Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner Basic CD 5th edition

This 5th edition (Published 2006) is also available in paper or hardback.

This is the CD that comes with the paper dictionary and has only the following:
• Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (5th and latest edition published in 2006)
• Word Bank of 5 million words of authentic text samples (written and spoken) from the Bank of English corpus

Please note: We can NOT recommend this dictionary for High Schools because a great many offensive words are defined. This dictionary is for adults and words are defined based on written and verbal usage. Any word that is considered offensive is labeled as offensive.

The dictionary has easy to understand full sentence definitions with lots of examples. This makes it very easy to understand a word.

If there is a word in any reference on this CD (see the list below) you do not understand, you can double click on it and look up the definition. Once you are done looking up that word, you can go back to where you were with the touch of a button. To do this with a paper dictionary you have to flip through pages and put in page markers.

This Collins Cobuild dictionary is a talking dictionary that pronounces the words and their various forms. It even lets the user record his pronunciation and compare it with the one on the CD.

The software lets you very rapidly search the index or the text through all the books on the CD (see list below). If you are looking for a word having to do with something you can search the full text for that something and find the word. This is very helpful and something you can not do with a paper dictionary.

This dictionary has a unique English grammar to help a learner of English understand how to use a word. There are entries in the help files that simply define the grammar terms used in this dictionary. Because the CD makes it easy to find the definitions of the grammar terms the dictionary becomes that much easier to use for a native or non-native speaker of English (English as a Second Language(ESL) speaker, of English).

Click here for a sample screen.

A review of the differences between this CD and the Collins COBUILD Resource Pack from one of our customers.

Difference between Collins advanced learner’s dictionary and Collins COBUILD Resource Pack.

In the advance learner’s dictionary, you have access to the dictionary and the Wordbank.

The dictionary provides the definitions of the word plus the definitions of all the derived forms and compounds of the word. It also offers the full list and definitions of any other word that contains the original word in its definition, illustration or sentence examples. For example, when you look up the word “mail,” other than all the definitions, you shall find tens of compounds such as “airmail” and “blackmail” including their definitions. You shall also find the derived forms and phrasal verbs like “mail out.” You shall also find tens of words such as “box” and “address book,” which in their definition contain the word “mail.” You shall also find 44 sentences that are given to demonstrate other words but also include the word “mail.”

Wordbank provides many sentences that contain the word you’re looking up. There are 602 sentences for the word “mail.”

The resource pack includes the above, plus the following.

Thesaurus provides all the synonyms and antonyms of the word you’re looking up, plus a list of all other words which contains the original word as one of its synonyms. For the word “mail,” the thesaurus also provides words such as “armoured,” “direct,” etc. These words are not mail's synonyms, but mail is listed as their synonum.

English Usage demonstrates where, when, and in what forms the word can be used in American and British English . For example, it is explained how the word “post” is used instead of the word “mail,” in British English.

English Grammar includes many titles that describe the system of rules by which words are formed and put together to make sentences. When a word you’re looking up is contained within any grammar title or its description, such title and description shall be provided to you. When you look up the word “take,” you shall be able to find grammar titles such as “nouns used with take,” and “verbs which can take an object or prepositional phrase,” and “taking the focus off the subject: using impersonal ‘it’.”