The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary CD-ROM (RHWUD) contains the 1999 edition of the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, one of the two largest and most authoritative dictionaries of American English (the other is the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary). It does not contain the Random House Thesaurus.
This review covers the software (CD-ROM) version of the RHWUD, not the book version, which is big, heavy, harder to read, and slower to use.
The RHWUD is an English-English (monolingual) dictionary designed mainly for native speakers. This means that it doesn't try to give simple and friendly definitions like a learner's dictionary. Instead, it sticks to a rather dry lexicographic style:
There are far fewer example sentences in the RHWUD than in a learner's dictionary. When I looked up 22 intermediate/advanced words chosen randomly from a book, the RHWUD had 3.2 example sentences per word. There were, on average, 8.5 meanings for each of the 22 words, which means that less than 1 in 2 meanings had an example sentence.
For the same sample, the COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary had 6 example sentences per word, 3.5 meanings per word, and almost 2 example sentences per meaning. Being a dictionary for native speakers, the RHWUD has twice as many meanings as the COBUILD, but each meaning has 4 times fewer example sentences.
The RHWUD provides phonetic transcriptions for practically all words. There are no transcriptions of compound words like fish stick or unanticipated, but this is no big problem, as you can look up fish, stick, and anticipated instead. The dictionary includes transcriptions of proper names such as McNaughton, Gynergen or San Rafael, and even Latin phrases like mirabile dictu.
Instead of the IPA, the dictionary uses its own system of phonetic transcription. If you are familiar with the basics of English pronunciation, you should have no problem learning it — for example, by listening to the recordings and comparing them with the transcriptions or by looking up simple words for which you know the transcription (e.g. go, run, bed, now).
It's worth remembering that the dictionary has its own transcription conventions, some of which are less precise than those used in other dictionaries. For instance, any and near are both transcribed with the "ee" vowel (as in keep), even though in speech they each sound a bit different. Similarly, tourist is transcribed with the "oo" vowel (book). Stress is marked by placing an apostrophe after, not before he stressed syllable.
Wherever it gives phonetic transcriptions, the RHWUD also provides recordings (listen to a sample in mp3 format). For words with two or more alternative transcriptions, the recording is usually provided only for the most popular alternative. All the words are pronounced by professional speakers, and match the transcriptions perfectly, even for difficult foreign entries like Ludwig Wittgenstein (listen). The dictionary does not confuse you by showing you one thing, and playing another.
The only problem is that the technical quality of the recordings is average — probably because the software uses an old sound compression technology.
The dictionary offers an "install to hard drive" option (you have to select "Custom Installation" during the setup process), which allows you to use the software without the CD in the drive.
The RHWUD starts up very quickly and works fast. The user interface is good, except for a few flaws. One problem is that before you can start typing a word, you have to click on the search box and erase its contents (i.e. the previous word you looked up). By contrast, in the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's dictionary, you can just start typing without thinking about the search box.
A more annoying problem is that the dictionary does not support mousewheel scrolling or realtime scrolling. When you want to scroll down in the definition window, you have to use the slider on the right side, and the window is scrolled only when you release the mouse button (not at the same time as you move the slider).
I do like the fact that you can browse through all the entries in the dictionary by scrolling a list (here realtime scrolling works). The process is similar to leafing through a book and enables you to learn completely random words just for fun.
The RHWUD fails most frequently of all the dictionaries I have used. You can expect a crash once every 100-200 words you look up. On one unlucky computer I tested the RHWUD on, the dictionary seemed to crash once every 30-50 words. Generally, it is not the most stable piece of software and you'll have to get used to restarting it occasionally.
If you are an English learner, I do not recommend the RHWUD as your primary dictionary, even though I learned English from a similar software dictionary myself. Today, you can get CD-ROM dictionaries with many more example sentences and nicer definitions (e.g. the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary or the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).
However, a large dictionary like the RHWUD can be very useful as your second dictionary:
Because it is so huge, it contains things that are not found in a learner's dictionary. These include:
Each of these advanced words, phrases and meanings occurs rarely, but you will always come across a few of them when reading any text in English — it's guaranteed.
In conclusion, the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary CD-ROM is highly recommended for learners of American English who already have a good learner's dictionary.
There is a free online dictionary at (m-w.com), which has about the same number of words as the RHWUD. However, I still think it is a good idea to pay $15.00 + shipping and get the RHWUD. Here's why:
You can buy the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary CD-ROM from Elearnaid for $15.00 (the shipping cost is between $7 and $14, depending on where you live).
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