English as a Foreign Language

This structured link directory contains links to free accessible websites that give information and advice for the use or study of English.


Table of Contents
Dictionaries
Link Directories of Other Dictionaries
Indexes of EFL and ESL Resources
Vocabulary Training
Lessons and Tutorials Online
Idioms and Phrasals
English Pronunciation

Dictionaries

ALLwords.com A small, but growing english dictionary, with multi-lingual search With phonic pronunciation. Excellent!

! bab.la dictionary (a language project by Andreas Schroeter, Thomas Schroeter and Patrick Uecker). Translations in many different languages, ranging from colloquial and regional expressions to more technical or field-specific vocabulary. Special features include search filters, synonyms, pronunciation, sample sentences and much more.

! Beolingus. Excellent!

Institute for Chemistry, Freie Universität Berlin: Acronyms and Abbreviations. This data base, consisting of more than 12.000 acronyms, has a bias towards acronyms used in chemistry or spectroscopy. The special data base of abbreviations of chemical compound names has been incorporated into the acronym database.

! Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaft, Berlin, Germany: Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache des 20. Jahrhunderts, Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache (WDG). In German. Excellent!

Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University, Pullman: Common Errors in English. A site to assist you in avoiding common errors in your writing.
Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.
Also worth checking out: Serious Links (no longer being continuously updated), Valuable sites on the Web, Web Resources for the Study of English.

! dict.cc. Superbly done!

English-dictionary.us (?Mike Harding). This is a powerful, no-frills English dictionary containing over 200,000 references with both US and British spellings. You can add a search box on your website for this new online dictionary by using the code on http://www.english-dictionary.us/searchbox.html.

! The Free Dictionary.

Houghton Mifflin Company, Bartleby.com: The American Heritage Book of English Usage. A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. Science Terms: Distinctions, Restrictions, and Confusions. A discussion of familiar words that have specific or specialized meanings in science and scientific terms that are easy to confuse.

Institute of Translation and Interpretation, University of Innsbruck: Terminology. An index of glossaries and dictionaries. Go to: Dictionaries and term banks. General language dictionaries and term banks.

! Projekt Deutscher Wortschatz, Institut für Informatik, Universität Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon. This database might be used as a special type of German dictionary and dictionary of accompanied expressions. It might also be used as thesaurus, even for English, French and Netherlands. You can also navigate from here, or go to: Dictionary German - English, and "Fachlexika". Excellent!

Langenscheidt KG, Berlin: Langenscheidts Fremdwörterbuch (in German).

! LEO: English/German Dictionary. This dictionary contains more than 400 000 entries. Excellent!
See also: Useful Links.
Worth to read: Im Leo.org-Dschungel (in German).

The LOGOS Dictionary. This freely-accessible database currently has 7.580.560 entries.

! Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.
The online version of the dictionary contains over 207,000 words, phrases, and meanings including 7,000 references to people, places, events and organizations. Superbly done!

! Merriam-Webster Online. A dictionary and thesaurus. You can hear the pronunciations in this on-line dictionary. Excellent!

! NASA: Global Change Master Directory List of Earth Science Acronyms, Glossaries and Gazetteers. A web directory that contain helpful acronyms used throughout the Earth Science (and other) communities, glossaries of Earth Science terms, and gazetteers of geographic location names.

! Omnilexica (by Lucian Velea). This website provides definitions and encyclopedic content, pronunciation and usage examples (including vernacular and scientific names), from a large variety of English dictionaries and encyclopedias, e.g. from WordNet, Oxford Dictionaries, Cambridge Dictionaries, Merriam-Webster´s Dictionaries, American Heritage Dictionaries, Wikipedia, and Wiktionary.

! Projekt Deutscher Wortschatz, Institut für Informatik, Universität Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon. This database might be used as a special type of German dictionary and dictionary of accompanied expressions. It might be used as thesaurus, even for English, French and Netherlands. See also: Dictionary German - English. Excellent!

