LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

The English version of the title may have thrown you astray to think that this post deals with the meaning of what we all call "life." The Spanish version, however, sets things right because there is no definite article. I mean to inquire into the meaning of the word "life" when we say that "life is difficult," for instance. Bilinguals have the upper hand over monolinguals in many ways, but also in parallel lexicography. We are able to compare definitions and see the extent to which they differ from language to language.  "Facultad para crecer, renovar la propia sustancia, reproducirse, etc. que tienen los animales y las plants." Dicc. de María Moliner. "The sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, esp. metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment." So says The Random House Dictionary .  When we seek the meaning of a word in one language, we can search for its meaning in the other language, thus getting a bet...

How lucky we are with the technology we have at our command which provides learning tools our grandparents, and even parents, never dreamt of. Dictionaries are probably the most important tools in language learning . Dictionaries provide easy-to-understand definitions, examples of usage, points of grammar and even pronunciation. You can hear a word as it is pronounced, as many times as you want or need. And the best is that now, thanks to technology you can carry dictionaries on your cell phones. You can download dictionary applications and get information anytime, anywhere. It is like carrying a teacher in your cell phone. I urge you to download at least one bilingual dictionary and two monolingual dictionaries.  Consult them because they are the source of interesting information of all kinds. I actually force my students to download dictionaries , and ask them to check words instead of giving them the answer. Do not take my word for it, download a monolingual diction...