Slovak Learning Community and Resources

World of Dictionaries

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Dictionaries play a crucial role in language learning, serving as indispensable tools for learners at various stages of their language acquisition journey. Probably everybody knows and uses bilingual dictionaries (e.g., English—Slovak) offering translation between languages, but this is only a gateway to the world of dictionaries. Let’s explore what types of dictionaries exist and how they can help you enhance your language skills.

Bilingual Dictionaries

This is a go-to dictionary when you need a fast and accessible tool for on-the-spot translation. Bilingual dictionaries provide translation of words or phrases between two languages. However, entries in bilingual dictionaries may lack context, making it challenging to understand how words are used in different contexts or cultural settings.

Monolingual Dictionaries

A monolingual dictionary is designed to provide explanations and definitions of words in a single language, without translations into another language. It is an invaluable source for everyone who wants to deepen their language proficiency in a specific language. It helps with expanding vocabulary by providing detailed explanations, definitions, and usage examples of words. It also provides insight into the nuanced meanings, contexts, and connotations of words. This allows learners to grasp the subtleties and various senses in which a word can be used. 

This Slovak monolingual dictionary (together with a dictionary of synonyms and many others), is available online, you can find it here.

Collocation Dictionary

This dictionary focuses on collocations—combinations of words that frequently occur together in a language. It helps us to use words in combinations that sound natural and are grammatically correct. For example, if you want to find out what adjectives, verbs or prepositions are commonly combined with a certain noun, you will find your answer in the collocation dictionary.

Unfortunately, there is no Slovak collocation dictionary available online (yet). There are only printed versions, one of collocations of Slovak adjectives (Slovník kolokácií prídavných mien v slovenčine) and one of collocations of most frequent nouns (Slovník slovných spojení, podstatné mená).

Etymological Dictionary

Every word has its story. And an etymological dictionary helps to reveal these stories by tracing the historical origins and development of words. It provides detailed information on the roots, derivations, and linguistic evolution of words, shedding light on their journey through time and various language influences. By exploring the etymology of words, you can gain insights into the interconnectedness of languages, the migration of concepts across cultures, and the ways in which linguistic expressions have shaped and reflected human civilization. 

The etymological dictionary of Slovak is available only in printed version (Stručný etymologický slovník slovenčiny)

Having a diverse array of dictionaries at our disposal empowers us to delve deeper into the nuances of language. Let’s use these great tools on our linguistic exploration journey.

How about you and dictionaries? Do you use them a lot on your language journey? What are your favourite ones? We can share our go-to resources and exchange tips here in this forum thread.