Barron's Spanish-English Dictionary: Diccionario Espanol-Ingles

I'm just starting out in Spanish so I needed a dictonary. I went to our public library and looked through the vast assortment they had in the stacks. Of all of the dictionaries this one seems the best. It's small enough to hold in your hands, but big enough to have all of the words (so far at least) I need. I also like the two colors the printer used. The word I'm searching for is printed in blue and the rest of the text is printed in the normal black. It doesn't sound like much, but I found it made finding my word a lot easier when it stood out from the rest of the text. It also comes with a free, down loadable electronic dictionary that is handy although I prefer Ultralingua 7 for that aspect. I'm very happy with this dictionary. It seems to do what I need, is priced fairly, and is not too big or too small. The only problem I had was that two of the books were shipped to me during some very cold winter weather and this made the plastic cover brittle and resulted in cracking if the plastic cover on both books. Warmer weather seemed to solve this problem with the third and latest shipment. :-)

Barron's seems to be the only dictionary series with syllable keys for most of the words, so this is invaluable for text analysis researchers. It also includes a nice grammar section, very durable cover, and free online download (in Palm Pilot format). Without a doubt the best dictionary series out there. I have German and Spanish, and they are both top notch.

I'm taking Elementary Spanish so our Spanish teacher recommended we get a Spanish-English Dictionary. I've already used it in class... and I'll need it to translate something from the Easy Spanish Reader. My classmates took a look at it was very impressed! I recommend it!!! You can look up English Words AND the Spanish word. It's thick, so you know, but for good reasons!

Barron's is the only portable Spanish/English dictionary I found (after perusing about 30 of 'em) that had ALL of the words on my list of twenty difficult/obscure Spanish words. Others this comprehensive were huge tomes, much too large to carry around. In addition, Barron's often gives both the Spanish word used in Spain and the one used in Mexico or other places in Latin America when they are different. This is PRICELESS! For example, the "proper" Spanish word for "cufflinks" is "gemelos" but in Mexico, the words "mancuemas" or "mancuernillas" are used. Barron's NAILS this! BIG BONUS! It has a durable-looking plasticized binding that I think will withstand heavy use.

This dictionary is excellent. It gives very detailed translations and excellent explanations. Plenty of cultural background info and a very ample variety of words. Worth overy penny.