 You've all seen a dictionary and you would like to know what is a dictionary? Well a dictionary as we all know is a book, a book that lists the words of the language. It lists them and records the words of a language. It is not only a record. It is also, it also spells, tells you the how to pronounce words, it defines words, it explains words and it also tells you the uses of words. Now there are many dictionaries. You will find a dictionary of science scientific terms. You will find a dictionary which is, which will tell you about music. You will find a dictionary about art. You as students of English, your concern is with a language dictionary. There are many dictionaries. There is the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary and there is the Webster's Dictionary, two very famous dictionaries. And in this lesson we will be telling you about how to use these dictionaries. There are many things that a dictionary will tell you. I shall just count nine of those things that a dictionary will tell you. Number one, if you want to consult the spellings you should, the dictionary will tell you. The next thing is the pronunciation, how words are pronounced. The third is the grammar part. If you want to know what part of speech a word belongs to, the dictionary is the book that you must consult. Then a dictionary will tell you the origin of a word, the history of the word. Then it will tell you the meanings, the explanations, the definitions and it will also tell you how the word is used by the speakers of that language. You will also find synonyms, words with similar meanings, words with which have opposite meanings. All these you will find in the dictionary. You will also find foreign words and expressions. And if you want some general information it will also be in your dictionary. The first thing that I will tell you about in detail are spellings. Now many students of English find English spelling very confusing. So what do we do about it? The simplest thing is consult your dictionary. But it will only help you if you know how to consult your dictionary. You will find that most dictionaries carry either at the beginning of the dictionary or at the end a page where the rules of spelling are given. All you have to do is at least once in a lifetime. You can open that page and look at the rules. There are not very many rules, not more than six or seven rules. And if you go through those rules you will find that you may not require consulting the dictionary again and again if you go through the rules. Now you will find that there are different spellings. Americans spell certain words in a different way. British spelling is different. Well let me tell you both spellings are correct. You as a student should stick to one spelling. If you prefer the American spelling then be consistent. Whenever you use that word use that spelling. If you prefer the British spelling then you use the British spelling. All you have to do is be consistent. I would like you to open your dictionaries and look at the word theatre and the word catalogue. On the screen you will find these words given. And just see how they are spelled. Your dictionary will clarify for you. It will have the word AAM for American, BR for British. It will tell you which is the British spelling and which is the American spelling. Now that is the first use of your dictionary. Second use of a dictionary is that it will tell you, help you in pronouncing the words of English. English pronunciations are very confusing. But if you know how to use the dictionary you will find that it will no longer be a problem for you. Now that is only if you know how to use the dictionary. All dictionaries, language dictionaries carry a table of pronunciation either at the beginning or at the end. You must go through this. I shall not talk about it in detail today. But in our next lesson we will be talking about pronunciation. So you just wait for the next lesson. The third use of the dictionary is that it clarifies for learners what part of speech the word you are looking up belongs to. Whether the word is commonly used as a noun or a pronoun or a verb, the dictionary will even tell you if it is a transitive verb or an intransitive verb. Whether it is an adjective, an adverb, conjunction or preposition. Now the third thing that a dictionary will tell you is the part of speech. The word that you are looking up, what part of speech it belongs to. All dictionaries indicate what part of speech a word belongs to. Whether the word is a noun or a verb, it will even tell you whether it is a transitive verb or an intransitive verb. Whether it is an adjective or an adverb, conjunction, article or preposition. Now I forgot to tell you one thing. Your dictionary, when you consult a dictionary you must look at there is a page where it mentions all the abbreviations that are used in that dictionary. So if you go through that page where the abbreviations are listed you will have no problem looking at looking up the part of speech. You will find they are always in italics. Now the fourth thing that you will find your dictionary tells you is the origin of words. Now this is a very interesting area. Fascinating those of you who want to know how words have developed. Now there is a very large body of words in English that have come from other languages. Well not all dictionaries list the origin of words. The technical word for this is etymology. Modern dictionaries, language dictionaries usually do not. But if you have got an old dictionary in the house you will notice that it will give you the origin of the word. Whether it is from French or German, Latin, Hebrew, Greek, it is all given over there. It is only for those who are interested in finding out the origin and development of words.