*Assignment 4:comment on the corpus-based reference tools

~1~: How do you like these tools?
I like this tool a lot since I have always wanted to know a tool that is
about to check the collocations.The way to use the collocations are
the significant difference between native english speakers and
non-native english speakers. Once you are able to speak english
fluently with all correct usuage of collocations, you're "really" a
good english speaker.
Also this tool can show us the way they use in an article and how
many articles have this usuage of words. It's good because you can
both know that how many people are using it and different meanings
you can use with the same words.
Because of the two features I have mentioned above, I love this tool
and I start to use it when I have problems with my english usage.

~2~: What are their strength and weakness, in comparison with a dictionary?
In my opinion, I think the strength is the examples this tool provide.
Whenyou use a dictionary probably you won't find that much examples at
the same time. You need to look through many of dictionaries to find the
same amount of examples.
However, I think the weakness of this tool is that you can't know the exact
meaning of a word. You can know the position the words are used to be
put, but you can't really define the specific meaning of a single words.

~3~: What are the difficulties you encounter when you used these tools?
When I use this tool, sometimes I got confused with so many different
words on the list. You probably will find two different words that can
mention the same meaning but you don't know which one is better to
use.
Also, you might not able to find the meaning you expect. Then you still
need to go back to check the dictionary and to see the examples the
dictionary provide.
The two difficulties occur when I use this tool to improve my writing
abilities.

Monolingual online concordancers資料庫檢索系統

英-英
1. VLC Concordancerhttp://vlc.polyu.edu.hk
2. NTNU Web Concordancerhttp://llrc.eng.ntnu.edu.tw/English/search/default.htm developed by Dr. Howard Chen.
3. Online Concordancer by Dr. Tom Cobbhttp://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/
英-中
Parallel corpus--A parallel corpus is a collection of texts, each of which is translated into one or more other languages than the original.

CANDLE- National E-Learning Project (計畫主持人: 清華大學劉顯親教授)http://candle.cs.nthu.edu.tw/newcandle/Home_C.asp

TOTALRECALL—A bilingual concordancer http://candle.cs.nthu.edu.tw/totalrecall/totalrecall/totalrecall.aspx?funcID=1

corpus
A collection of texts, spoken and/or written, which has been designed and compiled based on a set of clearly defined criteria. (e.g. British National Corpus, BNC Spoken Corpus , Brown Corpus)

Assignment3-the concordance tools of Large and Big

Question: Is there any rule governing the use of "big" and "large"? If yes, what is it? Use evidences to explain the major difference between the two words. Please limit your answer to 70 words.

Answer:
Most of the time "Big" and "large" are simliar in use. Even the native speaker can't really tell the difference between them.
After checking the concordance tools, I found that "large" is often used to describe the abstract amount, quantity and is also used with a phrases like a large number of , a large amount of , a large part of ....and so on.
On the other hand, "big" is often used to depict the concrete object to say about the size of the object.
There is an other conclusion is "large" is often used in more official occation while "big" is in more casual situation.

*Assignment 2--Dictionary exercises

*The two confusing words are as followed:
(The definitions are subtracted from The Cambridge Dictionary Onlinehttp://dictionary.cambridge.org/)

1. prosperity
Noun [U] the state of being successful and having a lot of money.
Example1: A country's future prosperity depends, to an extent, upon the quality of education of
its people.
Example2:The war was followed by a long period of peace and prosperity.

2. contempt
noun [U]a strong feeling of combined dislike and lack of respect
Example1: At school she had complete contempt for all her teachers.
Example2: You should treat those remarks with the contempt that they deserve.
Example3: She's beneath contempt (= I have no respect for her)!

The comment:
These two words have confused me for a long time since last semester i saw it in the newsweek. Today the confusion have been solved since there are some examples in the dictionary of Cambridge Dictionary online. The examples help me know how the word is used and remember the way to use it. It's quite helpful for a beginning learner. Also, the definition they give is quite easy to catch on. You won't see some new vocabularies when you are trying to understand the meaning. There are some dictionary that uses hard word to explain the word,I always get confused by those new words they just use. Of course, if I have got confused with the words they are explainning to me how can I understand the word they are trying to explain?
I think the dictionary is useful in the personal language learning. They are your teacher to tell you the mistakes you have made. I should start to use it and be friend with it.

The dictionaries~

Learners' Dictionaries

A. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

B. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

http://www.oup.com/elt/oald/

C. Merriam-Webster's Learners' Dictionary

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/pron.htms



Others

A. Dictionary.com

http://dictionary.reference.com/

B. OneLook Dictionary Search

http://www.onelook.com/

C Acronym Finder--Find out what those acronyms and abbreviations stand for

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

D. Merriam-Webster's New Online Visual Dictionary--words in a visual dictionary are defined as pictures, for leaning the exact names of objects.

http://visual.merriam-webster.com/index.php

The good website of~ Listening

The websites i got last semester from a classmate is the podcast~
Here it is
1.english as a second language
http://www.eslpod.com/website/index.php

2the sixty second podcast~
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/