Thursday, June 21, 2012

Corpus Linguistics -- Why It's Useful (雙語字典不可靠)

Free is good, right? Many lazy students like to use free online dictionaries to learn English. This is a good way to harm yourself by memorizing mistakes.

Here is a page from a well-known online English-Chinese dictionary:

Is this so-called "dictionary" reliable? Notice: It's not really a dictionary. It's only a glossary. Please think: If it's free, who will check for mistakes? If you find a mistake, can you complain? Can you get your money back?

Let's check COCA for sentences with lover:

Did you notice how lover collocates with attack, beat up, kill, murder, shoot? Is that what people do to 情侶？Please remember this English proverb: "You get what you pay for" (一分錢一分貨)! There are many excellent English-English learner's dictionaries to help you learn English. Spend a little money and time to learn how to use them. Please don't waste your time with unreliable bilingual dictionaries (不可靠的雙語字典).
Posted by Mr. Matthews at 2:22 AM

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Cherry's avatar

Cherry · 667 weeks ago

I‘ ve learned that someone's lover is someone who they are having a sexual relationship with but are not married to. So if we call the boy/girlfriend, we'd better not say" lover". Is that right??
1 reply · active 667 weeks ago
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Mr_Matthews 65p · 667 weeks ago

Short answer: Yes.

Long, boring but more accurate answer: There are other choices: "my partner (could refer to a homosexual relationship), "my significant other" (could refer to your husband/wife/longterm BF/GF), "my better half" (usually husband/wife). The meaning depends on who's talking/listening (age, social background, etc.), grammatical patterns, collocates. Sexual mores are constantly shifting: it is probably more accurate to speak of tendencies rather than absolute black and white truths.
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9921471085林高呈's avatar

9921471085林高呈 · 614 weeks ago

I can't agree you no more. English-English dictionaries is more information to realize a word's meaning.
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9921471074許嘉瑜's avatar

9921471074許嘉瑜 · 614 weeks ago

Why yahoo and Google are not good dictionary? Just beacuse these websites are free for searching English words or sentences? Only the money websites is good for learn. It's not fair.
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9921471048 鮑晨微's avatar

9921471048 鮑晨微 · 614 weeks ago

i think it helpful. Because I am very dependent on English-Chinese dictionary before. But now i can use COCA to check the word mean for the sentences.
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應英三A 9821471083 邱星卉's avatar

應英三A 9821471083 邱星卉 · 614 weeks ago

I think so,too. Don't waste your time with unreliable bilingual dictionaries.
Every time when I am writing, are relying on Yahoo's dictionaries. Always grammar is wrong.(As is the case now.... lol)
I very grateful to the teacher told us about it, but for the dictionary should be charged, I will be afraid. If websites are in English, I am fear will not read and will not the program, will not used.
If the opportunity, teachers can actually teaching operations, how to pay and use.
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9921471011許雅嵐's avatar

9921471011許雅嵐 · 614 weeks ago

yahoo and google dictionary are not check mistake so i don't like i would like use other dictionary
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9921471023 張芷瑋's avatar

9921471023 張芷瑋 · 614 weeks ago

woo~ it 's so great information for me!!! I will try to pay a little money for this websites and spend time to learning, when I saw this "COCA" information I used. I felt it's good to learning for me!!! thank u ~
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周柏廷9921471009's avatar

周柏廷9921471009 · 614 weeks ago

I hate google dictionary very much. because it too low imformation to learn.
sometimes will show wrong works or chinese words.
I will use COCA more times in future .

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