seem to be using dictionary more and more in its website form because it's easier, but the book and the electronic download form are better for browsing).

"Dictionary" means that you can search headwords and jump to the definition.
No way! "Headword search" link is dead.
So if you have android you can only use binary search. If you are a programmer, of course.

I felt Oxford American English of dictionary is difficult. So , I chalendged Merriam- Webstrr's. Now I felt happy, because Merriam-Webstar's is good dictionary for learner's of english.

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!