Larousse Standard Dictionary: Spanish-/English/English-Spanish

by Larousse

With over 160,000 references and 260,000 translations, this entirely new reference work offers worldwide coverage of Spanish, wide-ranging treatment of professional, technical, and literary... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 2035402379
• ISBN13: 9782035402370
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Larousse Bilingual/French
• Length: 1482 Pages
• Weight: 4.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.7" x 7.1" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

it is really good.

I read other rewievs before buying. I read comments about missing pages and thought i would try. then i saw another review thinking exactly like me and unfortunately she had seen missing pages. then i decided not to buy. after week i really needed the dictionary and decided to buy it anyway. i have it now and don`t have any missing pages. luck:) it is a good reference dictionary.

One of the leaders in the field

My Master's thesis was a review and rating of large Spanish-English dictionaries. Since then, I have conducted follow-up studies to keep up with the market. I find the leaders in the field to be Collins (HarperCollins), Larousse, and Oxford. Each publisher appears to be trying to one-up the others with the newest and best edition. The real winner is the consumer. My joint review of these three dictionaries is found here and duplicated under both of its competitors. 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 says nothing about the value of the words chosen. Likewise, ignore the word "unabridged" in the title. No work is truly unabridged except the monumental monolingual Oxford English Dictionary. 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. The Collins, Larousse, and Oxford are all excellent in this respect, presenting a wealth of practical information to guide users through the semantic and syntactic complexities. The second factor is organization, which is important in large desk dictionaries. In an entry for a complex word like "get," a bad dictionary may force users to lose time searching for their translation through unbroken columns that can extend for more than a page. This was a problem--now corrected--in previous versions of the large Larousse dictionary. Today, the current editions of the Larousse, Collins and Oxford use similar organization schemes, dividing long entries by meaning into well-titled paragraphs. This scheme makes these dictionaries a joy to use. Third, 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, Collins and Oxford are leaders in this respect; their frequent revisions are more than mere window dressing and do a creditable job of covering the most recent additions to the language. Fourth, 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. All three dictionaries

Excellent for specialized and general use

This is the best Spanish-English dictionary I have ever seen. I bought it to help me translate the user interface of a computer program from English to Spanish and was pleasantly surprised by the large number of specialized entries related to information processing. Other technical and scientific disciplines are likewise well represented. I especially appreciate the contextual information given with most entries. If a word is usually accompanied by a specific preposition, that preposition is given, so that, for example, we see that «in love with» is «enamorado(a) de». To help the user understand the different meanings of a word, complete phrases are translated where needed. Most entries have several such translations, with idiomatic usage well represented. There is a 14-page section of verb tables, encompassing the three regular conjugations and 72 other model forms, each keyed with a number that is used in the Spanish-English section of the dictionary, to show which pattern is used for a particular verb. Forms other than first-person singular are not generally shown, nor are some of the compound tenses, but that information is usually available in first-year Spanish grammar texts and in books such as Gordon & Stillman's Big Red Book of Spanish Verbs. No dictionary is perfect. This one contains a few omissions, e.g., where a technical term was translated from Spanish to English but not from English to Spanish, or a common English usage is not translated. I very occasionally wish for even more examples, especially when I am not sure which preposition to use. I was slightly disappointed to see an English example with a misplaced modifier. These are trivial complaints and in no way detract from the value of this magnificent dictionary. The only disadvantage, if you can call it that, is that this dictionary, at 7.1 pounds (3.2 kg), is not easily portable. However, I would soon be frustrated with a dictionary that is any less comprehensive. I hope this one is some day released in PDA form, so that I can carry it in my Treo.

Comprehensive resource for Spanish students and teachers.

Our teacher will sometimes look up a word in this dictionary, and teach an entire lesson based on the exhaustive, detailed entry. A lot of fun, and very comprehensive.