17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get the Best German Dictionary on the Market!, September 13, 2006
This review is from: Collins German Unabridged Dictionary 5th Edition (Harpercollins Unabridged Dictionaries) (Hardcover)
This is the best German dictionary by far that I have used in the past 30 years, it's truly outstanding.
New terms in this 5th edition: blog, civil union, first responder, identity theft, mujaheddin, picture messaging, reality TV, and rollover. This book is thumb-indexed to help you quickly find the word you're looking for.
There are two ISBNs, one for the version published in New York (ISBN 0060733810) and one for the version published in the U.K. (ISBN 0-00-712630-1).
My book has a different cover than the one pictured (it's red, white, blue and gold), and has 2108 pages, probably because it's the New York edition.
It covers the following material in this order:
Adjectives and Adverbs
General rules for forming the genitive
Pronunciation of German, of English, and of phonetic symbols
English to German dictionary
German to English dictionary
German strong verbs and conjugation
Numerals
Weights and measures
Time and date
The German spelling reform that became effective in mid-2005
Other HarperCollins German dictionaries you may like:
German College Dictionary ISBN 0-06-051532-5
German Concise Dictionary ISBN 0-06-057577-8
Beginner's German Dictionary ISBN 0-06-273753-8
HarperCollins bilingual dictionaries are also available for Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, Irish, Russian and Japanese. See the HarperCollins web site for details.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
there are better options, but this is very useful as a backup, May 13, 2008
This is a very big translation dictionary, with a huge number of words, translations, and example sentences --- although I can't quite figure out how they came up with the number 900,000. There is also lots of nice supplementary information about how to use German in various situations. The visual format is attractive.
Unfortunately it is not sufficient by itself for learning German vocabulary, because it does not include important information such as the plural forms of nouns. It's really most useful for TRANSLATING.
Also, the paper is a bit delicate, which makes flipping through it to look up words a slow process. This is perhaps inevitable because the dictionary is so big --- unless, here's an idea: how cool would it be if they would print the dictionary in two volumes, one of which is German-English and the other of which is English-German! After all most of the time you only want to use one or the other.
My favorite German dictionary is Langenscheidts Großwörterbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache. This is entirely in German, so you need some basic knowledge of German before you can use it, but it is meant for learners, and gives really detailed definitions along with practical information about how to use words. By comparison, Collins appears to define maybe twenty or thirty percent more German words, but gives less useful information about them. Of course Collins also has English to German, and for translating some words, such as names of plants or animals, a German-German dictionary is not much help. I recommend using Langenschedits GDaF as soon as you are advanced enough to use it, and use something like Collins Unabridged as a backup if you can't find the desired information there. If you are a beginner, you might want a smaller translation dictionary (Collins comes in several sizes).
Note: I'm reviewing the 5th edition. My understanding is that the 7th edition is very similar. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
superb dictionary, February 15, 2007
This review is from: Collins German Unabridged Dictionary 5th Edition (Harpercollins Unabridged Dictionaries) (Hardcover)
I am a foreign language teacher and did a huge search for a German dictionary to support my self-education in German. This is the only up to date German dictionary which is easy to read and beautifully designed. The blue ink used for the words in contrast with the black ink for the text makes this dictionary very easy to use. There is a center section with very useful information, for example how to set up a business letter, an informal note, salutations and greetings, etc. It is a large book, but I am confident after my research that there is nothing better on the market which has modern updates.
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