Your dictionary is perhaps the most valuable resource you can have when learning a foreign language. But learning to use a dictionary properly is not as easy as it might appear. Here are some useful tips on how to best use your bilingual dictionary:

• If you are looking up a word that you have heard, but not seen in writing, your guess about its spelling might be wrong. It could also be that you have misinterpreted where one word ends and the next one begins. Try alternative spellings. That's so easy in an online dictionary!
• Words that are colloquial, technical, or specific to one particular region may not be included in the dictionary that you are using. Try reading more of the text to find other clues.
• Be aware what word category you are looking for. The verb 'to walk' and the noun 'a walk' will come in different parts of the entry for 'walk' in a bilingual English dictionary, and may well have totally different foreign-language equivalents (in French, for example, 'marcher' and 'promenade' respectively).
• If you are translating words that are part of a phrase, bear in mind that the target language may express the same idea in a completely different way from the source language: English 'to run out' is unlikely to translate as 'to run' + 'out' in the foreign language.
• There are hardly any examples of a word in one language having an exact equivalent in another. It is much more common to find that a word in one language has two or more alternatives in another. So...
• Don't automatically pick the first equivalent that you come across in a dictionary. Quickly look through all the 'sub-entries' devoted to your source-language word (e.g. the English word 'bar'): first check out all the different grammatical forms (bar (noun), bar (verb), etc.) to find the form you need; then check out the different meaning categories (bar = rod, bar = pub, bar = prohibition) to find the meaning you need. Finally, read carefully through the whole sub-entry for the right meaning category, and choose the best equivalent.
• To get the right word for the concept you want to express, you may also have to look words up in both directions. See how each of the suggested words translates back into the original language, and see which one comes nearest to offering a list of synonyms for the concept you want to express. Then you can be fairly confident of having the right word.
• If the target language word would normally undergo changes depending on rules of grammar, be aware that the correct form may be different from the one given in the dictionary. If you are writing an email on FriendsAbroad, ask your friend to look for such forms and correct them for you.
• Finally, remember that the form of the word that is shown in the dictionary may differ from the form of the word in the text you found it (e.g. you'll never find the English word 'went' unless you already know that it is one of the forms of the verb 'go').