Index Your Dictionary
by Catee

If you're learning a new language, you will have to use a foreign language dictionary at some point. Looking up words is a slow process. Electronic dictionaries have made things easier, if you can afford one. Also, with the advent of on-line dictionaries, the Internet has become a tool of language learners everywhere. However, if you need to look up a word in another alphabet, you still face some challenges. You can, of course, learn how to type in a new alphabet, but that's a lot of work!

Here's a low tech, but effective, way to make dictionary searching faster. Mark the side of your dictionary pages with the alphabet. Some dictionaries already come marked, but if your dictionary is not, then you should take a felt tip pen and put the letters on the outside. These should the page edges, so when you look at your closed dictionary from the side, your index tells you which pages correspond to which letter.

Now that you won't waste time flipping open the dictionary to the wrong letter, you are saving a lot of time. Just look at your index on the side of your dictionary and you know where to go! If you're dealing with a different alphabet system, you don't have to memorize the order of the alphabet. Now that I can look up two words in the time it used to take to look up one, I'm less frustrated and having a lot more fun.