Customer Reviews

Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fantastic dictionary. I spent quite a bit of time on amazon researching the best Spanish/English Dictionary. This one lives up to all of the positive reviews below.

I have found this to be very helpful. One nice feature is that if you look up a conjugated verb, it actually appears in the dictionary with a cross reference back to the unconjugated verb.

It also has several tenses of the words, so you can say the right thing even if you're wanting to speak in the past tense. I also like the sample sentences that it gives for many words...you can easily see how the word would actually be used.

It's also conveniently small in width and height. But still packs a lot in!

This book packs a lot of bang for your buck. Being the third dictionary I've owned, I am very pleased. Contains great phrasing examples and is well-organized. Has 80,000 entries, including modern terms and expressions. And it's small enough that you can pack it around with you! I highly recommend this as your choice of dictionary.

While good in every other way, this dictionary is missing a vital part for anyone who wants to be able to communicate without embarrassment. It neglects to warn of vulgar words and phrases. It skips from "shirt" to "shiver" in the English section. On the Spanish side, it fails to tell that, while "coger" is a perfectly ordinary and acceptable way to say "to take" in Spain, it is very vulgar in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. There are many other examples, but it is not necessary to cite them here.
Whether you are looking to offend or looking to avoid offending, Merriam-Webster's will not help you. Always check. If this feature is missing, keep looking. The University of Chicago Spanish-English Dictionary, Cassell's Spanish & English Dictionary , and others do list and warn of vulgar and extremely vulgar words in both English. Whatever they cost, they are a much better buys.

This is a very powerful mini dictionary at a very competitive price. It contains explanations, examples and phrases making it far more useful for travel than the smaller pocket dictionaries. It has also replaced my desk dictionary as it contains more recent words, is better organized and easier to use. If you're looking for a "one-size-fits-all" book this one is worth checking out.

This is the only spanish-english dictionary I've ever owned. I've used several over the 8 years that I've spent learning Spanish, but this is by far the best one. It's lay-out is very easy to read/understand, plus there's great conjugations, examples, etc. that make it very user-friendly. Not to mention, there's tons of words that you don't find in many Span-Engl dictionaries.

The pocket size is nice, however that's about the only thing I liked about this dictionary. I can't believe how often I can't find the words I look up. Also, if you hold the Spanish-English pages with your fingers, it is half as thick as the English-Spanish section, and it has a very cheap feel to it.

I also have the NEW WORLD "CONCISE" SPANISH DICTIONARY, and even though it is a little bigger, it is much much better. I bought this one because I gave my CONCISE to a relative. I ended up buying another CONCISE.

The Merriam-Webster paperback Spanish-English Dictionary is an excellent reference for my high school Spanish classes. I teach 1st through 3rd year Spanish and I recommend this book to all my students. Not only does it contain 80,000 words and 100,000 translations, its comprehensive treatment and vast store of various usages and phrases is invaluable to a student learning Spanish (and a teacher teaching it). The first 20-some pages explain how to best use the dictionary, and the next 40 pages are a mini-course in Spanish grammar, punctuation, and parts of speech. And at a listed price of $6.50 it is a bargain! Besides straight definitions of words, many synonyms and idioms are included. I highly recommend this dictionary to anyone needing to translate from English to Spanish or Spanish to English.

My daughter is learning Spanish via computer curriculum and my rusty memory. This book has been a tremendous aid in building vocabulary, as well as bringing understanding to the conjugation of verbs. Its ease of use makes her bring it to our workplace so she can converse with the bilingual people there.

This dictionary is simply excellent. It's one of the best bilingual English-Spanish/Spanish-English dictionaries I've ever seen on the market - better than VOX's, Cassell's, Oxford, and other brands. The reason it's better is because the definitions are clearer, more precise, and easier to use. The dictionary is laid out in the typical Merriam-Webster format. Example phrases are given with many definitions, and definitions of idioms are also given under word entries, with the idioms highlighted in bold.

Since Spanish pronunciation is very regular, the dictionary doesn't give any pronunciations to the words, but the English words all have standard IPA pronunciations.

This dictionary, though, seems to be aimed slightly more at native English speakers. There is a good overview of Spanish grammar and pronunciation at the front, but there is no English grammar tutorial in Spanish. Also, the appendices all have English headings, and so does the preface. Disregarding the front and back matter, though, the English-Spanish part of the dictionary is an excellent decoder of the English language for Spanish speakers, while also helpful for English speakers (some other dictionaries, like Langenscheidt, specifically designs one of their sections to either "decode" or "express" another language, but this dictionary does both). In the English-Spanish section, examples of English idioms are given to help Spanish speakers, and vice versa.

I really found this to be an dispensable resource. Looking up a word is really fast, and you get a clear, accurate, precise, and Merriam-Webster styled translation. ?Muy bien!

For use in my English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, I bought several different dictionaries. I find that both I, and my students, reach for this one much more frequently than the other references available. Even for twice the money, you will have a hard time making a better choice.