Language Trainers Blog

I’m still not 100% sure where I sit on the e-books vs print books issue, and tend to think there is a time and place for both. With the rising popularity of e-book readers and tablets (most notably the Kindle and the iPad), though, it’s inevitable that people will be doing more of their reading on the screen rather than on the page.

Owning a traditional print dictionary has always made me feel slightly more involved with language, but for logical reasons the print dictionary is becoming very out-of-date. With modern search functions, space saving advantages, and the ability to constantly update material without reprinting, online and electronic dictionaries are becoming obsolete.

The latest version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is not even going to print.  It is going to be re-released online in December, on a subscription basis. Because they won’t be limited by the size of a physical book, they will also be able to make available the historical thesaurus of the OED, containing almost every word in English dating back to Old English times. Unfortunately, the prices for the subscription are pretty steep - £7+VAT for a week’s access, and £205+VAT for a year. You could sponsor a couple of third world families for that much (and probably buy a few print copies of the OED), so I hope they change their minds before they go the way of The Times, who reportedly lost 90% of their readership after they started charging for their website.

If you’re looking for an alternative, The Guardian has done a good comparison of various print and online dictionaries.

I recently stumbled across Digital Dialects, a website providing vocabulary-learning games for not just one, but 60 different languages.  These range from Afrikaans to Zazaki, a few of which I hadn’t even heard of (including the latter, which is spoken in eastern Turkey).   The games are simple and focus on basic word categories like numbers, food, and animals.  Each game has images and many have sound, as well as options such as choosing to read a word or listen to it.  Each language has a different combination of games depending on the vocabulary, and I think they would be suitable for both children and adults at a beginner level.  All of the games are free to use.

Whether you are just starting out in a language, want to pick up some useful vocabulary before a trip abroad, have a child who is studying, or just want to know how to count to 10 in as many languages as possible (I met a kid in Cambodia who could do this in at least 10 languages), check it out.