Flashcards

Flashcards can help you study and remember words you want to learn.

You can make flashcards using small paper cards: On the front side of each card, write a word or phrase you want to learn. On the back side, write the meaning or translation.

Every day, review your cards: Look at one side of each card and try to remember what is on the other side. Then look at the other side to check your answer.

• If your answer was correct, put the card in a pile to review again tomorrow.
• If your answer was not correct, put the card in a pile to review again after an hour.

A computer can also be used to review flashcards:

• You can use our simple flashcard tool by clicking here: Simple Flashcards.
• Or you can use flashcard software from other websites (for example: memrise.com or quizlet.com).

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Universal semantic molecules

The Learn These Words First lessons explain about 300 semantic molecules. These semantic molecules were identified by computer-aided analysis of paraphrased dictionary definitions.

Many of these same semantic molecules were independently identified by Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka. The following lists are adapted from their briefing paper for the "Global English, Minimal English" symposium (July 2015, ANU, Canberra).

Universal or near-universal semantic molecules

• Defined in Learn These Words First lessons: animal (creature), around, back, bird, blood, bottom, burn (fire), centre (middle), child, day, drink, ear, eat, egg, eye, fish, flat, front, ground, grow, hair (fur), hand, hard, head, heavy, hold, laugh, leg, light, long, make, man, mouth, name (called), nose, play, quickly, round, sharp, sit, sky, sleep, smooth, straight, sun, sweet, top, tree, water, woman.
• Not in the lessons: born, breast, dance, face, father, feather, finger, fingernail, husband, kill, lie, mother, night, on, sing, skin, slowly, soft, tail, tooth, wife, wing.

Semantic molecules found in many languages

• Defined in Learn These Words First lessons: alcohol, boat, book, bread, building, buy, car, cat, cloth, cold, colour, country, day, doctor, dog, electricity, game, god, hot, house, line, machine, metal, milk, money, month, music, number, paper, read, room, salt, school, seed, sheep, soldier, sour, string (thread), wheel, write, year.
• Not in the lessons: ball, bank, bed, china, church, city, clock, computer, corn, cow, dot, earth, engine, flour, glass, grass, horse, hospital, iron, leather, meat, mouse, nurse, oil, pig, plane, potato, rain, rice, road, sand, sea, soup, sugar, table, teacher, tobacco, train, village, week, wheat, wind, wire, wool.

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Google Translate

You can use Google Translate (translate.google.com) to translate sentences to and from English.

• Think about how you would translate a sentence to or from English. Then use Google Translate to check your understanding of English vocabulary and grammar.
• Type a sentence in English and see it translated to your choice of 103 other languages. Or type a sentence in one of these other languages and see it translated to English. (Note that computer translations sometimes contain mistakes.)
• Click a phrase in the translation to highlight the corresponding phrase in the other language and list alternative translations for the phrase.
• Double-click a word in either language to show the word's definition and list alternative translations for the word. (This works for some languages.)
• You can listen to the pronunciation of sentences in English (and in some other languages).
• Google Translate is also available as a mobile-phone application.

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Microsoft Translator

You can use Microsoft Translator (www.bing.com/translator) to translate sentences to and from English.

• Think about how you would translate a sentence to or from English. Then use Microsoft Translator to check your understanding of English vocabulary and grammar.
• Type a sentence in English and see it translated to your choice of 53 other languages. Or type a sentence in one of these other languages and see it translated to English. (Note that computer translations sometimes contain mistakes.)
• Click a word in either language to highlight the translated word in the other language. This can help you see where the two languages arrange word order differently.
• Clicking a word also lists alternative translations for the word.
• You can listen to the pronunciation of sentences in English (and in some other languages).
• Microsoft Translator is also available as a mobile-phone application.

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El Book

El Book (at fluenz.org) is a very basic English self-learning course for Spanish speakers.

• The downloadable course includes a printable book (pdf) and audio recordings (mp3).
• The book has eight short chapters that use Spanish to teach 50 words and phrases of essential English. These lessons include written exercises.
• The eight audio recordings use Spanish to explain the English vocabulary from the book and help with pronunciation.

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Duolingo

Duolingo (www.duolingo.com) is a free online language course that can help you learn English (or several other languages).

• English word meanings and grammar are explained in 21 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese.
• More than a thousand English words are taught in more than one hundred short lessons.
• The lessons are presented as games in which you practise reading, writing, listening and speaking.
• You can use flashcards to review the words you have learned.
• Duolingo is also available as a mobile-phone application.

