Frequency in Learners’ Dictionaries

The learners' dictionaries that exist for English all contain a restricted number of items. The vocabulary that is described in these dictionaries is selected on the basis of frequency of appearance in English. A far more limited number of items are marked as the most important ones, as these that all students should know at some time, because they constitute the lexical core of the language. The marking of high frequency is done in different ways in the five learners' dictionaries. The data provided are not always very useful and are sometimes inconsistent from dictionary to dictionary. An analysis is made of some samples taken from the five learners. dictionaries of English and the relevance of different types of frequency information is discussed.