Customer Reviews

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

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When you are buying a novel or a biography, the content of the paperback edition is likely to be identical to that of the hardback. Unfortunately, when you are buying a dictionary, the paperback is usually a different book entirely! Consider, for example, that the hardback version of this book claims 120,000 words and phrases, while the paperback claims only 70,000--just 58% of the words and phrases contained in the original. Consider also that the hardback appears to be written in 9- or 10-point type, while the paperback type is a point or two smaller. The paperback's faded print on gray paper is also hardly equal to the hardback's sharp print on white paper.

The main advantage of the paperback is that it is more portable, but at 3 pounds, the hardback is hardly bulky (unlike the 5+ pound Oxford Spanish Dictionary, Second Edition, which is excellent, but even for being nearly twice as heavy and twice as expensive, is not even once as good as the American Heritage for precise and correct translations--though the Oxford is more up to date, and better for slang and colloquialisms). As paperbacks go, this is probably one of the better ones, but the hardback version is the only one I feel comfortable recommending.

Here, for example, are words included in the hardback but excluded from the paperback:

meadowlark, meagerness, meagre, mealie, meal ticket, meanness, mean time, measureless, measurer, meat loaf, meat market, mechanical drawing, mechanical engineering, mechanist, mechanization, mediacy, mediaeval, media event, Medicaid, medical examiner, Medicare, medicine man, medievalism, medievalist, mediterranean, Mediterranean fever, medium of exchange, medulla, medulla oblongata, meerschaum, megacycle, megalith, and megapolis. These are the words missing from one-page's worth of the paperback edition's 616 pages.

Here, for comparison, are the entries for "below"; first, the paperback's entry:

below ([pronunciation here]) I. adv. abajo; (in a text) más abajo II. prep. (por) debajo de; (on a scale) bajo (b. zero = bajo cero).

And now, the hardback's entry for the same word:

below ([pronunciation here]) I. adv. (beneath) abajo; (downstairs) abajo; (farther down) más abajo; (in hell) en el infierno; (on earth) aquí abajo; (in a lesser rank) por debajo de; MARIT. en una cubierta inferior II. prep. (beneath) debajo de; (lower than) por debajo de (b. sea level = por debajo del nivel del mar); (lower in degree) inferior a, bajo (temperatures b. zero = temperaturas bajo cero); (unworthy) indigno de.

It should be clear from these examples why I recommend only the hardback edition--not the paperback!

The main disadvantage of this dictionary is that, because it was published in 1986, it is missing the terms that have become current since then--most notably, computer-related terms. It is, however, so well-edited and precise that I still highly recommend the hardback edition. My only wish would be that American Heritage (Houghton Mifflin) and Larousse would someday put out a new, updated edition of the hardback.

The dictionary is in great condition and the order arrived early than I was expecting.