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| User | Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff Poll: How many paper dictionaries do you have? |
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ProZ.com Staff 
United States
Local time: 15:24
 Member (2011)
SITE STAFF |
This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "How many paper dictionaries do you have?".
This poll was originally submitted by Rosa Grau. View the poll results »
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Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:24
Member (2011)
Hebrew to English
| | Love those paper dictionaries | Jan 25 |
And they're usually better and more reliable than anything found online.
And they make my bookcase look nice
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Madalena Ribeiro
Portugal
Local time: 23:24
 Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
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I thought I had less...
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Catherine Knight
Germany
Local time: 00:24
Member (2008)
German to English
+ ...
| | Not all for translating | Jan 25 |
I have around ten dictionaries, but they are not all useful for my translation work. I use about three of them for translating, although only one regularly. The rest are for languages that are not in my working pair.
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Alexander Kondorsky
Russian Federation
Local time: 02:24
Member (2011)
English to Russian
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In fact, I do have some 5 or 6 paper dictionaries bought long ago, but nowadays they are absolutely useless as far as translation work is concerned. Sometimes I'm tempted to leaf through them to indulge myself in nostalgic recollections and sometimes my grandkids toy with them. Quite a few translators at various professional forums argue paper dictionaries are valuable and even indispensable, but I totally disagree with that.
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David Wright
Austria
Local time: 00:24
Member (2007)
German to English
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cos I don't knwo where they all are, and I certainly hardly ever use them. God knows what will happen when the governments of the world decide the internet is far too detrimental to the power of the state and close it down altogether.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 00:24
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
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And I only really ever use 2 of them: the Beigbeder AtienzaTechnical and the Alcarez Varo Legal Dictionary (Spanish-English/English-Spanish).
I also have 3 dictionaries on CD (which will not work on Windows 7, so thanks again for the "new features" Mr Gates).
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Mary Worby
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:24
Member
German to English
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But they're all up the loft. I can't remember the last time I used one.
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Teresa Borges
Belgium
Local time: 00:24
Member (2007)
German to Portuguese
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On a bookcase near my desk, ranging from nuclear engineering to medicine, but I only use regularly 3 or 4. Like Ty I love my paper dictionaries!
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Isabelle Brucher
Belgium
Local time: 00:24
Member (2011)
English to French
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and indeed they are not all useful for my translations. I highly recommend online paying GENERAL translating dictionaries. I deplore the fact that SPECIALIZED translating and explanatory dictionaries are often still on paper, which slows down the work considerably (legal, "polytechnical", medical, etc dictionaries). Also the search for expressions is not always possible in general online translating dictionaries, which slows down the work. Le Robert editions have this feature, Van Dale editions do not...
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Gilla Evans
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:24
Member (2009)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| | A whole wall of reference books | Jan 25 |
including many dictionaries and also monolingual encyclopaedias in various languages and on specific topics such as wine, food, architecture, art history. Some I never use (specialist dictionaries in fields I no longer work in), and others I use regularly because I know them to be very reliable.
As I formerly worked as a translator on several dictionaries for Larousse, Harraps and Chambers I am aware of the dedicated and painstaking work that goes into these tomes. Sometimes my ancient Harraps "Shorter" comes up trumps with translations for obscure French words that have been dropped from modern dictionaries and prove elusive on the net.
Online resources are quick and easy and very wide-ranging, but have also to be treated with a great deal of caution.
A judicious mix of paper and online references solves most problems.
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Christine Andersen
Denmark
Local time: 00:24
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
| | I don't know, but a lot! | Jan 25 |
I collect them... and I DO use a hard core of them regularly, while others are mainly for fun.
Some, admittedly, only come off the shelves a couple of times a year, and some are for points-grabbing at KudoZ or doing crosswords...
I was/am furious because I wanted to look something up in a French support text the other day, and my French-English dictionary has gone AWOL. Nobody else here, linguistic guests included, reads French, so I must have mislaid it myself... and I had to dust one of the 4 volumes of the French-Danish /Danish-French dictionary...
I can make do with CDs and online dictionaries, but I like the paper versions, and some do not exist on line. With others it is simply quicker to find a reliable reference than surfing at random on the Net.
It does depend on language pairs - I'm lucky with Danish, because there are good resources of every kind, but I cannot envisage working without my paper dictionaries...
[Edited at 2012-01-25 20:28 GMT]
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Sophie Dzhygir
France
Local time: 00:24
Member (2007)
English to French
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If I do not count my husband's ones.
I use none of them regularly.
I have one French dictionary (helped me once or two when the online one was down) and one English-French visual dictionary that I use from time to time.
All the others are generalist and specialized dictionaries for Russian and Ukrainian. For those languages, resources are very scarce, even on paper, but even scarcer online, so I have no choice. But I use them very rarely, they're here just in case.
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Christine Andersen
Denmark
Local time: 00:24
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
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Gilla Evans wrote:
.... I know them to be very reliable.
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From my time as a technical librarian, I learnt to respect the paper resources. They were all we had before the Internet! And the current editions are still fine for many purposes.
... Sometimes my ancient Harraps "Shorter" comes up trumps with translations for obscure French words that have been dropped from modern dictionaries and prove elusive on the net.
Online resources are quick and easy and very wide-ranging, but have also to be treated with a great deal of caution.
A judicious mix of paper and online references solves most problems.
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Absolutely. I have had the privilege of being taught by some of the Danish lexicographers, and can't afford to subscribe to all the on-line versions in fields I don't specialise in, but have paper dictionaries at hand when I need them.
[Edited at 2012-01-25 09:49 GMT]
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Marta Cervera Areny
Spain
Local time: 00:24
Member (2008)
Catalan to Spanish
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I have many dictionaries I don't use any more but I bought when there was no internet. Unfortunately, there are some things that still can't be found online, so there's a few I'm still using until there's a digital version available online, even if they require paid subscription
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