Longman Language Activator

Rating:
Summary: An essential for ESL/English language students
Review: As an instructor of English as a Second Language, I can highly recommend the Longman Language Activator (and its lower-level relative, the Longman Essential Activator). This book is designed for non-native language learners and is ideal for building vocabulary and idiomatic use of language. Students absolutely LOVE a book that finally explains the many different words -- this is a place where thesauruses really fail the ESL learner. I can see why other reviewers fail to find what they need, because this book isn't designed for them, but for anyone trying to make sense of English expressions and build a strong vocabulary, this book will be the ideal support to classroom work. The best parts of this book are the examples, which are drawn from real-world texts, and the comparisons between words, their connotations, and the grammar that goes with each of them. A superb teacher resource for explaining complex words in simple language. Six stars if I could give them!

Rating:
Summary: not very helpful
Review: Contrary to the other reviewer I did not find this book very helpful at all. This may be due to the fact that whatever I was looking for I did not find in there. If you just need basic vocabulary this book might be alright for you. If you, however, intend to use it for more professional purposes, you might find it not so suitable. It is an interesting approach, but personally I'm happier with dictionaries and learning material from Collins / Pons, who tend to produce books which cost less than Longman's and are better.

Rating:
Summary: Missing piece
Review: Do you have a good dictionary, a good thesaurus, a good idiom book, and a comprehensive grammarbook, and are you still fighting with the usage of words and phrases? Then is is probably the missing piece on your bookshelf, but make sure it doesn't stay there because this book is an indispensable tool for writing and even speaking. I am an ESL student and I bought this book two weeks ago. It's a great help and I use it often. It helps me to write what I think in concise English. This book goes beyond everything you can find in this category. Check it out, it's fantastic!

Rating:
Summary: Buy Longman Essential Activator if you're intermediate users
Review: For centuries, ESL learners have been familiar to use the traditional or "passive" dictionary but things have changed and things will be changed with the publication of this innovative or "active" dictionary. It gives the leaner the helpful tool to SPEAK and to WRITE actively.

I totally agree with a reviewer's statement that, we, as intermediate and advanced ESL Learners, always have the feeling that there must be at least a better/more suitable word to express exactly what do we really mean in a given situation, in writing or in speaking. We all have wondered where to find that word and more importantly, why to choose that word. This dictionary helps me get rid of that feeling by giving me the exact words I want to convey in every particular situation.

I strongly recommend its "lower-level" dictionary - Longman Essential Activator to intermediate or upper intermediate students. In building our strong vocabulary we all know that, for some words we only need to know its meaning but for some essential words, we must use actively and more importantly, make them our OWN words. All the words in the Longman Essential Activator are the crucial bricks which helps us build our strong wall of English vocabulary. In addition, this dictionary also has many word banks i.e. bank of basic words for popular topics. If you are an intermediate learner, buy this one, and believe me, you won't regret!

I believe this kind of dictionary has a bright future and it paves the way for other dictionaries of the same type in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Essential when you want to write
Review: Longman Language Activator is fantastic. Other dictionaries are useful when you're reading a book and don't know the meaning of a word. But when you want to write, they're useless.
With Language Activator you can find the right word for what you want to say. For instance, you want to say "X is guilty" but you're looking for a better way to put it into words. So you open your dictionary and find an entry for "guilty". You are presented with a lot of words and expressions to choose from. Guilty, responsible, culpable, the culprit, incriminate and so on. There's an explanation to help you choose the best word to express your ideas. Now you can confidently write "X is the culprit" or "X is responsible for...", whatever suits your ideas well. I use it all the time. My book is falling to pieces.

Rating:
Summary: A revolutionary thing we've waiting for so long!
Review: Now that it exists the list of your reference books will never be complete without it!

Does your English-English dictionary always satisfy you especially when you are working on your own creative writing or just formulating your ideas?
Alas! However good an English-English dictionary may be it can only show you that the way you've chosen to put something into words is acceptable, or (at its most) it provides you with one or two synonyms.
So being a non-native speaker of English, you never get rid of the feeling that there is at least one better way of expressing your thought, the way that would make it sound really English. And now here it is!

Productive - this is what Activator all about!
Formulate your idea in one simple word and find dozens of different ways to express it with whatever shades of meaning you desire.
It guides you to Proficiency. Gives you confidence and what's more - real satisfaction!

Rating:
Summary: a must have for the advanced learner
Review: The Longman Language Activator is a new kind of dictionary - it is a dictionary that enables language students to selectively encode what they want to state in English to a degree of linguistic accuracy that had hitherto been impossible using conventional dictionaries. Basically speaking, the Longman Language Activator is a dictionary of ideas. These ideas are the1052 key words that have been distilled from a spoken corpus of 10 million words and a written corpus of 30 million words. From these key words, the student is presented with options to help guide her in homing in on the most semantically relevant word for a particular context or situation. All the options are common, and are shown in order of frequency. The great strength of this dictionary is that it gives clear guidance on how words are normally used, and in which context they are appropriate, whether it be spoken or written, formal or informal, child or adult, or American or British. I particularly liked the dozen or so illustrations that demonstrate how proper use of the dictionary can train the learner to select words and phrases that a native-speaker would use, and perhaps I would have liked to see more of them. The Longman Language Activator is an excellent reference guide for teachers, and simply a must have for any advanced learner hoping to turn passive knowledge into active use.