Monday, August 18, 2008

ESL Reader

This is a great time-saver that makes reading even difficult texts in English very easy.

Just copy any English text into the box and click on Read Text.
You can then easily get definitions and/or translations for any words in that text since each word is automatically turned into a link.

I suggest you look up new words in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary first to get an understandable definition and a few example sentences. Use the drop-down menu under References.

If you want a translation, just choose the English-German dictionary under Languages. German I links to BeoLingus and German II links to dict.cc

Abbreviations (like ESL) can be looked up under Specialty.

If it's a place or a person you can look it up in Google or Ask.com.

What makes this tool so convenient is that you just paste the text in once and then if you want to learn more about the word, just change the reference source and click on the same word to look it up again. Very convenient!

(The only trick is having several windows open at the same time, but that shouldn't be a problem...!)

http://www.esldesk.com/esl-reading/esl-reader.aspx

If you want to start reading right away, try this link to one of my favorite classic books, already pasted into the ESL Reader...
http://www.esldesk.com/english-reading/reading-help.aspx?f=alice-adventure-in-wonderland

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