monolingual Hear it!

monolingual Definition

mono·lin·gual (män′ō liŋgwəl, män′ə-)

adjective

  1. of or in one language
  2. using or knowing only one language

Etymology: mono- + lingual

monolingual Usage Examples

Modifies a noun

  • thesaurus: Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri.
  • dictionary: Students need a great deal of practice to find the intended meaning of words in a particular context, using monolingual dictionaries.
  • corpus: Some of them are monolingual corpora - collections of text from one language.
  • peer: The rates of progress for bilingual learners are generally very much higher than for their monolingual peers.
  • speaker: The impression may be given that all the teachers are monolingual French speakers.
  • pupil: Indeed, we should try to encourage some of our monolingual native pupils to join in the learning of a community language.

Modifying Another Word

  • mainly: Those working in school based provision and providers in mainly monolingual areas find EAL a particular challenge.
  • largely: If they are colleagues from the same country there is a risk that the environment will be largely monolingual and not English-speaking.
  • predominantly: The demand for English language courses in Pakistan is insatiable and puts us predominantly monolingual English speakers to shame.
  • notoriously: He should persuade the notoriously monolingual British to learn a language.

Used with adjective complement

  • remain: What about society's children whose task ours is to ensure that they do not remain determinedly monolingual?