Collins Cobuild Dictionary On Cd Rom 2006 Free Download
Joao Charlesbois
The Collins Corpus is an analytical database of English with over 20 billion words. It contains written material from websites, newspapers, magazines and books published around the world, and spoken material from radio, TV and everyday conversations. New data is fed into the Corpus every month, to help the Collins dictionary editors identify new words and meanings from the moment they are first used.
When a dictionary editor wants to add a new word to COBUILD, they search the Corpus for every example of the word. The word appears on the computer screen in a long list of sentences and the editors can arrange the lines in different ways depending on what they want to look at. They can then analyze meaning and usage, frequency, and collocation of the word in question.
The Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary[1] (CCAD) from HarperCollins, first published in 1987,[2] is a dictionary that distinguished itself by providing definitions in full sentences, rather than excerpted phrases. Example sentences are given for almost every meaning of every word, drawn from a large corpus of actual usage.
Except for the 6th edition, it included phonetic transcriptions based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In some editions, a digital version on CD-ROM was included with the dictionary in book form.
To meet the needs of people learning English, Reverso offers a free English dictionary that goes far beyond what a normal monolingual dictionary or thesaurus can provide by explaining the use of words and phrases in natural language and providing real-life examples. This English dictionary for learners features definitions written in language that is easy to understand, examples taken from actual texts and conversations, and explanations of grammar.
The English dictionary for learners is more than just an ordinary monolingual dictionary, because the results include grammar notes and examples from English as it is really used. By simply clicking on an English word, you can also see its synonyms, hear its pronunciation, or conjugate it.
We first saw the CCED (the 2nd edition) in 1999, when only the paper version was available.We immediately felt it was something special.Normally, we use onlysoftware dictionaries, butwe started using the paper COBUILD dictionary, because we liked the contents so much.
N-PLURAL represents plural noun according to the explanation in the Collins COBUILD dictionary. Can I interpret it as a noun that is countable but unable to be used in singular form and only able to be used in plural form?
Exploring Collins COBUILD ON CD-ROM Title:Collins COBUILD on CD-ROM Publisher:Collins Contact Information:E-mail: dictio...@eesox.com Tel:+44 (0)1954 208208, +44 (0)1954 200008 Fax: +44 (0)1954 205205 URL:www.cobuild.collins.co.uk/catalogue/cobcd features.html Product Description:Comprehensive English language reference CD-ROM;
includes the COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (3rd Ed.);
English Grammar, English Usage;
Thesaurus;
5-million-word Wordbank from the Bank of English Minimum Hardware
Requirements:PCMacOS:MS Windows 95 or higher8.6 or higherMemory:Minimum 16Mb RAMMinimum 32Mb RAMCPU:Intel 80486 compatible or higherPower PC (PPC)Sound:Windows compatible sound card
Headphones or speakers Headphones or speakers Disk Space:110Mb (regular install)/600Mb (full install) Price:4,800 ISBN:0-00-710884-2BackgroundAs many of you may remember, new ground was broken in 1987 with the first edition of the COBUILD (Collins Birmingham University International Language Database) English Dictionary. Its major innovations included being the first dictionary whose content was based on the insights into actual English usage provided by the analysis of a huge corpus of written and spoken English, providing a large number of authentic example sentences taken from the corpus, and defining words not with traditional definitions, but with full-sentence descriptions. [-1-]
After giving the matter considerable thought, I decided back then to require my students to purchase the COBUILD Student's Dictionary for a number of reasons. I was convinced that many of my Japanese students' errors were the result of an over-reliance on bilingual dictionaries. In addition, I was well aware of the limitations of traditional, often intuitive dictionary-making methods, and had noticed that, despite their widespread usage, my intermediate students regularly found the language in the definitions of other monolingual learner dictionaries, such as the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD5), beyond their level (Although the new 6th edition OALD is much improved in this regard). However, arising from what I felt to be a combination of overly strict adherence to their policy of including only authentic, unaltered example sentences, and possibly from poor example selection, my students continued to encounter occasions where the dictionary did more to confuse them than to aid them, more often than I thought it should, especially given the difficulties I had in getting many of my students to switch to a monolingual dictionary in the first place! In addition, although it was portable (I insist on my students bringing their dictionaries to class), because of its limited size, my students often could not find the words they were looking for (e.g., the word "landmine" listed in the comparison below). I really feel that a good dictionary for learners beyond the beginner level should be comprehensive and yet accessible, and do not know why dictionary publishers seem to feel compelled to offer different editions for different levels of learners. A beginner-level dictionary and a well-constructed one for higher-level learners that they will not outgrow would seem to me to be sufficient.
