Webster's French-English Dictionary

The size is good, a little larger than your hand. Paperback. Great price.

Although this is not a large scholarly Larousse, it serves as a great "pocket" dictionary--good for carrying to/from school. It also has the most extensive coverage of Québécois vocabulary that I have seen in a standard dictionary. This is a very useful tool for a student or traveller who is concerned about knowing Canadian terms and needs a portable dictionary.

I studied French in high school 30+ years ago and hated it. Then I took four semesters in a community college 20 years ago (after learning Spanish) and loved it, but had little use for the language in any daily use. However, in planning to spend a month in France next year, I decided that I should study French again. This dictionary has been a wonderful aid in my studies. Although there are better, more expensive dictionaries (I personally own Petit Larousse Illustre and Harper Collins French College Dictionary), this one has an amazing amount of information and is so small and light that it can be easily referenced where a large bulky dictionary will be left on the shelf as an impediment to reading. To resume learning French, I am reading Harry Potter A L'Ecole Des Sorciers (the Sorcerer's Stone book) and this dictionary is always at hand. The dictionary includes a surprising number of idiomatic phrases, a handy verb conjugation section, pronunciation and grammar sections. It is also handy that it includes words such as "eu", which is the past participle for avoir, and references one back to the infinitive form of the verb -- very useful when one hasn't yet mastered the past participles that are essential to the passe compose (a common past tense). For just a few bucks, this is an amazing trove of information.

I bought this book for my French class in college. I can't recommend it strongly enough! If you are taking French in high school or college, be sure to get this book; it has helped me tremendously. The only thing I regret about buying this book is that I didn't do it sooner. One really nice feature that this book has (this feature being one of the reasons I bought it in the first place) is their use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for each word. For those who don't know what that is, that is THE standard way of representing sounds, particularly between languages. Each symbol corresponds exactly to one sound, regardless of what language is being spoken. If you know IPA, that is a TREMENDOUSLY useful feature of this dictionary. If you don't know IPA, I'd recommend learning it, it's not that hard to do (I think they even have an IPA guide in the dictionary) and you won't regret it. This dictionary is very well done. Its definitions are clear and concise and it gives good examples of actual usage.

The Merriam-Webster French-English Dictionary offers more than 80,000 entry words and phrases organized with clear, concise definitions. Of special interest are the sections on "Nations of the World", "Metric Conversions", and "Sample Correspondence" (including email) that will prove invaluable for business travelers and vacationers. International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciations are providers, as are introductions to french and English grammar, tables of regular and irregular verbs, French and English abbreviations. The Merriam-Webster French-English Dictionary is an indispensable aid for traveling through France, as well as a core reference title for personal and school French language reference collections.