Examining the Effectiveness of ‘Bilingual Dictionary Plus’ – A Dictionary for Production in a Foreign Language

The study investigated the usefulness of a Hebrew-English-English (L1-L2-L2) mini-dictionary, for production in a foreign language. The dictionary entries included L1 (Hebrew) words, their L2 (English) translation options, usage specifications, semantically related English words, and additional L2 meanings for each translation option. Seventy five students translated thirty six sentences from Hebrew into English using four dictionaries, one dictionary for nine sentences: a Hebrew-English-English electronic dictionary, a Hebrew-English-English paper dictionary, an English-English-Hebrew bilingualized dictionary, and a Hebrew-English bilingual dictionary. Each sentence contained one target word, defined as ‘simple’ or ‘complex’. Learners also rated them in terms of usefulness. All electronic dictionary activity was recorded in log files. The four dictionaries were compared on the number of correct translations and on dictionary ratings. Log files were analyzed for lookup preferences. Results demonstrated the superiority of L1-L2-L2 dictionaries in terms of the effectiveness for a production task and learners’ preferences.