Customer Reviews

The Firefly Spanish/English Visual Dictionary (English and Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are trying to learn Spanish, and not just enough to order a drink in Cancun, then this is a tool I would recommend. I have been studying this language for over seven years and I continue to learn every day. I have just completed a Spanish major at the university, which is no guarantee of fluency. I also lived in Mexico for over a year. Granted, these experiences have greatly improved my Spanish--but do not be fooled. A language is not learned in a few months, (a claim many language programs and books suggest on their covers).

One of the best examples I can think of that would illustrate what I am trying to say would be to ask someone learning Spanish if they can describe how to ride a bicycle in Spanish. This is not hard to do in a native language, but for a learner of a foreign language such a request is a true challenge. Someone like me who has read dozens of books in or about spanish still can't do it. This book has a detailed diagram of a bicycle and with its assistance I believe I could do it.

I feel strongly that in the United States foreign language instruction focuses too much attention on grammar and not nearly enough on vocabulary. Who cares if you can conjugate most verbs in the past subjunctive if you don't even know what the word for elbow is?

I enjoy looking at this book in my spare time. The pictures are lovely and clearly labeled in both Spanish and English. My girlfriend, who does not speak Spanish, even enjoys paging through the book and learing words in English that she does not know, such as the names for different types of hats. She is a doctor and she tells me that the anatomy section is very good.

One drawback of the book is that it uses formal names for things and not the common ones. This can result in an overly academic-sounding Spanish. But I suppose slang is beyond the scope of the book.

This is a book that I would recommend for people at any level of language learning.

I am a teacher of Spanish and own a number of visual dictionaries, including the Firefly Five Language Dictionary, the Firefly Spanish/English Dictionary, the Firefly Mini Spanish/English Dictionary, and the DK Five Language Visual Dictionary. I prefer the Firefly dictionaries because they tactfully include the gender of words as a superscript after the word rather than as an indirect article, as in the DK dictionary. The latter has the ill-effect of creating ambiguous genders in instances where the indirect article is truncated:

For example: garlic - l'ail - der Knoblauch - el ajo - l'aglio

The size of this hardcover edition make it more appropriate for use as a desk dictionary rather than a pocket edition. It does not contain any more information than the Mini edition, but the Firefly Five Language Dictionary contains almost twice as many pages and words. Given that the image layouts used in all of the Firefly dictionaries are from a common master, the page count is a very good indication of the word count. Frankly, the quantity of the words in the hardcover edition is ample for even most advanced students of Spanish. And the absence of the extra three languages makes it less cluttered and confusing.

As with any visual dictionary, this one focuses on nouns. Students of the Spanish will still want to have a quality pocket bilingual dictionary like the Larousse:
Larousse Student Dictionary Spanish-English / English-Spanish (Larousse School Dictionary)

And a quality Spanish-only dictionary like the Dictionario Practico del Estudiante:
Diccionario Practico del Estudiante/ Student Dictionary

This is a superbly organized visual dictionary that is user-friendly and quite comprehensive. PLEASE NOTE -- and nowhere in the descriptions of the book is this mentioned -- that this is a Canadian publication, and this causes differences in vocabulary for terms used in France and other Francophone nations. Whether the omission of "feutre" as the word for a marker or the descriptions of lettuce or many other vocabulary cases, a significant number of these terms, and the items chosen (particularly for food), are NOT those that would be used or found correct in France. This is perfectly fine, of course, but it should be made clear.

I really found this book very helpful in my practice. I have many Spanish speaking patients and this was very helpful in explaining a diagnosis and reviewing anatomy and how the body works. Also,it is an excellent resource for my own tenative and very beginning lanuage skills. It was well worth the price. Excellent pictures and detail!

This is the end all Vocabulary Reference Guide for French. Anything and I mean anything you want to learn or need to know in French is here. Need to know various types of beef or the parts of a computer - all of it is here.

We use this reference with our Spanish-speaking babysitter, and also with our son, whom we're raising to be bilingual. I can't recommend it highly enough. The drawings are so beautifully rendered that I'm half inclined to cut some of them out and put them on my wall. This dictionary is also very comprehensive, especially in terms of items like foods, plants, body parts, etc., which makes it very easy to convey concepts that might be too challenging to try to construct with words for the novice Spanish speaker.

Beginners and more advanced learners alike will enjoy the full-color and detailed illustrations, not only for their visual properties but also because they come labeled with the Spanish and English terms. This is great because you learn both terms--there were some words in English, especially technical and specialized vocabularies, that native English speakers may not even know IN ENGLISH, much less in Spanish!
The only shortcoming of this dictionary for me is that I would have liked to see some more dialectal variants of a given term. For example, the fruits and vegetable pictures are great because you know EXACTLY what item the term refers to, but the terms aren't very exhaustive on what a peach is called in Spain, or in México, or in Chile, etc., but maybe other Spanish students/speakers/learners aren't as concerned with "collecting" all the possible terms for a single object as I am. But all in all, it's a great read, perfect for students of all levels of Spanish and those curious in increasing their vocabulary in either or both languages. Some day I may get the Firefly that has all terms in Spanish, English, French, German and Italian, but I'm not in a huge hurry because my current investment has already given me plenty of "Oh, how neat!" moments.

I bought this book for my sons who have taken Spanish in school and now use it in their jobs. It was recommended by one of their friends who is living in Peru. They love it and use it frequently. I highly recommend it!

This is the most useful dictionary I have ever found for shopping and identifying items in my apartment in France. The visual groupings by category (plumbing parts) allow you to find words you wouldn't even know how to look up in a ordinary dictionary. It's a fixture on the bookshelf in my Paris apartment. I even bought a second one for home here in the USA to help with my emails to France.

The illustrations are great! Just a great book to peruse for the visuals.

The material in the book is VERY comprehensive.

Great book to own for anyone who is learning Spanish or wishes to visually communicate with a Spanish speaking person.