Customer Reviews

The American Heritage LaRousse Spanish Dictionary - Spanish/English - English/Spanish

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The American Heritage Spanish Dictionary is one of the very few books for which I actively seek out opportunities to recommend it. It does what all bilingual dictionaries should do, but what many do not do at all and the rest do not do well. It allows the user to distinguish among all the possible translations of the word without having to flip back and forth between the English and Spanish sides, looking up the back-translation of each possibility. Whereas some dictionaries might define "leaf" as "hoja; hoja, página; folio; lámina," sending you back to the Spanish side to find out which one you wanted, the American Heritage definition of "leaf" looks more like this:

BOT. hoja; (foliage) follaje m, hojas; (sheet of paper) hoja; (page) página; (folio) folio; (sheet of metal) lámina; (of table, door, shutter) hoja; . . .

making it much easier to find the proper translation quickly.

The American Heritage Spanish Dictionary is also one of the few to emphasize American English and Latin American Spanish. It also gives the gender of words even on the English side in cases where the gender is not obvious. The main shortcomings I have encountered are that on occasion a word will appear on one side but not the other and that, because it was published in 1986, it obviously lacks some of the computer terms which had not come into widespread use by then. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this dictionary above the other dozen or so on the market for anyone who needs a well-designed and easier-to-use tool for translating between English and Spanish.

I have had a copy of the American Heritage Spanish Dictionary since the 1990's. My sister was interested in a copy and I bought it and had it sent to her. Excellent book.

I have tried several Spanish/English dictionaries, but this one is the best. It is easy to use and contains many phrases utilizing the specific word that I am looking up. It is very helpful to see the way the word can be used in a sentence, not just alone in isolation as some of the other dictionaries tend to do.

I first used this dictionary in my undergraduate Intensive Spanish class before spending a year in Spain and found it amazingly helpful. It was the first dictionary I encountered that showed me the challenge of communicating ideas between the two languages. With all the dictionaries I've used as a student for 16 years and teacher for 2 and 1/2 years, this is the best English/Spanish dictionary I've encountered. You can't go wrong with it.

I am 13 years old and learning spanish. I have found it to have every word you would ever need.If you are in spanish or considerind learning Sapnish then this book is for you