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Other resources for learning English

Reading definitions in a learner's dictionary (like Learn These Words First) can help you understand the meanings of new English words. But if you want to remember these words and their meanings later, you need to practise using the words.

Here are some ways you can practise:

• When you are reading and find an unfamiliar word, write down the word and its meaning.
• Make flashcards and use them to review new vocabulary words.
• Translate sentences from English into another language you know. Look at sentences other people have translated.
• Read sentences aloud and notice words in context. Read aloud with a recording.
• Study an English course and do the exercises to learn vocabulary and grammar rules.
• Talk with an English speaker or exchange written notes over internet.
• Watch videos with English captions.

What do you do that helps you learn and remember new vocabulary?

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Bilingual dictionary or monolingual dictionary?

Second-language English learners often feel more comfortable using a bilingual dictionary (English-Spanish, for example), since each English headword is given a translation or brief definition in the learner's native language.

Using an English-English monolingual learner's dictionary may require more effort, but can be beneficial to second-language learners:

• Monolingual dictionaries immerse the student in the target language. As students read definitions, they get practice with the English words in the defining vocabulary and see how these words are used in sentences to explain meanings.
• Second-language English students working in a group can share the same monolingual dictionary and discuss word meanings, even if they do not speak the same first language.
• Some language pairs lack good bilingual dictionaries. After looking up a word in a bilingual dictionary, students can double-check the word's meaning and usage in a monolingual dictionary.
• English monolingual learner's dictionaries often have more extensive information for second-language students: better explanations of multiple word senses, example sentences showing collocations, usage and grammar notes.

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Easy English Bible

The Easy English Bible (www.easyenglish.info/bible) is a translation of the Bible for people who are learning English as a second language. It was translated by Wycliffe Associates UK.

• This translation of the Bible is written using EasyEnglish Level A (1200-word very easy vocabulary and simple sentence structure).
• Words outside of the EasyEnglish Level A vocabulary are written in italics. If you click these words or look at the end of the page, you can see their definitions.
• The www.easyenglish.info website also contains commentaries and other articles written using EasyEnglish Level B (2800-word easy vocabulary).
• Words outside of the EasyEnglish Level B vocabulary are marked with a *star and are defined at the end of most pages.

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BBC Learning English

At BBC Learning English (www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish), you can read and listen to news stories for English learners from the British Broadcasting Corporation.

• Under the News Report feature, you can read short news stories and answer questions.
• You can also play or download an audio recording of the story.
• The website has other activities and videos to help you learn English skills.

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VOA Learning English

At VOA Learning English (learningenglish.voanews.com), you can read and listen to news stories for English learners from the Voice of America.

• Level One stories are for beginning English learners. These stories are short, and you can find nearly all of the words in the VOA Learning English Word Book or explained at the end of the story.
• The VOA Learning English Word Book lists the 1500-word Special English vocabulary.
• While you read the news stories, you can also listen to an audio recording of someone reading the story clearly and slowly.
• The website has other activities and videos to help you learn English skills.

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Simple English Wikipedia

The Simple English Wikipedia (simple.wikipedia.org) is an online encyclopedia written at an easier reading level for second-language English learners.

• This encyclopedia contains more than 120 thousand articles about many topics.
• These articles are written and edited by many people on the internet.
• The articles use shorter sentences and simpler vocabulary (such as the 850 words of Basic English), so they are easier to read for people learning English.

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What can you read?

After learning the 360 high-frequency words from the Learn These Words First lessons, you will know more than half of the words you see on any typical page of English text. Then you can start finding articles you can read with a small vocabulary, such as:

• Books written at an easy reading level for children or second-language learners (for example: Penguin Readers or Pearson English Active Readers).
• Websites for English learners, written using simpler English vocabulary and shorter sentences (for example: the Simple English Wikipedia).

Tip: When you read sentences containing some unfamiliar words, you can type the words (or copy and paste whole sentences) into the Word Finding Tool. It can show you where to find a simple explanation for each word.

What books and websites have you found that are easy to read with a small English vocabulary?

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Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary

The Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary (learnersdictionary.com) is a monolingual dictionary for intermediate to advanced learners of English.

• Headwords are defined using simple language for learners. (3000 "Core Vocabulary" words are identified here.)
• You can listen to recorded pronunciations of headwords.

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Collins Cobuild English for Learners Dictionary

The Collins Cobuild English for Learners Dictionary (at www.collinsdictionary.com) is a monolingual dictionary for intermediate to advanced learners of English.

