They can be used across the curriculum for a range of activities, for example: French, Polish, they will be able to use a dictionary at an earlier stage than learners whose first language is, for example, Arabic or Chinese. If the written form of their first language is the same as or similar to English, e.g. EAL learners can be at any stage of English language proficiency, as long as they are able to decode English script. Examples of activitiesīilingual dictionaries are particularly useful for learners with good literacy skills in their first language.

Software such as Google translate does not cope well with, for example, technical subject-specific language or literary texts. A more useful dictionary will give some sentences in both languages to exemplify how it might be used: l’abîme qui nous sépare = the gulf or chasm between us, être au fond de l’abîme = to be in the depths of despair.īilingual dictionaries and translation software can also be useful tools for teachers when used for short simple sentences which are as unambiguous as possible. For example, the word abîme in a French-English dictionary might just give a couple of words with the same meaning in English: abyss, gulf. The best bilingual dictionaries give examples of the word in context rather than just synonyms. The authors of the second edition of this dictionary took on the seemingly impossible task of settling the lexicon of the vocabulary of Quebec’s private law of the family.Bilingual dictionaries, including online bilingual dictionaries and translation software, are specialist dictionaries that can be used to translate from one language to another. Other changes have resulted from the legislature’s welcome efforts to improve the English version of the Civil Code, and occasionally alter the French text, consonant with the idea that both languages are equally rich, and equally authoritative, expressions of Quebec civil law. The Quebec legislature’s enactment of a new Code of Civil Procedure also changed numerous elements of “civil justice” affecting family matters. What impact has all of this had on the vocabulary of the law as recorded in the Private Law Dictionary:Family?Īrguably the most significant changes from the lexicographers’ vantage are those adopted in 2002 by the legislature of Quebec in An Act instituting civil unions and establishing new rules of filiation. Over the last two decades, legislatures, judges, notaries, advocates, legal scholars, and of course families themselves have taken steps, or chosen not to, that have reshaped the normative contours of family life in Quebec. Private Law Dictionary and Bilingual Lexicons, Second EditionĪuteur(s) : Centre P.A.Crépeau droit privé /comparé

Bilingual law dictionary