Top Five Useful Tools for Learning English

1. A Good Dictionary

Here are some great tools to aid you in your English studies:

Grammar Points

A good dictionary is a necessity when learning languages, whatever your mother tongue may be. An

online dictionary that is helpful is Wordreference.com. This dictionary gives definitions in Spanish,

French, Italian, German, Russian, and English. It's a good online dictionary because it has a discussion

forum where you can ask questions if you're not sure about how the word is used in context. Even for

those whose mother tongues are not included, the English definitions also have discussion forums.

http://wordreference.com/

2. Urban Dictionary

If you frequently wonder about certain words that you hear and notice that they're not in the dictionary,

then this may be the dictionary to go to. Urban Dictionary gives definitions of slang, buzzwords, and

phrases that you might not find in a regular dictionary. It gives the definition and a sample sentence for

each word or phrase. The dictionary contains profanity as well.

3. BBC Learning English

The BBC website has a Learning English page that offers articles, quizzes, listening practices, blogs,

and more geared toward the English learner. This is a good way to study English in the news or for

businesses purposes. The articles are short and come along with audio for you to listen to. Be careful if

you're studying American English, though, since the pronunciation tips as well as the spelling will be

in British English.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

4. Guide to Grammar

This site helps you with grammar questions you may have. It has an index that you can use to look up

your grammar question and also a search engine so that you may type in and search for your grammar

question. It also contains quizzes that you can take to improve your grammar.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm

5. Text Twist

Improving your vocabulary once you hit a certain level may be hard for many. Everybody will

appreciate having some fun while they are learning, though. You can play a simple word game,

Twist, online or download it from the web to help improve your vocabulary. The object of the game is

to create words by rearranging the given alphabet letters. If you can figure out the longest word,

then

you go to the next level. It's simple enough to do without too much concentration, but at the same time,

it'll make you want to know much more vocabulary than you currently do.