Luckily, by the mid-90s there were some new corpus-based kids on the block and I ended up switching my allegiance to the newly revised edition of The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE3) for several reasons. First of all, although COBUILD deserves gratitude for being first and leading the way, I had become aware of flaws in the COBUILD dictionary that resulted from the imperfect construction of the COBUILD corpus. Second, the definitions in the LDOCE3 were written within a simple 2000-word defining vocabulary that was friendly to intermediate students. And finally, despite containing many more words, the LDOCE3 came in a conveniently boxed, portable, Japanese edition.
The fact that the full contents of the CD-ROM can be searched in one go is no doubt its best feature. This feature not only enables you to quickly look up the descriptions and example sentences for a target word, but to simultaneously find other descriptions and example sentences in the dictionary, the 5 million word corpus, and the grammar and usage guides that contain references to the target word. While finding lots of examples of a word in use is old hat for those of us who use concordancing programs, this CD-ROM is a very learner-friendly package not only because the searches involve nothing but plugging words into the search engine, but also because the examples are always in full-sentence form (as opposed to the default "key word in context", or KWIC, display used in concordancing programs). The down side is that even when using the Advanced Search feature, more sophisticated searches are not possible because the only Boolean symbols that can be used are "AND", "OR", "+" and "-". It would also be nice if, instead of having to search through the entries, the display would automatically jump to the first example containing the search item. However, other search features include a morphological search which allows members of a word family to be included in a single search, and a phonetic search which allows users to search for homophones. But be forewarned, should you wish to copy any of the information off your display, you unfortunately can only copy entire entries, no matter what their length!!
The interface is very simple, fast and easy to use. A nice feature is the way in which a list of compounds (synonyms, antonyms, phrasal verbs, affixes, etc.) associated with the entry on display is automatically displayed in the small window in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. However, although these two screens are linked and change simultaneously, the search entry box and the Entry List in the top left-hand corner of the display operate independently of each other and the main display, and this can lead to confusion. For example, as you continue your search, you can end up with the search term (e.g., "rendezvous"), the entry list (e.g., for the word "first") and the entry display (e.g., for the word "last") for different entries all being simultaneously displayed. Another feature allows the entries to be viewed in "brief", which means no examples, sounds icons, or comments. This makes the display more like a dictionary for native speakers, although I am not sure why anyone, even native speakers, would prefer this view.
I happened to have the CD-ROM versions of the LDOCE3 and the Cambridge Dictionary of American English (CDAE) on hand and intended to compare the three dictionaries. However, since the CDAE would not run on Windows XP, I decided to substitute in its place the on-line version of the Cambridge International Dictionary of English (CIDE), which is actually more comparable in terms of size, scope and target audience. However, since I was not able to use the CD-ROM version of the CIDE per se, the features for the CIDE on CD-ROM that I have listed in Table 1 are based on the information on the Cambridge University Press website, and my first-hand comparisons of definitions, example sentences, and usage notes for the CIDE are limited to the content of the online dictionary.
Assuming that the dictionary is COBUILD's best known product and the most likely reason someone would buy this CD-ROM, a comparison of the actual dictionary entries seemed in order. After considering other options, as a test sample, I decided to select the first five words listed in one of my intermediate students' vocabulary notebooks. While such a small sample could never give a complete picture of the strengths and weaknesses of these three dictionaries, and there can be no substitute for actually trying them out first hand, my hope is that for those unsure about which electronic dictionary might be most helpful for their students (or themselves), the table below will provide a rough guide.
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