Hi?

1. The first kind I am looking for is an online one, which has pronounciations. The only one that I know that has (or rather, used to have this) is m-w.com but for whatever reason their pronunciation thingies don't work for me. Can someone help me find one that pronounces words for me please?

2. The other kind that I am looking for is the kind that explains the differences/subtle nuances between similar words. For example, it would place "struggle" and "flounder" side by side, then explain the difference/s between them. I find this to be extremely, extremely, extremely useful, however I don't know where to find, because I don't even know what this kind of dictionary is called.

Thanks so much.

Many languages don't have the massive word variety that English possesses, so I'd say you'd be good with just one word. What language are you trying to pick up?

I don't think you'll find any dictionaries like that. A thesaurus will tell you synonyms, and a good one will provide examples of how the different words are used, but...the best way to understand these similar-yet-different words is to repeatedly see them in context. Reading a lot will help. And speaking of reading, usually the difference between such words is that one is literary or dated, while one is conversational.

With your particular example, by the way, "flounder" would be most closely associated with a fish flopping around on land after being pulled out of water. It CAN have a connotation of "struggle" (ie. "struggling to stay alive", or "floundering around while struggling to untie yourself"), but I don't think you can consider it a true synonym.

words to google: wordnet, moby, rita