Larousse Pocket Student Dictionary French-English/ English-French

This is a must for any student intent on more than the requisite 2 years. This will continue to help in later years and is essential for the serious student.

Its a good dictionary for those starting to learn french or the other way round.

This dictionary is great for beginners! It provides literal translations like all language dictionaries, but also provides examples of how to use it in a sentence. Usually each word has 2 or 3 example phrases or sentences. The best part is that the examples usually express what you are trying to say anyway. For example, if you were to look up umbrella. It may provide the example, "It looks like it's going to rain. You should take your umbrella." ...or if you looked up the word price, it would say "What is the price of this item?" This is very helpful for two reasons. Not only does it provide other complimentary words, but it gives you the context in how it should be used. i.e., As the sentence structure is different in French, you will not only learn the meaning of the word, but also how to use it properly. I spent 7 weeks in Paris taking intensive French lessons. This light weight dictionary was my bible for the first several weeks. However, as you become more advanced, it may not contain all the difficult words you want. At that time you may need to graduate to a regular dictionary. ...but for beginner and intermediate level, this is a great start. I didn't outgrow it until 5 or 6 weeks into intensive daily French lessons.