Customer Reviews

Collins German Unabridged Dictionary, 7th Edition (Harpercollins Unabridged Dictionaries)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I asked my german teachers at the Goethe-Instut as well as the director of the German classes at Goethe what German dictionary I should pick up and none of them hesitated a second in recommending the Collins German Unabridged Dictionary. If you love words and dictionaries and want the end-all reference for all things German language, this is it. But this is not a pocket reference. It is the size of any unabridged dictionary you can imagine. That said, this isn't just a German-language dictionary, this is a translation dictionary -- both English/German and German/English as well as a large appendix on cultural usage and protocol. I am a long way from really needing this academic-level translation dictionary, but I am a geek and enjoy paging through it when I have a chance.

The wording is limitless, I work for a German company and used it while on site for mainly technical phrases. There wasn't a word that I couldn't find and that inclused a lot of slang. I will say this is not a great book for airtravel, it is gigantic and weighs about 5 lbs.

This is a great dictionary to have regardless of how new you are to German. With over 850,000 entries, this is not only a standard German-English, English-German dictionary, it includes dozens of idiomatic permutations for nearly every entry, helping with context, sentence structure, conversational usage--everything. It's especially good for students and businesspeople who need to strengthen their German. This dictionary has proven to be very helpful even in the short time since I've bought it, and I can definitely say that it was money well spent.

My school district purchased 8 copies for my German classroom. This dictionary has a type face that is easy to read and the English section is found in the front, which my students prefer. The best features are the focus on colloquial usage and the extensive inclusion of idiomatic phrases and meanings. It is, in my opinion, simply the best German-English dictionary available.

I have been using this dictionary for about a year and a half during graduate studies in Semitic languages, since German is one of the languages in which many important books and articles in the field are written. I have found this Collins unabridged dictionary to be very useful. I have rarely come across a word that I could not find in this dictionary, though sometimes I have to look up the components of long compound words separately; it would be impossible for a dictionary to list every single combination of compounds that an author might think to put together. In any case, this dictionary has almost never let me down and I highly recommend it.

I have the 6th edition of this dictionary, rather than the 7th edition listed here. (Collins likes to release new editions of its bilingual dictionaries rather frequently.) However, the general character of the dictionary is the same; the 7th edition has just added some new terms.

I used this book for a German reading knowledge class. Though it has many terms and offers multiple translations for idiomatic uses, it occasionally did not offer the translation that my instructor thought was most correct or the best translation was not always the first translation. I did find the grammar section useful, and looking up terms was easy/well organized. Additionally it has cultural explanations for terms unique to Germany and German culture.

I considered writing a long essay eulogizing the superlative qualities of this dictionary, but have decided to limit myself to saying this: THIS Collins Unabridged Dictionary, The Seventh Edition, will meet the standards and requirements of the most exacting and demanding translator! You are not going to have to look up all your Oxfords, Cambridges, Longmans and Websters anymore, for there is everything here in this beautifully created German Dictionary!