• Headwords are all defined using a 3000-word defining vocabulary.
• You can listen to recorded pronunciations of headwords.
• You can see translations of the headword or look it up in several bilingual dictionaries.

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Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com) is a monolingual dictionary for intermediate to advanced learners of English.

• Headwords are all defined using a 3000-word defining vocabulary. (You can see the "Oxford 3000" defining vocabulary listed here.)
• You can hear British (BrE) and American (NAmE) pronunciations of headwords.
• Double-click any word to look up its meaning.
• Definitions include information about grammar, usage, idioms and phrasal verbs.

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Macmillan Dictionary

The Macmillan Dictionary (www.macmillandictionary.com) is a monolingual dictionary for intermediate-level learners of English.

• Headwords are all defined using a 2500-word defining vocabulary. (You can see the defining vocabulary listed here.)
• You can listen to recorded pronunciations of headwords.
• For most words in a definition, clicking a word will look up its meaning.

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Cambridge Learner's Dictionary

The Cambridge Learner's Dictionary (at dictionary.cambridge.org) is a monolingual dictionary for intermediate-level learners of English.

• Headwords are all defined using a 2000-word defining vocabulary.
• You can listen to British (UK) and American (US) pronunciations of headwords.
• For most words in a definition, clicking a word will look up its meaning.
• You can see translations of the headword or look it up in several bilingual dictionaries.

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (www.ldoceonline.com) is a monolingual dictionary for intermediate to advanced learners of English.

• Headwords are all defined using the 2000-word Longman Defining Vocabulary. (This is the same set of 2000 words explained in the Learn These Words First dictionary.)
• Double-click any word to look up its meaning.
• Definitions include information about grammar, usage, idioms and phrasal verbs.

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Other learner's dictionaries

The Learn These Words First dictionary explains 2400 headwords using a 360-word defining vocabulary (for beginning-level learners).

You can look up many additional headwords in larger learner's dictionaries, which often use between 2000 and 3000 words in their defining vocabularies (for intermediate-level learners).

Tip: When you look up a word in an intermediate or advanced dictionary, if the definition contains some unfamiliar words, you can copy and paste the definition into the Word Finding Tool. It can show you where to find a simple explanation for each word used in the definition.

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NSM-LDOCE Non-Circular Dictionary

Can every word in a dictionary be explained using Natural Semantic Metalanguage?

The NSM-LDOCE research dictionary was created to test the expressive power of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and its tiny set of semantic primes. In this dictionary, NSM was used to paraphrase definitions for each word in the controlled defining vocabulary of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE). The definitions were written using mostly NSM primes, mixed with a few other words from the LDOCE defining vocabulary.

Chains of circular definitions were detected using a computer program. Most were resolved by rewording one of the definitions in the chain, but three were resolved by adding tentative semantic primes (colour, number and shape).

The resulting NSM-LDOCE dictionary is non-circular, and by extension provides non-circular definitions for all the words in the LDOCE.

The NSM-LDOCE research dictionary served as the basis for creating Learn These Words First. New non-circular definitions for colour, number and shape were written and tested, so these three tentative primes could be removed. Other definitions were improved to eliminate more than half of the 700 words used as "semantic molecules" in NSM-LDOCE.

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Longman Defining Vocabulary

One way to reduce circularity in dictionary definitions is through the use of a controlled vocabulary. In the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), the definitions for over 80,000 words and phrases are written using only the central senses of around 2000 words in the dictionary's core defining vocabulary. This core vocabulary was developed from the General Service List of high-frequency words and their most common meanings (West, Michael. 1953. A General Service List of English Words. London: Longman).

The words appearing in LDOCE definitions are restricted to non-idiomatic uses of only their higher-frequency classes and senses. If a reader understands the 2000 words in the LDOCE's core defining vocabulary, the remaining 78,000 definitions in the LDOCE can be understood without encountering a circular reference.

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Natural Semantic Metalanguage

An ideal dictionary definition explains the meaning of its headword using only words that are simpler and easier to understand than the headword being defined. If you repeat this process of "reductive paraphrase" for every headword in the dictionary, you will ultimately find a core subset of headwords that cannot be further reduced to simpler terms. These irreducible words are "semantic atoms" (also called "semantic primes").

By finding and comparing the semantic atoms of many languages, linguist Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues have developed Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), which identifies a common set of concepts appearing as the semantic atoms in all languages. You can find more information about NSM at Griffith University's Natural Semantic Metalanguage Homepage.

