Voices en Español

Consulting a Spanish-English dictionary, whether it’s a conventional hardcover volume or a digital app on an iPhone, is usually the easiest way to check spelling and meanings of new words.

It may seem so basic that it’s not even worth mentioning. But last week I discovered that my some of my students were hazy on how to use a bilingual dictionary. That realization made me decide that perhaps there are plenty of other language learners out there who could use a few pointers on how to use a Spanish-English dictionary effectively.

Step 1: Use a reliable dictionary.

For an online dictionary, I recommend Word Reference.com. For an iPhone app, plenty of people have raved to me about the SpanishDict app.

For conventional hardcover/paperback book versions of dictionaries, take a look at Spanish-English dictionaries published by Merriam-Webster or Larousse. I’ve used these in the past and they’re decent. In “What Spanish Dictionary to Use?,” Spanish instructor Ramses Oudt gives a few suggestions.

Step 2: Know what you’re looking for

By this I mean, know what part of speech you need. Are you looking for a noun? An adjective? An adverb? An interjection? The English language has many words that are spelled exactly the same but represent different parts of speech. For example, the English word “well” can be a noun, an adjective, an adverb or an interjection. If you consult a Spanish-English dictionary not knowing which version of “well” you need, it’s likely that you’re going to wind up using the wrong word in Spanish.

3. Use correct spelling of the English word

This is related to Step 2. Once you know which part of speech you are looking for, be sure to spell the word correctly in English. There are numerous words in English which sound the same but are spelled differently and they have different meanings. Words like be/bee; bow/beau; hole/whole; plain/plane, see/sea, etc.  Look up the word “bow” in a Spanish-English dictionary when what you really have in mind is the word “beau,” is going to lead you to use the wrong word in Spanish.

4. Do a reverse look-up

This means that once you find the Spanish word on the English side of the dictionary, flip back over to the Spanish side and check which English word is given for the same word. At times you may be surprised by how the words differ.

Doing this reverse lookup is extremely important. Some Spanish-English dictionaries seem like they were produced by two separate teams of translators who didn’t consult one another when putting the complete dictionary together.

For example, one Spanish-English dictionary I checked for the word guapo told me that its English equivalent was the word “attractive.” What I expected to find was “beautiful/handsome.”

Then I checked the English side of the dictionary for the word “beautiful.” This particular dictionary gave me the Spanish words hermoso, bonito. But when I then checked the Spanish side of the dictionary for bonito to see what English word would appear, it gave me the English word “pretty.”

This is an extended example of what can happen when you’re using an inadequate bilingual dictionary. It may steer you away from the Spanish word that you need. That’s why it’s so important to check and then double check the meaning of the words given for both languages to verify that you’re on the right track.

5. Pay attention to the fine print

A good bilingual dictionary will tell you if a word or phrase is a regionalism used in a particular part of the Spanish-speaking world. The classic example is the verb COGER, which means “to get” or “to catch” in Spain but means “to fuck” in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Big difference.

Obviously, if your native language isn’t English and you would use a bilingual dictionary paired with your own native language (Spanish-German, Spanish-French, Spanish-Japanese, etc.) these same general steps still apply.

In a future blog post, I will tell you how to use a dictionary to find the meanings of Spanish idioms. I’ll probably post that entry in the next couple of days.

Which Spanish-English dictionaries would you recommend? Leave your suggestions in the comments below or tell me about them via Twitter @SpanishWordz.