As a teenager, I had quite a quirky hobby; I loved to browse and read dictionaries! (Like other people would read books or magazines.)

To give you a bit of context, this was back in the early nineties. The internet wasn’t really a thing yet and I was in boarding school with a limited choice of hobbies avalable ;-)

My first dictionary was a bilingual German / English one and it was probably just as well that I only had this one dictionary to start with, because quite soon, I became a bit obsessed with learning new words and spent way too much time reading and browsing. Had I known back then about all the other types of dictionaries I’m about to introduce to you now, I probably would’ve been in a lot of trouble :D

A dictionary is a very useful tool for learning a language. However, if you are just using a bilingual dictionary, you are missing out! Which other English language dictionaries do best suit your needs? Find out here: