Customer Reviews

Wiley's English-German, German-English Business Dictionary

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If you are doing much business with German companies, you need to have this book. I work for a German company and get much e-mail in German. Relying on the web translation sites, my rudimentary knowledge of German, or my basic German dictionary is not enough. Many business terms are not easily translated. Some terms, when broken down to there component parts, can make no sense at all. Wiley's English-German-English Business dictionary has been quite valuable in translating the lengthier terms not contained in these other sources. It is easy to use with its large fonts and 'airy' layout. You can quickly find that mysterious word you can't otherwise translate. I keep it right next to my PC.

This clean and straightforward layout does have a drawback. It can be a bit simplistic. It does also contain some more commonly used German words and those translations can be a little on the light side. Much like English, some German words can have several layers of meaning. It seems only the more common usages are contained. You would be advised to keep a more robust (e.g. Harper Collins Unabridged) translation dictionary handy for cross-reference.

Overall, I must highly recommend this dictionary. I wish I had found it sooner - it may have averted one or two mildly embarrassing misunderstandings.

Potential purchasers may find useful the authors' description of their procedure for selecting words for inclusion in this dictionary: a computerized word frequency study of "materials and texts used in the teaching of international business courses" at the American Graduate School of Management, where they teach, "as well as documents supplied by AGSIM alumni currently holding management positions in international business." That is, this is a dictionary of the language used by business people, not specifically a dictionary of business terms. Accordingly most of the entries are similar to those that might be found in a general, basic, bilingual dictionary. The large type and simple, sometimes single-word definitions will appeal to a reader who is equipped with only a basic facility in German. Indeed, many of the definitions, though of business terms, do not particularly go beyond what would be found in a general German-English dictionary. Likewise, some specific technical business and finance terms do not appear at all.

This book includes a bunch of special management words, but has a lack of words in economics.