Larousse Pocket Dictionary/Larousse Diccionario Pocket: Spanish-English, English-Spanish/Espanol-Ingles, Ingles-Espanol

I'm in my 5th year of Spanish and currently in high school. This dictionary works well for me. It's easy to use and easy to understand.

Larousse offers a great pocket bilingual dictionary for persons who are studying Spanish--or even Spanish speakers studying English, for that matter. As pocket dictionaries go, this IS one of the better ones. It is also very lightweight so you can carry it with you if you go to school or the library to study; this is a big help to many students. One reviewer notes that when Larousse updates their dictionaries they do more than window dressing--and this reviewer is right. You get great entries that reflect the changing times: the definitions of "software," "hostile takeover" and baby sitter" are all included in this latest edition of the dictionary. Moreover, you DO get different words that reflect the different nuances of a word whenever necessary. For example, the English word hysterical is translated not just once but twice for your benefit. The first translation of "hysterical" is for frantic (histérico) and the other for very funny (tronchante). Very good! The dictionary also includes entries for "foul" language; this also helps the user. The pages are made of thin paper but it's more than sufficient for the student; but please remember that this is an inexpensive pocket dictionary. The typeface is easy to read and I like how you can use this dictionary to translate back and forth by looking up entries in either Spanish or English. I recommend this pocket dictionary for all students of Spanish. It will be particularly useful for persons who need to carry a dictionary when they are on the go; and students at the more elementary levels of instruction will be more than pleased with this dictionary. If you are an advanced student or if you want a more comprehensive dictionary, however, you will need to keep looking.

My Master's thesis was a review and rating of Spanish-English dictionaries. I find this dictionary, like all the other Larousse dictionaries, to be a good choice. Here are a few of the factors which distinguish a good bilingual dictionary from a bad one. To begin with, ignore certain publishers' marketing ploys such as entry and translation counts. They say nothing about the value of the words chosen. The first valid factor to consider is lexicographic technique. A bad dictionary simply lists translations. Take, for example, the entry in the Cassell's Spanish Dictionary under the English headword loop: "lazo, gaza, nudo; ojal, presilla, alamar; anillo; recodo, comba, curva, vuelta," etc. For the English reader writing in Spanish, this is hopelessly inadequate, as the dictionary provides no clue as to which translation to use in which situation. Compare the treatment of the same word in the far superior American Heritage Spanish Dictionary. "(length of line) lazo; (coil) vuelta; (bend) curva; (circular path) vuelta, circuito; (fastener) presilla" etc. Here, the user is given glosses in the native language to assist in identifying the right word for the context. Example sentences are also a tremendous help. Larousse is excellent in this respect, presenting good information to guide users through the semantic and syntactic complexities. Second, a good dictionary should maintain an up-to-date lexicon, including such cultural and technological additions to the language as "baby sitter," "hostile takeover," "software," "flash drive." Larousse does very well in this respect; its frequent revisions are more than mere window dressing and do a creditable job of covering the most recent additions to the language. Third, idioms, slang, and cusswords can present real problems to the language learner, and a dictionary needs to handle them in a clear and frank fashion. This dictionary gets it right, giving stylistic equivalents for translations as well as clear advice to the user. Be careful when you choose a bilingual dictionary, as some of the choices--Cassell's and Vox, for example--are downright terrible. The field of large dictionaries stays relatively static over time, and the best choices in it by far are Oxford, Collins, and Larousse. The field of small dictionaries, on the other hand, has many more players. While not the only good choice, Larousse is a dictionary you would certainly be pleased with.

The perfect compromise between size and content. It is not too big so you can easily bring it with you when you are traveling and it has enough that you do not have to buy another one for home.

This dictionary series is the most comprehensive for both students and professionals - it contains over 80,000 distinct translations as well as a useful table of verb conjugations and tenses. Unlike most dictionaries that are often cluttered with nonsensical information, the Larouse Pocket dictionary is both convenient to carry around in either a bookbag or a purse, and produces satisfactory results for formal papers and conversational phrases. An excellent buy!