NSM semantic atoms and reductive paraphrase are used by Learn These Words First to create a dictionary without circular definitions. Lessons 1 and 2 introduce the 61 NSM semantic atoms in English (the atoms identified as of 2002). These are used to explain 300 "semantic molecules" in Lessons 3 through 12. The rest of the words in the dictionary are defined using only the semantic atoms and molecules.

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Why learn these 360 words first?

Many language courses teach vocabulary in topical lessons of about 30 words each (food, animals, clothing, colors, family, etc.). After learning 360 words in your first 12 lessons, you may understand words for about 12 topics, but the words you know will probably be inadequate for explaining most ideas outside of these limited topics.

Instead of arranging words by topic, the lesson vocabulary of Learn These Words First was carefully selected to maximize the explanatory power of your first 360 words:

• The lessons teach most of the highest-frequency words in English. After learning these 360 words, you will know more than half of the words you see on any typical page of English text.
• These 360 words are powerful for explaining things: They can explain all the other words in the dictionary. (They are used to define all 2000 words in the Longman Defining Vocabulary, which is used to define every word in the Longman Dictionary.)
• By learning these words first, you can use an English-English dictionary, so you can be immersed in English instead of relying on a bilingual dictionary.

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What is in each layer?

The Learn These Words First dictionary is arranged in layers to eliminate circular definitions and make the dictionary accessible for beginning-level ESL students:

 

• Lessons 1 and 2 use captioned illustrations to explain essential words (NSM universal linguistic concepts). Translations are given in multiple languages.
• Lessons 3 through 12 build the vocabulary one word at a time. Each word is explained in English, using only words that have already been introduced. Lessons include example sentences and questions to help review new vocabulary.
• The alphabetical index lists the 2000 words in the Longman Defining Vocabulary. Each of these words is defined using only the 360 words from the lessons.
• Using the 2000 words from the layers above, students can read any definition in the Longman English Dictionary Online.

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The problem of circular definitions

Here is an example of a circular definition. The word easy is used to define difficult, and the word difficult is used to define easy:

• difficult = Not easy.
• easy = Not difficult.

Here is another example. If you do not already know any of these words (illness, sick, sickness), you will not get a helpful explanation of what they mean from these circular definitions:

• illness = Sickness of body or mind.
• sick = Suffering from an illness.
• sickness = The condition of being sick.

Most dictionaries contain thousands of circular definitions like these, especially for the most basic words. This may not be a problem for someone who already has a large vocabulary, but circular definitions are frustrating for beginning-level learners.

The Learn These Words First dictionary is structured in a new way to eliminate circular definitions. The 360 words in the lessons are arranged in an order that allows each new word to be explained using only words that were explained earlier in the lessons. The rest of the words in the dictionary are defined using only the 360 words from the lessons. A computer program was used to check that the lessons and definitions contain no circular definitions.

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British spelling and American spelling

For some words, the British spelling is different from the American spelling.

The Learn These Words First dictionary uses British spellings, but headwords are listed with both spellings: first the British spelling, followed by the American spelling in parentheses.

Here are some examples of headwords where the British and American spellings differ:

• colour, (color).
• centre, (center).
• metre, (meter).

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Regular and irregular inflections

In the Learn These Words First lessons, the regular and irregular inflections of each headword are listed:

• Nouns: singular, plural.
• Verbs: singular (1st, 2nd, 3rd person), plural, infinitive, present participle, simple past, past participle.

In the alphabetical dictionary section, only the base word and its irregular inflections are listed. Regular inflections are not shown and are formed from the base word like this:

• Adding "-s" or "-es" to make a noun plural or a verb 3rd-person singular.
• Adding "-ing" to form a verb's present participle.
• Adding "-ed" to form a verb's past tense or past participle.
• Sometimes changing the final "y" to "i" before an inflected ending.
• Sometimes dropping the final "e" or "y" before an inflected ending.
• Sometimes doubling the final consonant before an inflected ending.

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Find words quickly: Word Finding Tool

You can use the Word Finding Tool to help you find words and learn what they mean.

Using this tool is easy:

• Go to the Word Finding Tool.
• Type or paste your words or sentences in the box.
• Then click the "Find These Words" button.

Your words will be listed in three groups:

• The black words can be found in the lessons. (Click a word to go to its definition or lesson.)
• The blue words are explained in this dictionary. (Click a word to go to its definition.)
• You can search for the red words in another dictionary. (Click a word to look it up in the Longman English Dictionary Online.)

