It’s the wee hours of the morning, just before dawn. “PING-PONG!” My phone plays the popcorn notification when I receive new CafeTalk Lesson Request. As I rub the sand out of my eyes from my usual interrupted sleep, I pick up the phone and read the CafeTalk email message, ‘YOU HAVE A NEW LESSON REQUEST! I read the email and realized it was another student who wanted to improve her vocabulary. It seems this challenge is facing many students. The request says, “I want to increase my English vocabulary. I often can’t find the right words.” Do you read English every day? I wonder to myself. Many students do read English every day such as books, newspapers, magazine articles, and blogs. That’s a good first step. But what happens when they read words they don’t know? Many go to an online dictionary such as Jishio.org or Google Translate. Some even break out their worn, dog-eared high school or college bilingual dictionary. This brings up a point I want to make perfectly clear: Using a bilingual dictionary isn’t ideal for language learners. Why?

Bilingual Dictionaries: A Quick Fix
Bilingual Dictionaries give quick and easy answers, but is the quick fix helpful? Personally, I find that when I look up a new Japanese word in a bilingual dictionary unless I write it down and use the new word a few times, the new word vanishes from my memory into thin air quicker than you can say “lickety-split!” Bilingual dictionaries: Reinforce the habit of translating from your native language versus thinking in English. Translating is a very difficult habit to break. Students may depend too much on their native tongue rather than thinking and working in English. It can help students to find quick answers instead of engaging directly with the target language they are trying to learn. That direct engagement with the target language reinforces an experience with the word. Bilingual dictionaries:

• Lack context sentences, making it difficult to learn how to use the translated word. 
• Lack explanations about which of the many suggested words to use. 
• May not be comprehensive. 

A Better Practice: Monolingual Dictionaries
So what should a student do? If you want to increase your personal word bank, use a monolingual dictionary! Why? Here are just 7 reasons to try using one. Using a Monolingual Dictionary:

1.  Deepens Your Understanding: Using an English-English dictionary helps you immerse yourself in the language, leading to a deeper understanding of words and phrases.

2.  Encourages Contextual Learning: English-English dictionaries often provide example sentences, which can help you understand how words are used in context.

3.  Improves Your Vocabulary: By looking up words in English, you are exposed to related words and synonyms, expanding your vocabulary. Yes!

4.  Enhances Your Cognitive Skills: Using a monolingual dictionary forces you to think in English, enhancing cognitive language skills.

5.  Provides Cultural Nuances: English-English dictionaries can provide insights into cultural nuances and idiomatic expressions that might not be included in bilingual dictionaries.

6.  Prepares You for Real-life Situations: Since real-life interactions in English-speaking environments won't come with translations, using an English-English dictionary prepares you for such situations.

7. Encourages Independent Learning: Relying on English definitions encourages you to be more independent and confident in your language learning journey.

But there are so many English-English dictionaries out there. Which one should I use? 

COBUILD: My Favorite Monolingual Dictionary
I was fortunate to visit the UK to learn about a special project called COBUILD. Cobuild stands for Collins Birmingham University International Language Database. Why are COBUILD Dictionaries the best? In my opinion, they are the best because they were the first English Learner’s Dictionaries to be based on research with real examples. In 1980, John Sinclair, a professor at Birmingham University, started a project to collect as much English text as possible and put it into a digital database. This was the beginning of the Collins Corpus. The Collins Corpus is a database of English, including over 20 billion words. That’s BILLION with a “B!” The corpus has text from websites, newspapers, magazines, and books published worldwide and spoken data transcribed from radio, TV, and even people’s conversations. The English content comes from Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other Commonwealth countries. Professor Sinclair reasoned that to really understand how English is used, one had to collect as many examples of it as possible. That way, lexicographers (the people who write, compile, and/or edit a dictionary) can examine how a word is used. Lexicographers research how words are born and how they change in terms of pronunciation, spelling, usage, and meaning. Lexicographers use examples from the Collins Corpus to create a definition. Because the Collins corpus is so big, they can see many examples of how a word is used. Here’s an example directly from the Cobuild Learner’s Dictionary.

pollution /pəˈluːʃən/ 1. n-uncount Pollution is poisonous substances that are polluting water, air, or land. ❑ The level of pollution in the river was falling. 2. n-uncount Pollution is the process of polluting the water, air, or land.

COBUILD Features

1. Full-Sentence Definitions: Provides full-sentence definitions for better understanding. “Pollution is poisonous substances that are polluting water, air, or land.” 
2. Example Sentences: Offers real-world context for almost every meaning of every word. - Example: “The level of pollution in the river was falling.”
3. Phonetic Transcriptions: Includes phonetic transcriptions based on the IPA. Example: The word "pollution" might be transcribed as /pəˈluːʃən/.
4. Wordbank: A collection of sentences from various English-language sources. - Example: "Pollution from factories is harming the local wildlife."
5. Word Partnership Boxes: Provide common phrases with the word you are looking up. - Example: For the word "pollution," phrases like "air pollution," "water pollution," and "noise pollution" might be highlighted.
6. Thesaurus Boxes: Offers synonyms for the word you are looking up. - Example: For the word "pollution," synonyms like "contamination" might be provided.
7. User-Friendly Interface: Praised for its fast and reliable interface. - Example: Easy navigation and quick search options for finding information on "pollution."
8. Audio and Video Recordings: Some digital editions Include British audio recordings for all words and American recordings for some. There are also video pronunciations for thousands of words on the Collins Dictionary Website. - Example: Clickable audio icons next to the word "pollution" for instant pronunciation.
9. Frequency Feature: Divides words into frequency levels, helping learners prioritize which words are more important to study. - Example: "Pollution" might be marked as a medium-frequency word. 

The Collins Corpus: 

1. Collins Corpus is over 20 billion words. 
2. Importance and Advantages: Comprehensive understanding, high-frequency words, authentic examples, cultural context, updated information, and specialized vocabulary. 

Conclusion
There are many good monolingual dictionaries on the market. Oxford and Longman also have corpus-based dictionaries. However, let’s look at the difference between the Oxford WordPower dictionary and the COBUILD entry taken from Tomasz P. Szynalski’s review on his website Antimoon: 

When a dog wags its tail, it repeatedly waves its tail from side to side. — COBUILD

wag = to shake up and down or move from side to side — Oxford Wordpower

The first definition tells you that the word wag is often used to talk about a dog. It says: This is how “wag” is used 90% of the time. If you know that “wag” describes the motion of a dog’s tail, you can probably figure out what it means in other contexts. The second definition is too broad. It tries to cover all the possible meanings of wag and, as a result, tells you less. If you come across the word wag in a book, it will probably help you understand it, but it will add nothing to your practical knowledge, and can even be harmful. That’s why I believe Collins Cobuild Dictionaries have a distinct advantage over the others. Here are links to the COBUILD mobile apps both on the Apple Store and Google Play.

So, if you want to improve your vocabulary, by all means, do read English books, magazine articles, newspapers, and web blogs. And do watch English TV, movies and videos (without subtitles!). When you read, see, or hear a word you don’t know, look it up in the Collins Cobuild Learner’s Dictionary.  You'll be on your way to increasing your vocabulary.

Do you have experience using a monolingual dictionary?  Do you think bilingual dictionaries are useful?  Please let me know.  I welcome your comments and opposing views.  Please post your comments below.

Sources: “The benefits of using target language in the classroom” Nada Mohsin Aboghunaim. (2019). The Effect of Monolingual and Bilingual Dictionary on the Foreign Language Learners' Acquisition. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and Translation, 5(4), 55-57.

Review of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary BY TOMASZ P. SZYNALSKI 


* Author’s notes:
1. This article was written with help from ChatGPT 4.
2. If you want to read a comic book version of this article, please read my other blog post,
"English Man and Lexicon Lass Battle Dull Vocabulary."