28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very useful, but not as complete as I would like it to be., April 10, 2007
This review is from: Sharp PW-E250 Pocket Oxford Spanish English Dictionary & Thesaurus (Office Product)
I am an English and Spanish teacher. I bought this pocket dictionary mostly for my Spanish students. I now have four of them. All of the functions are easy to use, and the definitions are fairly complete and offer the words used in context. The problem is that there are a lot of words that are not in this dictionary. I find that when I try to use this myself, most of the words that I look up are not in the Spanish-English dictionary.
This is a good product for beginning/intermediate users. For advanced users, I recommend getting a Spanish-only dictionary. These, in electronic form, are very difficult to come by, and very expensive.
The English dictionary/thesaurus functions are easy to use and fairly complete. Overall, I recommend it, while acknowledging its limitations. I would prefer something with fewer functions, and a larger, more comprehensive Spanish-English dictionary.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Served me well in Spain, May 18, 2007
This review is from: Sharp PW-E250 Pocket Oxford Spanish English Dictionary & Thesaurus (Office Product)
As a long-ago high school student of Spanish with some exposure to the language on infrequent trips to Puerto Rico and Mexico I needed quick and easy language back-up for a 2 week business/pleasure trip to Spain. The Sharp PW-E250 came through with flying colors. It automatically suggests common and useful phrases, in addition to definitions, when I input even partial Spanish words. This very useful when ordering food, getting travel directions or even making complex purchases (electronic equipment). The Sharp is very easy to use. Simply push the Spanish-English or English-Spanish button (no need to push the start button) and it is instantly ready to translate. Power drain must be minimal -- the single AAA battery is still good after using the translator for my trip and help in translating publications for many weeks after my return. It is compact easy to read in all light conditions in which you would read a printed dictionary, has big enough buttons to avoid fumbling and has a very useful calculator. I find it much faster and more functional than a phrase book or full dictionary. It replaced my desktop Spanish-English dictionary. I highly recommend it.
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74 of 86 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good, backlit everyday English and English-Spanish dictionary, February 2, 2006
This review is from: Sharp PW-E250 Pocket Oxford Spanish English Dictionary & Thesaurus (Office Product)
I actually got this as an on-the-go backup for my main Sharp PW-E550 English electronic dictionary. I'm not using the Spanish-English part of this gadget so can't comment on that part. There are about 90,000 English entries (and another 60,000 Spanish ones). An entry is a word, a phrase, a person's or geographic name, etc. Let's put this way, it has most of the commonly used (English) words. The vocabulary is "PG-13" if you know what I mean, so don't look for vulgar slangs here.
There are basically three dictionaries here:
1. English dictionary and Thesauras (Oxford American Pocket version)
2. English-Spanish
3. Spanish-English
Two salient features of this dictionary are: 1) the keyboard is very comfortable to use (but the layout takes getting used to), and 2) it has backlight, which is fabulous. I love this dictionary. I still need my PW-E550 when I read serious books because that one's got twice as many words and definitions. But for everyday use, e.g., when you read newspapers or just want to have fun with words, this is a good companion. Did I mention it has (green) backlight at the touch of a button?
The dictionary uses one AAA battery. If you don't use backlight, the one battery should last a long time. (I know this because my PW-E550 is very power-efficient.) If you use backlight a lot, obviously you should carry a spare AAA with you.
If you have kids, this is good for up to grade 10 or 11, I believe. After that, a kid needs the bigger-lexicon PW-E550, depending on the quality of your school district, of course.
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