For a long time, a textbook has been the only reference for students studying a foreign language. Still, with the technical progress underway, online dictionaries have become the primary assistive tool for language students. These handy resources have made life easier for everyone. Moreover, because of their availability, there is no longer any need to purchase pricey dictionaries and comb through dozens of pages searching for a particular word.
But, saying farewell to textbooks implies saying goodbye to the previous century. All prior generations of interpreters learned languages by hand, searching enormous libraries for words. It usually took some time, but they had to remember the word they came upon rather quickly (otherwise, they would have to find it again). Besides, paper dictionaries contain much valuable information about contextual use, the word’s connotations, and the like, giving the fleur of classics to the study process.
So, is it the time to say farewell to textbooks? Or do they still deserve the rightful place on your shelf alongside online sources? To help you choose which ones are better for essay writing, the write my college essays team has made a thorough comparison to establish which is still the best option.
Online Dictionary vs. Textbook: Which Saves Time?
With online dictionaries, you don’t need to go through all the pages. Instead, you can type the word you’re looking for and get an instant result. At the same time, printed dictionaries allow you to discover other intriguing terms on your way to the one you needed.
Which One Is More Convenient to Use?
Publishers typically use a small font to produce a decent and complete printed dictionary. The issue is that to contain most of the words being used, they must fill all of the available space.
Moreover, the textbook is too large. This makes it even more challenging to focus and discover the correct word. Special abilities were required to look anything up in such a dictionary quickly.
On the contrary, you can simply type the term or word you want to search in online dictionaries. The result appears in an appealing format right away (occasionally, even with preceding clip pronunciation).
Which Has More Options?
You can enter your word into many various online dictionaries and get a somewhat different interpretation or variation of its meanings. These distinctions can be tailored to your specific case or language situation.
On the other hand, a printed dictionary just gives you one or a few of the most prevalent possibilities, making it challenging to navigate through the translation.
Which Is Flexible?
Online dictionaries win in the comparison of flexibility since they are easily accessible from anywhere. You’ll just need your phone and access to the Internet to locate the correct word and its definition.
Still, you can only use printed dictionaries if they are with you during a lecture. Thus, at an exam or during an Internet or power outage, you won’t be able to use online tools. Hence, having paper dictionaries has some advantages and makes their use less flexible but more universal.
Which Has Better Illustrations?
Printed dictionaries frequently include illustrations to help with the memorization of the most difficult or puzzling terms. You can form a strong link with the term and recall it, which is more challenging to do if you only get a cursory understanding of its meaning online.
Besides, most online dictionaries lack illustrations for the terms and phrase combinations. They store words, whereas printed dictionaries take you on a grand adventure of linguistic discovery.
Which Has a Higher Density of Knowledge?
When you lift the printed dictionary off the shelf, you can sense the weight of thousands of people’s knowledge. They did an amazing job, looking up every term and choosing the most nuanced translations for students.
From this perspective, an online dictionary can be thought of as a code or a computer. It can’t be touched or imitated. Furthermore, the knowledge they contain is frequently dependent on material published in printed dictionaries.
Random Lookup
Modern online dictionaries contain a feature called “word of the day” or something similar. Nevertheless, it does not have the same impact as looking up a word at random in a printed dictionary.
If paper dictionaries vanish, we will lose the charm of the new phrase mixed with the surprise elegance of its translation.
Final Thoughts
Both online dictionaries and textbooks have their own set of benefits and drawbacks. Because the reality is always somewhere in the middle, we should employ both choices depending on the situation.
Don’t deprive yourself of the sensation of touching upon the overwhelming density of knowledge when you read a printed dictionary, as well as the ease and time effectiveness of an online dictionary. We do, after all, have a choice.