TWO DICTIONARIES RECOMMENDED

It goes without saying that every student of English must have a dictionary. I do not know what dictionary you use. Do you use a large or a small one？ a new or an old one？ So far as I know, most Chinese students of English use an English-Chinese dictionary，that is, a dictionary of English with Chinese explanations, and I am glad to find that several good English-Chinese dictionaries have appeared during the past few years. But I have to assure you that if you wish to master English，you must use a dictionary with English explanations.

Why？ Because a word or a phrase often cannot be exactly explained in Chinese，and what is known as the Chinese equivalent of a word or a phrase often leads one to misunderstand the word or phrase. For example，do you know the real meaning of the verb “reply”？ In English-Chinese dictionaries，it has “回答” or “答复” for its equivalent，and is called both transitive and intransitive. From this it seems to be quite right to say “to reply a letter”，but it is really wrong. “Reply” as a transitive verb means to say as a reply，not to say something as a reply to. Instead of “reply a letter”，we should say “reply to a letter”. I am sure that those students who use only an English-Chinese dictionary must misunderstand many words and phrases and make many mistakes in speaking and writing.

Here are two English dictionaries that I have to recommend for your use：The Concise Oxford Dictionary and The Pocket Oxford Dictionary，the price of the former being about seven dollars and that of the latter being about three dollars. Both are published by the Oxford University Press and can be had here in China at several book-shops. I have used them for many years and regard them as the two best small one-volume English dictionaries in the world. And I venture to hope that if you use either of them constantly in reading and writing，you will soon be surprised to find the rapid progress you make in your study of English with the help of the dictionary.