! Roget´s Thesaurus. Search for related English words and phrases. Excellent!

VoyCabulary. This is a powerful web tool which will link web pages or phrases to online dictionaries or thesauruses. If you wish to process a webpage, enter in the URL (address) of the website into the textbox. If you have some text, maybe from a word processor, you may simply cut and paste it into the textbox and VoyCabulary will process it as well.

Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library, Stanford University Libraries, CA: BEILSTEIN Dictionary German - English, English - German. This online dictionary, actually intented for users of the Beilstein Handbook of Organic Chemistry, contains most German words occurring in the Beilstein Handbook, as well as common abbreviations, alphabetically listed with their English equivalents (about 2,100 entries). Umlauts are not included in this computer version of the dictionary. Excellent!

Robert K. Ware: One Look Dictionaries. Internet search for a word or acronym in a dictionary or glossary. An extremely useful tool, excellent!

! Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia is an international free encyclopedia that is being written collaboratively by the readers of this web site. Also available in German. Excellent!

! wissen.de. Search in dictionaries and encyclopedias (in German). Go to: "Profisuche".

WordNet, Princeton. A lexical database for the English language. Search from here.

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Link Directories of Other Dictionaries

YiLing Chen-Josephson Word Up. Which dictionary is the best? Some reviews, no links.

Dave Sperling, ESL Cafe´s Web Guide: Dictionaries.

Yahoo Directory: Reference > Dictionaries.

! YourDictionary.com (formerly Robert Beard, Bucknell University; "A Web of Online Dictionaries"). An index of on-line dictionaries, including multilingual dictionaries, specialized English dictionaries, thesauri and other vocabulary aids. Excellent!

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Indexes of EFL and ESL Resources

About.com: English as 2nd Language (by Kenneth Beare).

Blue Web´n Applications: English. Annotated hotlist of sites (including ratings).

English Pages of JOBELMANN-SCHULE

Dave Sperling: ESL Cafe Web Guide Database.

YAHOO: English.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
English as a foreign or second language
Englisch als Zweitsprache (in German)
Category:English-language education.

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Vocabulary Training

! About.com: Articles about "common english mistakes".

Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University, Pullman:
! Common Errors in English. A site to assist you in avoiding common errors in your writing.
Also worth checking out: Serious Links (no longer being continuously updated), Valuable sites on the Web, Web Resources for the Study of English.

Rene Kondratzky: Vocabulary Trainer. Go to the Vocabulary Training Exercises.

! PainInTheEnglish.com (Dyske Suematsu, New York): PainInTheEnglish.com encourages discussions of some gray areas of the English language, for which non-native speaker would not find answers easily in dictionaries and other reference books.

UsingEnglish.com: English Language (ESL) Grammar Quizzes.

! Teachmaster. Teachmaster is a program for learning vocabulary and can be downloaded and used free of charge.

! Vocabulix. A vocabulary and conjugation trainer, free of charge (registration procedure needed).

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Lessons and Tutorials Online

! About.com: Articles about "common english mistakes".

Ask the English Teacher (by Crawford Kilian). Questions and answers about English usage.

Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University, Pullman:
! Common Errors in English. A site to assist you in avoiding common errors in your writing.
Also worth checking out: Serious Links (no longer being continuously updated), Valuable sites on the Web, Web Resources for the Study of English.

ComAudio Listen to news, songs, and other items in English while the text appears on the screen.

Englishtown.

English Zone. Idioms, basic grammar, and spelling.

Lisa Ilene (?): English Grammar The Easy Way. This site explains English so that everyone can understand. It makes English Grammar easy to understand.

! PainInTheEnglish.com (Dyske Suematsu, New York): PainInTheEnglish.com encourages discussions of some gray areas of the English language, for which non-native speaker would not find answers easily in dictionaries and other reference books.

Adam Rado: English Learning Fun Site.

StudyCom: English for Internet. English grammar, pronunciation, writing and reading through free Internet courses.

