Description:
Talking English is part of a software series (the others being French-, German-, and Spanish-to-English bilingual dictionaries) that uses the complete text of the well-known Collins printed dictionaries, augmented and adapted so that it can sit on a corner of your screen while you work on a document. It is primarily designed for nonnative English users, but the adaptation to computer has been so well thought out that native English speakers who want more than a spell checker will also find it useful. A notable feature is that long entries have their own scroll button (the normal scroll bar can be used to run through the whole text), so that you can read each entry without enlarging the dictionary screen or losing your place. If you encounter a word in a definition you do not understand, simply right click on it and you jump to its definition; then a single click takes you back to you original entry. Bookmarks can be used for more complex cross-referencing. Definitions can be transferred to the main screen via clipboard or drag and drop, and text can also be imported into the dictionary where each word will automatically be defined. You can hear all headwords in standard English pronunciation at a single click; learners can then practice their pronunciation if they wish, comparing it with the original. There's also a games package to help the learner. The system requirements are only 15 MB of disk space and a microphone. --Julia Cresswell
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