Report on How to Use an English Dictionary Written by Aulia Zuhria Rahma The article titled ‘How to use an English dictionary’ tells exactly what the title says. It tells readers how to utilize an English dictionary to maximum by using non-dictionary part of the dictionary. We have known already that a dictionary consists of a long list of words and its meanings or translations, but there is also a phonetic table preceeding the dictionary part. Learning this phonetic table will guide us on how to read International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), standardized ‘language’ of pronounciation, considering English word pronounciation doesn’t always adhere to its written form. The article also explains the meaning of aphosthrope character (‘) which we often see in the pronounciation part, located right after the word, but most of us probably don’t understand the meaning. The character actually symbolizes stressing on a syllable when the word is spoken. It also gives us a number of tips on how to learn new vocabularies, such as knowing the grammar of the new word and studying the sentence example on using the word. FAQ section in the end of the article helps to clear up any doubt or confusion. A common word which may confuse non-native speakers, content, can mean a lot of things. Content as a noun is pronounced as /ˈkɑːn.tent/ in American English, but content as a verb and adjective is pronounced as /kənˈtent/. I think this article will be helpful for anyone learning English since an English dictionary never comes with a manual book. A lot of students are very good at written English, but spoken English remains a challenge for students in non-native English speaking countries since they never or rarely hear English word. On the other hand, this information can discourage beginners on learning English because they usually want to learn straight to English, not IPA.
