Abstract
Current research shows that learners use dictionaries mainly to look up meanings, and generally prefer bilingual over monolingual look-ups. Despite the remarkable advances that have taken place in pedagogical lexicography over the past decades, many features of learners’ dictionaries remain underexploited. Based on the premise that these dictionaries tend to be underused primarily because learners are insufficiently aware of their reference needs, this exploratory study examines what resources a group of 211 non-native speakers of English would choose to use when confronted with the demand to look up other types of linguistic information, beyond L1-L2 equivalents. The results suggest that reference preferences can change dramatically under these circumstances (the bilingual dictionary no longer being a favourite), and that learners do not know where to look up much of the information they need.