How to Use a Dictionary

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Pronunciation



Knowing how to spell a word does not always help you to say it properly. Many letters of the English alphabet can be pronounced in several ways. For example, the letter "a" is pronounced differently in "hat", "came", "water", "dare", and "ago".
Phonetic spelling is a way of writing a word so that one symbol always represents only one sound. Two words may be spelled differently in ordinary spelling, but if they sound the same, the phonetic spelling will be the same. For example, "way" and "weigh" have the same phonetic spelling /wei/.
On the other hand, there may be just one ordinary spelling for a word, but if you can say it in two different ways, it will have two phonetic spellings. You have heard the word "against" pronounced in two ways by British speakers. Look up the entry for "against" and you will find two pronunciations with no comment added. Both are equally acceptable and can be safely used: against /olgenst, algernst/. You have also met "amenity" pronounced in two ways: /31mi:nati, also almenati/. Here, use of "also"
means that the second form is less often used, but it is not incorrect.
In addition, you know that British speakers pronounce "tomato" in one way but have heard that Americans use another pronunciation. You turn to the entry: tomato /0'111a:tau; US talmertou/. Here, the normal British
pronunciation has no label, while the normal American one is marked "US". Inside the front cover of most dictionaries is a list of the phonetic symbols used.
By referring to the key word given for each symbol, you would be able to pronounce the unfamiliar words correctly. For instance , the symbol /I/ in your dictionary is the word "Sit" and its pronunciation is / sit / . Now you can pronounce the word " hit" according to the pronunciation of the word "sit".

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How to Use a Dictionary


Exercises

1. Each word in the following list contains the sound /i:/ and /I/. Find out which sound each word contains using your dictionary.

sit
ridge
seat
leap
ship
lip
reach
rich

2.The letter combination " ch " can be pronounced in several ways in English. Find out how the "ch" is pronounced in each word.

church
school
schedule
chemist
much
lunch
chauffeur
chalet
chef

3. Each word in the following list contains the sound /ʊ/ or/u:/ . Find out which sound each word contains.

food
foot
pull
pool
should
shoot
wool
wood

4.Find six words in your dictionary which have the sound /ð/

5.Find six word in your dictionary which have the sound /θ/

6.Use your dictionary and write the different pronunciations of the following words.

either
fast
direction
schedule

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How to use a dictionary

Lesson seven

Stress and Syllable Division


Every word consists of one or more syllables. For example, the word "book" has one syllable; "hungry" has two, and "skillfully" has three syllables. Syllables are separated with a dot in the dictionary. For example, the word "visitor" is shown like this: visit.or.


When an English word has more than one syllable, one of the syllables is spoken with more force or louder than the others. This force is called stress. In the dictionary, stress is shown in the phonetic spelling by placing the mark /'/ in front of the stressed syllable; as in /ha'tel/.


A word with several syllables may have two of them stressed, one having a stronger stress than the other. In this case the stronger stress is called primary stress (still marked /'/; the weaker stress is called secondary stress (marked /,/) as in /.info'me ∫n/.


Many words in English can be used either as a noun or as a verb. Sometimes, the stress does not change:
He sent his reply /re'plai/ immediately. (noun)
Please reply /re'plai/ immediately. (verb)


In many cases, however, the noun and the verb are stressed differently. The general rule is that for two syllable words of this kind, nouns are stressed on the first syllable and verbs are stressed on the second syllable:
Thank you for the present /'preznt/. (noun)
Who is going to present /pri'zent/ the prize? (verb)

The Lord sometimes takes us into troubled water
NOT to drown us but to cleanse us.

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Lesson seven

Meaning: One Word, One Entry One

of the most important functions of a dictionary is to give the meaning of words. In most cases, one should try to figure out the meanings of from the context in which they are used. To guess the meanings of w understanding the structure of the word — stems, suffixes and prefixes —knowing derivations can be helpful. These two strategies will be discussed lessons eleven and twelve. If neither proves fruitful, the student is advised consult the dictionary.

When an entry has more than one meaning, the dictionary gives the most common or basic meanings of the word first. These are followed by other meanings that are less common or more limited in their use; for example, they may be old-fashioned or literary or technical or they may be used in one variety of English (such as American English). In addition, example phrases and sentences form a large and very important part of the dictionary. They follow the definitions and are printed in italic type. If an entry word has more than three letters, it is shown by the tilde (—) in example phrases and sentences. The more important functions of these example phrases and sentences are:

a. They show how the entry word, derivative, compound, or idiomatic expression is used in different sentence patterns.

b. They show the kinds of style or context in which the word or phrase is typically used, including the sorts of words used with it.

c. They often include information on where to put stress when using the entry word in a phrase or sentence.

d. They teach the writing conversation of correct punctuation and the use of capital letters since many of the examples are full, correctly written, and punctuated sentences.

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Exercises:


1. Use your dictionary to find the word that does not belong on each of the following lists and underline it.


b. chess, checkers, baseball, rickets, hockey (games)

1. diamond, aluminum, emerald, ruby, sapphire (precious stones)
2. linen, cotton, parsley, velvet, denim (materials)
3. mumps, typhoid, angora, cholera, malaria (diseases)

Each of the sentences below describes the job that a person does.

However, the name of the person who does the job is missing. By checking the meanings of the words below in your dictionary, you will find the missing words. Write each missing word in the space provided.


tailor _artist_ conductor
dentist_ engineer_ butcher


.A (An) ..............looks after your teeth.
.A(An) ...............makes clothes.
.A(An) ................design machine brdiges.
.A(An).................tells an orchestra what do do?
.A(A) ..................sells meat.
.A(An) .................paint pictures.