William Strunk, Jr., Project Bartleby: Go to: Elements of Style. This site provides the principal requirements of plain English style.

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Idioms and Phrasals

Ask the English Teacher (by Crawford Kilian). Questions and answers about English usage.

! Beolingus. Excellent!

! dict.cc. Superbly done!

Englisch-Hilfen.de:
Englisch - Sprichwörter.
Informal English vocabulary - Proverbs.

English Zone. English Zone Idioms.

GoEnglish.com. This page lists the most popular idioms from A to Z.

The Free Dictionary.

! The Idiom Connection: English Idioms. Idioms alphabetically listed and sorted by topics. Superbly done!

Phrase Finder.

! PainInTheEnglish.com (Dyske Suematsu, New York): PainInTheEnglish.com encourages discussions of some gray areas of the English language, for which non-native speaker would not find answers easily in dictionaries and other reference books.

! Phrasen.com. In German and English.

Michael Quinion: World Wide Words, or Search for text.

Robert Rayle (?): The English & German Idioms   Sayings. You are welcome to download the shareware version of Idioms!

UsingEnglish.com: English Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions

Vouchercloud: The Origins and Meanings of Financial Sayings and Idioms.

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English Pronunciation

English Dictionaries with Sound Pronunciation (Audio and Wave Files)

AbleMedia: Global Glossary. Focusses the Greco-Roman world. Click on the "Hear It!" icon in any CTCWeb Global Glossary entry and listen to the pronunciation of the word.

! ALLwords.com A small, but growing english dictionary, with multi-lingual search With phonic pronunciation. Excellent!

! The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000. With sound pronunciation. Excellent!

Phil A. Arneson, Department of Plant Pathology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (maintained by Kathie T. Hodge): On-Line Glossary of of Technical Terms in Plant Pathology. Clicking on the speaker icon will give you the pronunciation of the term.

Curtis Clark, Biological Sciences Department, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona: Plant Morphology Resource. Go to:
! Glossary for Plant Morphology. With pronunciations and cross-references.

The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary.

! Collins.

! dict.cc. Superbly done!

Fine Gardening. Pronunciation guide for plants.

! Forvo. All the words in the world. Pronunced. Excellent!

! The Free Dictionary. Excellent!

Patricia Gray, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN: Operas and Composers: A Pronunciation Guide.

! Howjsay.com. A free online Talking Dictionary of English Pronunciation.

MATHEMATICAL CONCEPTS, inc.: MATH SPOKEN HERE!

The Merck Manuals: Pronunciations.

! Merriam-Webster Online. A dictionary and thesaurus. You can hear the pronunciations in this on-line dictionary. Excellent!

Over Planted. Botanical Latin Pronunciation Guide.

! The Oxford Advanced Learner´s Dictionary. Excellent!

Quizlet LLC: Plant Anatomy and Physiology.

Dave Whitinger Dave's Garden network, the Plants Database): Botanary. Here you can look up a plant name, discover its meaning and find a guide to pronouncing it.

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English Pronunciation, General

Ask the English Teacher (by Crawford Kilian). Questions and answers about English usage.

The University of Iowa: The Pronunciation Page.

Okanagan University College: English Pronunciation. Excellent online pronunciation help.

Peter Ommundsen, Selkirk College, Canada: Pronunciation of Biological Latin. Including taxonomic names of plants and animals. See also here (PDF file).

! Omnilexica (by Lucian Velea). This website provides definitions and encyclopedic content, pronunciation and usage examples (including vernacular and scientific names), from a large variety of English dictionaries and encyclopedias, e.g. from WordNet, Oxford Dictionaries, Cambridge Dictionaries, Merriam-Webster´s Dictionaries, American Heritage Dictionaries, Wikipedia, and Wiktionary.

Dave Sperling: ESL Cafe Web Guide Database: Pronunciation. Extensive annotated link page.

Stuff Media: Phonics Calculator. Click on the phonetic symbols to hear the vowel sounds. Shockwave needed.

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