PASSPORT - Second Edition

The PASSPORT English Learner's Dictionary has undergone its first thorough editorial revision since publication in 1996. The new Second Edition will start serving as the basis for new language versions appearing by the end of the year.

Created by Yaakov Levy and Raphael Gefen, PASSPORT is designed for young pre-intermediate learners, in particular pupils in junior high (lower secondary) and in the upper grades of primary school, and weaker learners in high (upper secondary school.

The language versions published so far include Bulgarian, Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Estonian, Italian, Hebrew, Latvian, Lithuanian and Thai. In preparation are Chinese (Simplified), French, Greek, Malay, Romanian and Slovak.

The recent major revision as profited from and incorporated the feedback received from publishing partners in different countries. In general, its focus can be divided as follows:

(a) corrections, changes and additions to the existing entries, with an emphasis on more synonyms and references to American/British English;

(b) the introduction of new entries including (1) new words widely used at all levels, especially but not only in the field of hi-tech and computers (e.g. email, e-learning, Internet), (2) existing everyday words which were not included in the earlier version but are more common now (e.g. ethnic), and (3) new meanings to existing entries (e.g. cool);

(c) in a number of cases, entries specifically relevant to different languages and societies have been entered at the request of the local editor.

The English-L1 section of PASSPORT has 12,000 entries and 16,000 meanings. Each version includes an extensive L1-English part, appendices on the English language and grammar, dictionary exercises, and illustrations.

The PASSPORT Electronic Dictionary is being adapted in line with the recent editorial revision and its software upgraded. The first new versions to incorporate the PASSPORT revision in electronic form will be Traditional Chinese and Greek.

passp2@kdictionaries.com