English: language resources

The Library and Language Service have joined forces to select a series of resources for English. This dossier includes reference works and tools to help resolve doubts on spelling, grammar or vocabulary. You can also find resources to help with pronunciation or to keep up-to-date with the news and new developments in the use of English.

Last modified:

02.04.19

The Language Service

El web del Servei Lingüístic

It provides resources and criteria for language use and editing in Catalan, English and Spanish.

References according to the ISO 690 standard

Practical guide to English usage. Bibliographical references section.

Practical Guide to English Usage (Language Service, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)

This guide covers the English language needs arising at the UOC which the Language Service has worked.

Dictionaries

This section has a selection of lexicographic reference works.

Oxford Dictionaries

It offers free access to a number of the dictionaries produced by the Oxford University Press and grammar section.

Merriam-Webster

Merriam-Webster produces the leading dictionaries for US English.

Cambridge Dictionaries Online

Cambridge University Press has been publishing dictionaries for learners of English since 1995.

OneLook Dictionary Search

A search engine for words and phrases.

Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection

A collection of general and specialised dictionaries and reference works.

Acronym Finder

Abbreviations dictionary providing the definitions of acronyms, initialisms and other shortened forms.

Collins Dictionary

A dictionary that has been published by Harper Collins since 1819.

Macmillan Dictionary

A dictionary that has been published since 2002.

Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

The dictionary on the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries website.

Oxford Collocations Dictionary

A dictionary that offers the most common word combinations in British and American English.

Verbs

These resources can help resolve any possible doubts relating to the conjunction of verbs.

Irregular verbs

A list of frequent irregular verbs in English produced by the British Council.

Translation

Bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and databases to help with translations.

Inter-Active Terminology for Europe (IATE)

The EU's inter-institutional terminology database.

Linguee

A search engine with which you can search billions of bilingual texts for words and expressions.

WordReference

A tool to find the word selected and offer its definition, synonyms & antonyms or translation into other languages.

Oxford Dictionaries (Spanish-English)

The English-Spanish dictionary offered by Oxforddictionaries.com

Grammar questions and doubts

This section has resources to resolve all kinds of doubts about language and grammar.

English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

A question and answer site for linguists, etymologists and serious English language enthusiasts.

Common Errors in English Usage

A useful and fun guide to mixed-up, mangled expressions and commonly mispronounced words.

Oxford Dictionaries (Grammar)

Useful information on English grammar and usage from the people behind the Oxford dictionary.

Headway Upper-Intermediate

A section of the Oxford University Press website dedicated to an intermediate academic grammar level.

Verb Tenses. Self Access Corner

The section of the Self Access Corner website on the Xarxa Telemàtica Educativa de Catalunya (XTEC).

Tools

This section offers a range of tools including resources to improve writing or machine translation systems.

Interuniversity Style Guide for Writing Institutional Texts in English

A style guide designed for people who have to write institutional documents in English.

Writing Guides: Scholarly Publishing

They address issues related to the publication of research work.

Research Writing

The University of Florida University Writing Center is a resource for writing, research and scholary writing.

Anglès per a catalans de Lou Hevly

A selection of tools and resources to help Catalan speakers learn English.

Grammarly

This tool can check your grammar in your browser and offers helpful advice to improve your writing.

Pronunciation

This section offers tools to find out how to pronounce words in different languages.

FORVO

The place where you can find millions of words pronounced in their original language.

howjsay

Online English pronunciation dictionary.

Pronunciation Lessons - 5 Minute English

Pronunciation section of the English teaching website 5 Minute English.

Shiporsheep

English pronunciation website based on the similarities between two sounds.

Corpora

This section has databases with large numbers of words and the contexts in which they appear.

British National Corpus

A 100-million word collection of samples of written and spoken British English from the late 20th century.

Corpus of Contemporary American English

The largest freely available corpus of English, and the only large and balanced corpus of American English.

Springer Exemplar

Springer Exemplar searches the contents of Springer's journals to provide words in context.

Google Books Ngram Viewer

Graphs showing how phrases occur in a corpus of books over a period of time.

Keeping up-to-date

This section has a selection of websites and blogs with news and new developments from the world of languages.

Writing

Vocabulary

English Word Games - Learn English Today

Section of the Learn English Today website for learning English through word games.

Reading

Listening

SUB inglés

A website which offers song videos in English with subtitled lyrics.

BBC News

BBC website in English of the department responsible for current affairs.

Culture

Learn English Network

An NGO which has provided support to students and teachers of English since 1999.

BBC Learning English

A BBC website that has been teaching English since 1943, with free audio, video and written materials