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Looking for a great translation dictionary?   And I mean Great, with a capital G?  Well, here it is:  the Larousse Unabridged English-Spanish/Spanish-English  Dictionary. One word describes it - WOW.

First I should tell you that this is not a dictionary that beginners would need, although you still might want it.  Your  pocket dictionary probably has most of  the words you’re going to be using in Spanish Level I.   For one thing,  it’s huge.  At  10.9 x 7.7 x 3.2 inches  and 6.3 pounds,  this  is not a dictionary that  anyone is going to be carrying to class or taking on a trip to Latin America. The English to Spanish side alone is 868 pages.  But what a dictionary.

Here’s an example of it’s usefulness.  In the English section, under “ski”,  it of course has the Spanish word for ski, but it also tells you the Spanish word or phrase for a pair of skis, lift, mask, pants, slope, pole, tow, suit, boots, skied, resort and they skied down the slope. And 6 other ski related words.  All under ski.  That’s useful.

This dictionary is intended for both English speakers AND Spanish speakers.  The front section has a couple of pages on pronunciation of words - for both English and Spanish words.

There is a page in the front section of culturally related words.  For instance, in the Spanish list is the word Albures.  Look it up in the Spanish side of the dictionary and you find a boxed definition noting its cultural aspects.  Very nice.

Between the two sections is an area that has things like:  3 pages of English irregular verbs (yes 3 pages), Spanish verb tables, and (at least in our version) a page for each of the major countries that speak English.  We bought the Spanish edition, since our title page says Gran Diccionario, but since everything is in English AND Spanish, who can tell?

In the back are color pages of exploded diagrams.  For instance, there is a page labeled Coches/Cars.   There are 8 small pictures of different styles of cars, each labeled something like convertible/descapotable or todo terreno/4×4 etc.  There is a large drawing of a “see through” car with all of the parts labeled:  deposito/fuel tank, faro/headlight, etc.  Even a photo of an engine with valves, pistons, timing belt, etc all labeled bilingually.  Useful stuff.

Do you get the feeling that we really really like this dictionary?  We do.  We have a small collectin of English/Spanish dictionaries that we’ve collected.  Not because we love dictionaries so much that we decided to become collectors, but because (like you, I’ll bet) most of them have proven to be inadequate in one way or another. Maybe one is a perfectly good dictionary, but it just doesn’t quite have everything I need.  This one does.  And if you carry it around, it will even help build muscles.

Now the bad news.  The price.  Although I’ve seen it listed for $150, the price I usually see is in the $40 to $50 dollar range.  We waited (and waited and waited) until we found it for $20 at an Amazon reseller.  Ours was listed as “New, never used” which makes me think that maybe it was a return or something.  The dust jacket was a little frayed on the edges, but the book was in perfect condition.  Also, as I mentioned, we got the Spanish version, which may be cheaper.  The English version probably has a page for  each country that speaks Spanish instead of each country that speaks English.  Other than that, I can’t think of what the differences could be. None that would matter enough to spend $30 bucks more.

Check it out on our website store if you’re interested: http://www.learn-spanish-travel-spanish.com/Amazon_Store.html.  Feel free to explore the rest of our site as well.  And if you want to be notified when we  have new reviews or postings, click on the RSS feed button in the top right corner.

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