(Note that each word you click opens in a new window. In some mobile browsers, you may need to press and hold the word and then click "Open link in new window.")

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Find words quickly: Lessons and Words menu

On the main contents page of Learn These Words First, click the blue header at the top of the page to show the Lessons and Words menu. You can use this menu to move quickly to different sections in the table of contents.

• Lessons: Click a number to move to that lesson number.
• Words: Click a letter to move to the list of words that start with that letter.

On other pages, you can click the blue header to go back to the contents page.

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Find words quickly: Find on Page

From the main contents page of Learn These Words First, you can find words quickly by using your browser's "Find on Page" command. In many browsers, you can show the "Find" box by pressing the Ctrl+F or Cmd+F keys.

In the "Find" box, type the first several letters of the word you want to find. This will highlight the matching word on the contents page.

Then click the word to go to its definition.

To go back to the contents page, press your browser's "Back" button.

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See your progress

Learn These Words First keeps track of which questions you answered correctly in each lesson.

(Note that JavaScript and Cookies must be enabled for this to work.)

You can see all your progress on one page by clicking here: Show Progress.

On this page you can also click the "Clear Progress" button if you want to erase all your progress and start over.

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How to use this dictionary

First make sure you have learned the 360 words from the lessons. You can learn or review these words by going through the lessons and answering the questions.

Each lesson is divided into groups of three or four words. After each group of words, there is a question to test your understanding. You will see a sentence containing a blank space, followed by three blue phrases that could go in the blank space. Click the best phrase to answer the question.

After you have learned the 360 words from the lessons, you can read the definitions for the other 2000 words in Learn These Words First. They are all explained using only the 360 words from the lessons.

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Methodology: creating and testing the dictionary

To create Learn These Words First, the 2352 definitions in the NSM-LDOCE dictionary were sequenced into layers using the recursive-dependency statistics from the "Non-Circular Dictionary" study. Then each definition was edited for greater fluency and precision, utilizing words available in the preceding layers.

Using computer-aided paraphrase, the number of "semantic molecules" was reduced to around 300 words. These words, preceded by the NSM vocabulary, were grouped into 12 lessons and expanded to use full-sentence definitions and examples.

Student participants performed headword-identification tasks to evaluate the quality of every definition in the Learn These Words First lessons. For fill-in-the-blank tasks (given definitions without headwords), students correctly identified the missing headword 95% of the time. For complete-the-word tasks (given definitions and only the first letter of each headword), students identified the headword 100% of the time.

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Research behind the dictionary

Learn These Words First implements a layered monolingual dictionary.

The first layer (Lessons 1 and 2) consists of words representing 61 universal concepts expressed in all languages. This set of "semantic atoms" is based on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), developed over the last three decades by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard.

• Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.). 2002. Meaning and Universal Grammar - Theory and Empirical Findings. Volumes I and II. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

The 34 middle layers consist of 300 "semantic molecules" (Lessons 3 through 12). Words in each layer are defined using only the words from the previous layers. This sequence of layers is based on dependency-graph analysis of the non-circular NSM-LDOCE research dictionary.

• Bullock, David. 2011. "NSM + LDOCE: A Non-Circular Dictionary of English" in the International Journal of Lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 24.2: 226-240.

The next layer in Learn These Words First is an alphabetical reference section containing definitions for the 2000 words in the Longman Defining Vocabulary, each defined using only the 360 "atoms" and "molecules" from the lessons.

(The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English can be considered the final layer, since every word is defined using only the 2000-word defining vocabulary.)

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What is a Multi-Layer Dictionary?

Most dictionaries have two layers:

• The long alphabetical list of all headwords and their definitions.
• The "defining vocabulary" = the words used to write all the definitions.

To understand a dictionary's definitions, you need to understand the words in the defining vocabulary. Since a typical learner's dictionary has a defining vocabulary containing 2000 or more words, you must already have at least an intermediate-level vocabulary to use the dictionary.

In a multi-layer dictionary, like Learn These Words First, definitions are arranged in layers so they can be understood by learners with different levels of vocabulary:

• Basic vocabulary: The most basic words are explained for beginning-level learners, using illustrations, translations, etc. These words are presented in a series of short lessons.
• Defining vocabulary: These intermediate-level words are explained using only the words from the basic vocabulary lessons.
• Full dictionary: This includes advanced-level words, all explained using only the defining vocabulary.

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