The Macmillan English dictionary was conceived, compiled and edited by the Reference and Electronic Media Division

of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. In 2006. This dictionary is aimed at advanced level students of English, and tries to be user-friendly and a tool for helping students to become better learners and better speakers and writers of English. This is a practical reference book for the classroom and home, offering invaluable support for those wishing to write and speak English accurately. Although the English language is made up of over one million individual words, 90% of all written and spoken text consists of 7,500. The Macmillan English Dictionary highlights these vital 7,500 in red, encouraging learners to swiftly grasp the core words necessary to speak and write fluently. The 7500 most frequently used words are entered in red. They have a star rating of between one and three stars to show if the word is one of the most common 2500 words, very common or quite common. These 7500 words have more information about how to use the word as well as the standard information about meaning. The main body of the dictionary includes some small illustrations for some entries. These are quite well chosen in that they are for words that may be quite difficult to understand from a written description but which can be understood instantly with a picture. The other aim of the dictionary seems to be to provide tools to help learners become better at using English, and to become better learners. Within the main body of the dictionary are red "Get it right" boxes. These boxes contain information about common mistakes that learners make, in order to help students avoid common errors when they use a word. Other red information boxes contain information about collocations, other ways of expressing something, words to avoid in certain situations because they cause offence and so on. The dictionary has sections on improving writing, expanding vocabulary and language awareness. The improving writing section seems particularly useful for learners who have to write essays or reports in English. It is divided into areas such as comparing and contrasting, showing cause and effect, and reformulation, all of which are very useful academic writing skills. This dictionary has grammar codes, abbreviations and symbols. For instance nouns. We have in square brackets letter C-countable nouns, letter U-uncountable. Also for verbs we have letter Iintransitive verbs that have no direct object, T- transitive verbs. Also shortenings- sb.- someone. Stars show you the most frequent words in English and help to find the words that you are most likely to need to use. Unrestricted, general, monolingual explanatory dictionary! I must admit that the head word colored in red and other meanings of the words colored in black. It is vital to say that there is a CD, electronic version. The CD ROM has interactive exercises aimed at improving writing. It also has British and American pronunciation of every word, a thesaurus button next to every word, and allows users to add their own notes and translations.