Customer Reviews

The American Heritage Larousse Spanish Dictionary

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Just before my husband & I took off to Spain for a week, I shopped for a dictionary that would help two non-spanish speaking visitors. Except for a handful of words, we don't speak the language, but still enjoy the culture, food, etc. So I went onto Amamzon to see if they had a dictionary that would be half as helpful as the one we carried when we traveled to France and Italy.

I should NOT have listened to what the reviews I read! I knew when we were in trouble when we arrived in our hotel room and I could not find the one-word descriptions on how to work the air conditioner. The rest was down hill. I could not find the key words (fish, chicken, pork, etc) found on most of the menus. Fortunatley for us, many of the people we came into contact spoke some English, but when we have traveled to a foreign country we have always felt the importance of being able to communicate, even on a very basic level, in the language of the land.

Oh Well, this did not happen in Spain, not because we did not want to - but our pocket companion was a major disappointment.

My suggestion is to keep shopping, and when you do find a good dictionary for Spanish/English - English/Spanish, that is also pocket size (purse), let the folks at Amazon.com know so they can start to carry it.

I was very disappointed when I received this dictionary today. The print is so small that I cannot read it. I tried using a small magnifing glass but to no avial. I am 45 years old and attend college, my vision is 20-20 with my glasses and I can still read the phone book. But this type is just too small. Any suggestions on a different dictionary with average print.

I am a college student who went abroad to Spain a year ago and planning to go to Nicaragua in a month, and as soon as possible I will be buying a different English/Spanish dictionary. This dictionary is often NOT accurate in its translations and leaves me scrambling to figure out the 'real' meaning of what I just wrote. It was okay for Spanish classes in high school (hence the 2 stars), but if you want to have good translations, look elsewhere. My Spanish professor's big thing is "Don't transfer phrases literally from Spanish to English," but this dictionary offers few other options. Each entry has a few different definitions, but I can often NOT find the exact meaning I'm looking for. My friend (who has been to Spain twice) owns the "Dic-Merriam Webster's Spanish English Dictionary" and it is FAR superior. There are tons of different meanings or situations offered for each word, and sample sentences often accompany the definition. It's also a paperback, not that much bigger than the American Heritage paperback, and offers a lot more quality. When my Spanish-english dictionary leaves me in doubt, I run down 7 flights of stairs for hers (now that's proof of my hatred of this [American Heritage] dictionary).
Trust me - do not waste your money on the American Heritage Spanish-English dictionary; there are enough other dictionaries out there for the same price, convenient size, and with much better translations.

(From Planeta.com Journal) - Kudos to the editors and publishers of this dictionary. It's the one I have used for the past ten years. Of course, my book is now bandaged several times, but I couldn't bear to part with the single most useful book I used to learn Spanish. Thanks!

This compact, portable (useful for traveling)paperback is essentially a small-print edition of the hardback by the same name(Houghton Mifflin,1989). After many years as an English-speaker studying Spanish I find it more useful than any other inexpensive Spanish- English,English-Spanish dictionary: thus it has colloquialisms both Spanish and English, and some slang. I recommend it highly.

This book helped me greatly in my Spanish class with its verb table and list of irregular verbs. I would recommend this book to any Spanish student.

I had never been to Honduras before and had very limited Spanish. There were times when those who knew Spanish would ask to borrow my dictionary because they were having trouble finding the right word. The list of usages for words and phrases was very helpful. The size was perfect for my pants pocket. I was able to leave it with a new found friend to help him with his English. I will be getting another copy for my trip next year.

I was in Guatemala for a year, and this dictionary consistently met 95% of my needs. And it was small enough to travel with easily. It's excellent because it includes lots of colloquial uses of a word and lots of examples. In my mind, this dict. meets both the needs of the serious student, and the traveler.

This is the best Spanish/English dictionary that I have used. I have never looked up a word and not found it in this book, which can not be said for most similar dictionaries. It also gives you suggested usages and similar words that might fit better for your purpose. The only drawback is that it is out of print and is slightly dated as to technical words, etc.

I bought this dictionary when I was in high school, just learning Spanish, and kept it all through college when I was a language major and when I studied abroad in Costa Rica. While it may not have every word you want, it has MANY more than you'd expect and it is a great size. It has tons of expressions and idioms that will help you out. It can be tough to find some things, but once you learn how to look for key words in an expression you'll be surprised at how much is in there. I think this is really worth buying, especially if you want to learn Spanish, not just study it.