A.S. Hornby 为現代英和中辞典写的前言[1978]
来源：https://www.pdawiki.com/forum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=48061
PREFACE
This English-Japanese dictionary is based on my monolingual English dictionaries which have been used in Japan for many years. Monolingual dictionaries have advantages and disadvantages. Definition in English provides the user with the opportunity of learning through English, of becoming able, in time, to think in English. Monolingual dictionaries are especially useful for those heavy-duty words (the determinatives, adverbial particles, prepositions, and such verbs as come, go, set, put, take which combine so freely with adverbial particles and prepositions). Such words need far more than a mere equivalent in Japanese. They need full treatment to illustrate usage. They need very numerous illustrative phrases and sentences.
There are thousands of words, however, which cannot easily or accurately be defined simply in English. Names of animals could be defined accurately by supplying zoological references. An armadillo is dasypus novemcinctus and this provides complete identification for students of zoology whatever language they may have as their mother tongue. It does not help the student of English who has no knowledge of zoological terms. If he reads that the armadillo is a small burrowing animal of South America, with a body covered with a shell of bony plates, and the habit of rolling itself up into a ball when attacked, he has some idea of the animal. Such a description (hardly a definition) is a help, and an illustration may give further help. For such words, however, the Japanese equivalent is preferable.
This is true of other classes of words — in botany and anatomy, for instance. The bilingual dictionary is useful for these words because identification is precise and is made quickly.
If a bilingual dictionary such as this English-Japanese dictionary can provide accurate and time-saving Japanese equivalents and, at the same time, provide the advantages of a monolingual dictionary for the classes of words which benefit from fuller treatment, it should be of great value to the learner.
Professor Kasahara and his colleagues have given all their skill and experience to the work of preparing this new dictionary. Their knowledge of the special needs of Japanese students has enabled them to add new features and I am grateful to them.
London 1978
A.S. Hornby
参考：
- A. S. Hornby (1898–1978) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._S._Hornby
- 几大著名的英语高阶词典居然都没有日语版 https://www.pdawiki.com/forum/forum.php?mod=redirect&goto=findpost&ptid=48041&pid=2843498
- http://www.kaitakusha.co.jp/book/book.php?c=319
