These guides will help you to understand and use the pronunciation symbols used in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) and the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary (OAAD). The two dictionaries use slightly different pronunciation systems. OALD uses a system that will be more familiar to learners of British English in Europe and elsewhere. The OAAD system represents American English pronunciation only and will be more familiar to learners of American English, especially within the United States.
This guide explains the symbols and labels used in our dictionaries:
Here you can find information about our wordlists, for example the Oxford 3000 list of the most important words to learn in English:
Use our Text Checker tool to assess the difficulty of any English text. Find out which words in a text are included in the Oxford 3000 and the Academic Word List.
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