Interpreter Education Online

Monolingual vs. Bilingual

Posted by anuska072 on December 8, 2009

I was browsing through interpreter and linguistic blogging pages and I stumbled upon a question if it is easier to use monolingual dictionaries or bilingual ones when learning a new language. Simply, it all depends on one’s ability to comprehend another language and at what level they are. However, if a person is well enough immersed, then they should be able to grasp a definition from a monolingual dictionary. Another issue many immigrants who have come here between ages of 12-15 have is that they do not know the full extent of either language, making it at times necessary to use a monolingual dictionary.

For new language learners, using monolingual dictionaries has many advantages that at times they may not even be aware of. Once reading a definition in the newly acquired language, one may eventually start to realize the thinking structure of the people who are using it also how things are explained in the new language, as well as just practice reading. Some aforementioned reasons are valid enough as learning more and more about the background of a language which will in turn help them learn and master it faster.

Second, some may or may not know the definition of a word in either language simply because they prematurely stopped learning their native language and were forced to learn another one at a critical stage of early adolescence. At such time, we may ask ourselves is it easier to learn the word in one’s native tongue or the newly acquainted one when it feels like we have ‘half learned’ both languages.