Components: Overhead Transparencies (The Oxford Picture Dictionary)

Excellent language-learning tool. My only gripe with this particular dictionary is its US-American English slant. It would be so much nicer to have at least British-English alternatives where applicable.My ESOL students love working with it, though, which is why it gets a four-star rating.

I bought this for a Chinese boy who I teach GCSE English to. It's very good, but is American English focused, so there are a few entries that are less than clear.

I've just bought this picture dictionary and must admit that I was slightly disappointed when I realised that it purely deals with American English, not British English. As I teach English as a foreign language with a syllabus focusing on British English, this dictionary will not be of much use to me, unfortunately. However, if American English is the topic, this dictionary is very thorough and well presented.

This truly is a fantastic book for teachers & students of English as well as for artists who need reference images. I have been teaching for many years now and rate this as the number one book for English teaching, the supplementary workbook and reader book are of the highest quality and very logically put together and the materials can be adapted to almost any level of learner. What really shines is the artwork, full of life, vivid illustrations that are both clear and full of character. It's a great shame that the newer version of the OPD is full of computer generated imagery that lacks the warmth and character of this book and is obsessively ethnocentric with almost complete focus on the US instead of embracing a wider more balanced international focus. The newer version (while still good in many ways) is a great disappointment compared to this one, would have been so much better to just keep the pictures from this book and change a few images as needed or add some new ones rather than completely ditch one of the greatest works in English language learning ever produced. I truly hope that Oxford will start to republish this book (hope springs eternal), or at least offer it on Kindle. Sincerely hope that the next version of the OPD can perhaps incorporate pictures from this book or aim for the same level of quality in the artwork.

As I bought it for my ESOL classes, I was very disappointed to discover it was American English dictionary. Not much use for me, as I would have to cover up American words with British ones. The language/vocabulary itself not very advanced, so it was waste of money really.

The Oxford Picture Dictionary is one of the best books I have ever seen. The authors classify their book to be based on beginning and lower intermediate level English. If you have studied English as a foreign language for several years, and put a mentionable number of words and verbs in your vocabulary in the fields that are related with your job and hobbies, you might at first think that this book will be too easy for you. However, I believe this is not the real case.Imagine yourself in a hairdresser in America. How would you describe the way you want your hair to be cut or arranged. Or suppose you need to stay in America for sometime and you have some household problems, for example the roof is leaking, or the wall is cracked, or the faucet is dripping... How will you describe the problem on the phone to the related companies? You will find the way in the corresponding topics.Some of the topics might be really very easy. But they just collect the related nouns and verbs together and give you a good chance to refresh your mind by seeing them all together. Especially the verbs, for each topic, are generally organised in a very logical manner and they describe most actions you might need to take in such a situation. Do this, and that, and then those...As the easiest example, of which we are all familiar, I will give the topic 'A classrom'. On a very nice colorful picture which illustrates everything exeptionally well, you will see a number of 'numbers', which number the nouns, and below the picture you will see the corresponding names including: chalkboard, screen, student, overhead projector, teacher, desk, chair/seat, bookcase, globe, clock, cassette player, map, pencil sharpener, bulletin board, computer, chalk, pen, marker, pencil, textbook, workbook, binder/notebook, ruler, dictionary. On other pictures you will find the illustration of a list of verbs which are 'lettered' instead of numbered. And the corresponding explanations, with the verb in bold typeface, raise your hand, talk to the teacher, listen to a cassette, stand up, sit down/take a seat, point to the picture, write on the board, erase the board, open your book, close your book, take out your pencil, put away your pencil. This is only topic one, and there are 139 more topics.Another topic which is about shoes and accessories, lists a number of words that might sound less familiar to a foreigner, for example sole, pumps, loafers, oxfords. But a picture is worth a thousand words! Now, I know what they mean.Yet another topic, 'Symptoms and Injuries', besides many words which I already knew, like headache, toothache, etc, contains some others that I heard for the first time. For example: chills, bruise, blister. The related verbs were the things I learned once, but since I have not used them at all, I just forgot. I had the chance to see them all together and refresh my mind very easily. I can not find any words to explain how much I like the graphical illustrations in this book!In my opinion, in this dictionary each picture has just enough number of items to be explained. If much more details are tried to be given, you might easily be overwhelmed. As an example I can give The Oxford-Duden Pictorial English Dictionary, which I bought some time ago, and which now I completely regret. It might be suitable for an extra-advanced native English speaker, I don't know. But I know quite well that it is not for an intermediate speaker for whom English is a foreign language. It contains many words which I don't know even in my native language and I don't think I will ever need to learn them.As a conclusion, after these very long comments, I can say in short, "If you were searching for a very nice pictorial dictionary, you have already found one, just buy it and you will not regret. If somehow you find it very easy for yourself, or if you finish it in a very short time, give it to your children or your friends' children. They will 'enjoy' learning English with this book..."As a last comment, this is a monolingual edition, so it is completely in English. If you are interested with other foreign languages, like Spanish, Polish, Chinese, etc, this series has bilingual editions, too. Therefore, I don't think it will be necessary to buy this monolingual edition, if you will buy one of those bilingual editions, which as far as I understand contain and teach both the corresponding language and English... Besides, the prices are very close to each other. So, think twice...Even though I give this advice, I, myself, have already bought the monolingual edition and now, having realized the presence of the bilingual editions 'a little bit' late, am thinking about buying the Polish edition also. After buying it I will see if it really teaches English also, or what... You might find the answer to this question in my future comments for that book...Aren't there any drawbacks of this book? Well, until now I could not find anything very important. Just as a small note I can mention the mistake on page 144, where item number one was called as CPU even though it is the computer case, not the CPU. The inside of the case is not seen in the picture and a CPU is for sure only one of the components inside a case. However I guess just one mistake in some thousands of words is not that important...