| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | What online dictionary do you hit first? Thread poster: Steve Kerry
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I realise that this has probably been done before, but I would be interested to know what is your "first port of call" as an online dictionary. As a German translator, I tend to hit "Dict CC" first, with generally fairly accurate results, "Linguee" for "off the wall" suggestions and "ProZ" in cases of utter desperation.. smiles. What do you use?
Steve
| | | | Robert Forstag 
United States
Local time: 13:24
Spanish to English
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| My preferences | Nov 23, 2012 |
For single words and more common terms:
www.spanishdict.com
then
www.wordreference.com
For more obscure/specialized terms unlikely to be found in those references: the glossaries/kudoz archives on this site.
... See more For single words and more common terms:
www.spanishdict.com
then
www.wordreference.com
For more obscure/specialized terms unlikely to be found in those references: the glossaries/kudoz archives on this site.
For monolingual Spanish inquiries: www.rae.es
For monolingual English inquiries: Merriam-Webster or "The Free Online Dictionary" ▲ Collapse
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 13:24
Member (2008)
French to English
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| Phil Hand
China
Local time: 01:24
Chinese to English
| Depends on the type of word | Nov 23, 2012 |
General words, for a first approximation
nciku.com (Chinese/English) and zdic.net (Chinese/Chinese)
More complex terms or phrases, often the best place to go is iask.sina.com or the equivalent question/answer boards on the other portals. People often ask in Chinese "What does xxx mean?", and you get a range of answers on there to look at.
For technical terms, there's no one place. Legal stuff - track down the original texts of laws wherever you can find the... See more General words, for a first approximation
nciku.com (Chinese/English) and zdic.net (Chinese/Chinese)
More complex terms or phrases, often the best place to go is iask.sina.com or the equivalent question/answer boards on the other portals. People often ask in Chinese "What does xxx mean?", and you get a range of answers on there to look at.
For technical terms, there's no one place. Legal stuff - track down the original texts of laws wherever you can find them. Technology - Google images. ▲ Collapse
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| Dict.CC, MYJMK, Wordreference, Linguee, proz.com | Nov 23, 2012 |
Dict.CC: Even for my German into Spanish translations, since it is far more accurate into English than other dictionaries into Spanish.
MYJMK.com: for German into Spanish if I feel lazy to go grab the Slaby-Grossman.
Wordreference.com and Linguee.com: for English-Spanish.
Proz.com: to see what others have done in similar situations.
I have to say that I completely favour the idea of having a proper reference library with good bilingual and mono... See more Dict.CC: Even for my German into Spanish translations, since it is far more accurate into English than other dictionaries into Spanish.
MYJMK.com: for German into Spanish if I feel lazy to go grab the Slaby-Grossman.
Wordreference.com and Linguee.com: for English-Spanish.
Proz.com: to see what others have done in similar situations.
I have to say that I completely favour the idea of having a proper reference library with good bilingual and monolingual dictionaries for your specialties, and try to have as much reference material as possible for my work. If the matter is more difficult or important, my library solves the problem in a much shorter time than online resources. ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 19:24
Spanish to English
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| IATE for Europe | Nov 23, 2012 |
I have IATE (The EU's "official" online dictionary) as my home page, although I also often check out Linguee nowadays for a laugh, for what Steve calls "off-the-wall" ideas. It's always reassuring to see how many inaccurate and clumsy translations there are out there, for example from Eurolex.
I generally prefer to use my hard disk dictionaries - Business and Technical from Routledge and the Oxford Superlex (French/German/Spanish to English), and the DRAE for Spanish monolingual. Un... See more I have IATE (The EU's "official" online dictionary) as my home page, although I also often check out Linguee nowadays for a laugh, for what Steve calls "off-the-wall" ideas. It's always reassuring to see how many inaccurate and clumsy translations there are out there, for example from Eurolex.
I generally prefer to use my hard disk dictionaries - Business and Technical from Routledge and the Oxford Superlex (French/German/Spanish to English), and the DRAE for Spanish monolingual. Unfortunately,the Routledge and Oxford CDs only work on XP and are not available for higher versions like W7. I tried installing a virtual machine on my W7 PC to keep running them, but it slowed down the PC so much that I gave up. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Emma Goldsmith
Spain
Local time: 19:24
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
If it's a general term, then I go to http://www.collinsdictionary.com/
I've got it set up in IntelliWebSearch, so it's only a couple of clicks to reach the right word in the right language.
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Linguee is usually my first choice since its possible to go directly to the source of the translation for context.
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Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:24
Russian to English
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In memoriam
For Russian-English. I don't often need a German-English one nowadays, but when I do, I use Beolingus.
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answers.com for English
wordreference.com for Italian and Spanish
I use chrome, and I set up my search providers such that if I type "a [searchterm]" into the URL box, I am taken straight to the Answers.com page of the term, and if I type "i [searchterm]" I get the relevant page of the Italian dictionary on wordereference. I have wikiped... See more answers.com for English
wordreference.com for Italian and Spanish
I use chrome, and I set up my search providers such that if I type "a [searchterm]" into the URL box, I am taken straight to the Answers.com page of the term, and if I type "i [searchterm]" I get the relevant page of the Italian dictionary on wordereference. I have wikipedia set up this way as well. No need for intelliwebsearch.
[Edited at 2012-11-23 08:44 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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It's multitran.ru for DE-RU, FR-RU and EN-RU language pairs and
www.iate.europa.eu for Danish (I search Danish-German first and then translate it into Russian)
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 19:24
French to English
used to be my first port of call for all terminology, but I haven't got to grips with the new version and have practically deserted it.
Any tips anyone?
Otherwise for general terms, I find Oxford-Hachette far superior to Robert-Collins. Where RC often simply gives a word that looks like the French word with the accents left off, OH puts real effort into providing a term with a truly native English ring to it.
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| First hit: IATE | Nov 23, 2012 |
Then Linguee + Termium + Wordreference + Proz...
| | | | | Depends on the field... | Nov 23, 2012 |
...Leo, IATE, grand-dictionnaire.com, Pons, Linguee (if the sources indicated are good and reliable ones), proz, Webster online etc.
| | | | Nora Escoms
Argentina
Local time: 14:24
English to Spanish
+ ...
And from there I have access to dozens of online dictionaries, mono- or bilingual.
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