Dictionaries for Learners of English

Recently four new dictionaries for learners of English have been published. In the first section of this article some thought is given to the relationship between foreign language learning and dictionary use. The steps that a learner needs to take when reading or writing a text in the foreign language are taken as a starting point for the discussion. This leads to a set of questions which are used in the subsequent sections for the evaluation of the new learner's dictionaries. Some twenty points concerning text reception and text production in a foreign language are reviewed. In the concluding section an overall evaluation is given. Tables and Figures at end.