Bilingual dictionaries are more useful than monolingual ones when it comes to learning English, according to a professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University.
After speaking at the seminar titled 'Bilingualised Dictionaries in Bilingual Education: Theoretical, Empirical and Classroom Perspectives', organised by Pearson Education China, Dr Dan Lu, assistant professor at the Language Centre, told Young Post that he believed Hong Kong students would reap the most benefits from bilingual dictionaries.
'Hong Kong students need Chinese definitions because some English words and terms are hard to explain without Chinese equivalents. Students will not understand the meaning of some words if they use monolingual dictionaries,' he said.
'For example, the word 'dry clean' is easily understood in Chinese. But in a monolingual dictionary, its definition becomes complicated.' As a university professor, Dr Lu has found that students from both English and Chinese medium schools needed Chinese translations to learn English.
He said a survey conducted by Pearson Education China showed that students from English medium schools were required to buy monolingual dictionaries.
However, they spent extra money on bilingual dictionaries because they found the Chinese translations helpful.
There has been a debate over whether students should use a monolingual or bilingual dictionary to learn a second language.
