Most dictionaries will tell you a number of things about a language. There are three important things. These three things are spelling, pronunciation(发音) and meaning.

    First, a dictionary will tell you the spelling of a word. If you are not sure about the spelling of a word, you can try to find the correct spelling in a dictionary. Words are listed in an alphabetical (字母表的) order —— a, b, c and so on. For example, on a dictionary page the "poor" comes before "poverty" and the word "poverty" comes before the "power".

    The words are always given in alphabetical order. The second thing, a dictionary will tell you the pronunciation. Most dictionaries give phonetic, or sound alphabet. The phonetic alphabet (音标) shows pronunciation. The third thing, a dictionary will tell you the meaning of words. You can look up a word and find out what it means. Many words have more than one meaning, and a good dictionary will tell you all of the word's meanings. For example, in English the common word "get" has over 20 different meanings.