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40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Most complete decoder of Spanish/English I've seen, December 3, 2003
This review is from: HarperCollins Spanish Unabridged Dictionary, 7e (Harpercollins Unabridged Dictionaries) (Hardcover)
I've been studying Spanish for about 20 years, on and off and have collected a sizeable library of dictionaries and study books, on the erroneous thought that the more books I had, the faster I'd learn. Just because I didn't read or study them, didn't matter. Right. I have since begun conversational studies at Rice University and I'm now truly learning. This dictionary has made that exercise much less frustrating. (Along with the + The layout is such that when I'm looking for a translation of an English phrase, I can go through a complete list of many translations in one entry and find the exact meaning I want. That's terrific. No more flipping back and forth between the English phrase and the listed Spanish words to discover the correct Spanish word. This is the most complete offering of English-Spanish I've seen. It also includes additional information on which countries use specific words and pronunciations. And most importantly, it includes all the recent technological and business words. I believe all students would find the presentation efficient. This book sits on my desk open all time. It is my best reference tool.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughts on the Spanish-English dictionary par excellence, May 31, 2005
This review is from: HarperCollins Spanish Unabridged Dictionary, 7e (Harpercollins Unabridged Dictionaries) (Hardcover)
Anyone who wants to buy an up-to-date, unabridged Spanish-English dictionary can choose from three heavyweight contenders: Larousse, Oxford and Harper Collins. I was leaning toward the Oxford (its cover boasts of some 800,000 entries) until I read a review from Publishers Weekly. That review, in part, reads as follows: Though its layout is the least elegant of the three, the Harper Collins provides the strongest coverage of Latin American slang. For example, it's the only dictionary we reviewed that gave all the various meanings of perico, a curious word that, depending on the context and location, can mean parakeet, toupee, cocaine, milky coffee, or scrambled eggs with fried onions. The Harper Collins dictionary also goes a step further than grammar review with its "Language in Use" section, which presents a painstaking introduction to business writing style in both English and Spanish. This section, which helps readers find equivalents for such hard-to-translate expressions as "Me he enterado con gran tristeza de la muerte de tu..." for "I was very sad to learn of the death of...," teaches users how to phrase a job application letter, how to pronounce an e-mail address, and how to draft an official apology, among other business necessities. ... I also noticed three of the online reviewers at this site wrote that the Oxford has a flimsy cover that is prone to ripping. That was the clincher for me. I wanted the best dictionary for my money -- one that was both thorough and durable, especially given the expense of buying a hardcover unabridged dictionary. The Harper Collins has been worth every penny. The "Language in Use" section mentioned above is fabulous and might be this dictionary's most practical feature. And as a translator, I need as much information on usage and connotation as possible. Once again, this dictionary more than makes the grade. Bear in mind it's a desk reference book, not a pocket reference book, so it's hardly the ideal travel companion. But if your needs call for nothing less than heavy artillery, and you want to pay for an unabridged Spanish-English dictionary only once, then the Harper Collins deserves the top place on your list.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I would sleep with it under my pillow if it weren't so thick!, April 21, 2006
This review is from: HarperCollins Spanish Unabridged Dictionary, 7e (Harpercollins Unabridged Dictionaries) (Hardcover)
Let me start with, I have the 8th Edition of this dictionary, but I loved it so much that I wanted to write a review, and I couldn't find it on Amazon... When I began corresponding with a Spaniard who did not speak English, I realized that my dinky little pocket Spanish-English dictionary was not working. Between his use of slang, and me being at only an intermediate level of Spanish, I knew I needed to go to the bookstore before I could finish trying to understand his emails. At first, I looked for slang dictionaries, but the majority of them are pretty juvenile and might include only the curse words. Further, the words I wasn't finding in my dictionary weren't curse words, they were just new words or even just common idioms. I looked through every dictionary at the store and decided to buy the first that contained the word "tapear" (seems dumb now, but I didn't know it at the time). This dictionary was the only one that I found with such new words like that. The format of the book is incredibly easy to decipher, and furthermore, it's just plain helpful. It even indicates the level of "casualness" of a word or phrase, so you can avoid embarrassing yourself in certain company. Also, this dictionary gives a very extensive list of idioms right there in the entry for the most important word in the idiom. This is extremely helpful, and the English translations capture the feeling of the sentiment very very well. Not only has this dictionary helped me communicate much more effectively in Spanish when I email my Spanish friend, it's helped me actually improve my Spanish generally. I just can't recommend this dictionary highly enough. My only regret is that I paid so much for it at the bookstore instead of getting this edition on Amazon for much less...
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