Barron's German-English Dictionary: Worterbuch Deutsch-Englisch (Barron's Foreign Language Guides) Bilingual Edition

I have studied French (can read and write in a fairly literate fashion), Spanish (functionally fluent) and Italian (still more or less a beginner) before taking on German. Of the four, German seems the most complex structurally and the most alien in relation to English.Due to my having a desire to master a language once I start, I have used a lot of materials to learn these various languages and a good dictionary has always been critically important to me (I seem to end up owning several for each language, adding as I found new features that were missing in a prior dictionary).I have several German-English dictionaries which I have used in studying, two are more comprehensive in number of words defined, examples and definitions (specifically a Duden-Oxford and Harper Collins). However, this Barron's dictionary is the most useful of the group for me as a new student.The thing I like about in comparison to other dictionaries are that it includes a number of features that are not common to all German-English dictionaries.For the most important verbs, it has the 3rd person singular, 3rd person simple past and the past participle. As I am learning, with those three pieces of data, you can go a long way to dealing with conjugating German verbs.Type is larger and more legible than the other German dictionaries I own. That is a big deal for aging eyes.In general, the definitions are very good and only someone who is virtually German-proficient or studying at the third or fourth year of a German major would probably ever need the more complete definition set that can be found in a much more bulky and expensive dictionary. I have run across German words in my reading that aren't in this dictionary but, not surprisingly given the way German strings words together to form new compound words, often aren't in the larger dictionaries either.The Appendices add a wealth of information on articles (the a, an, and the of German); declension of nouns; declension of adjectives; tabular examples of verb conjugations; information tables for pronouns (personal, possessive, reflexive, demonstrative, relative, interrogative); lists of prepositions controlling accusative and dative cases; list of irregular verbs with important forms for each verb; tables of both German prefixes and suffixes; and more. The Appendices include a lot of information that is very useful and generally must be found in a German grammar.My satisfaction with the dictionary is partly because now that I am further into German study, I see what tools I need in a dictionary and they are in this volume.At the same time I bought this volume I purchased the Barron's Spanish-English Dictionary -- one copy for me and one for each of my grandchildren for their use in Spanish class because of a similar group of Appendices (although Spanish thankfully doesn't have declensions and cases).The Appendices alone are in my judgement worth the price of the volume -- a dictionary is essentially thrown in for free. Or the reverse is true -- either way, it is a bargain.I have to admit that I don't see myself ever mastering German, it will have to be a work of years. But this dictionary is a good tool for undertakling that enterprise.

I already had the Kindle version of the Barron's German/English dictionary to help me with an occasional definition or translation when reading German language text on my Kindle (see separate (relatively positive) review of that dictionary).We have a German relative visiting with us this summer, who is trying to immerse herself in the English language. To assist in that endeavor, I loaned her my Kindle, but before doing so, I purchased the English/German version of the Barron's dictionary, and took it for a test spin.To put it simply, the program seems buggy. Position the Kindle's cursor in front of a word, and the dictionary is supposed to find a match in the dictionary. This one fails miserably on that score. By way of example, here's a paragraph from the book Freedom (by Daniel Suarez) that I'm reading:She nodded. "Even at night." She pointed at what looked to be rectangular cisterns arrayed at intervals around the perimeter of the canopy. "Covered saltwater ponds gather heat energy during the day and release it at night - continuing the wind cycle."And these are the words in that paragraph the Barron's English/German dictionary couldn't find when the cursor was positioned in front them:She, at, She, at, what, to, be, at, the, of, the, the, and, it, at, the, wind (came back with wine) and cycle.Oddly, if you pick a word for which the dictionary does find a hit, and drill into that definition (using the left pointing arrow key just below the Kindle's DEL key), then you can manually enter these same words and use the "search dictionary" function to indeed find them in the dictionary. So, it's not a question of missing entries in the dictionary, rather the failure of the cursor directed search to find them.If you plan an manually entering words to do look ups, this dictionary is a decent resource. If you expect it to work like a default dictionary is supposed to work on the Kindle, be prepared to be disappointed.

I bought this based on other reviews, because I just started German class. The dictionary has slang and certain curse words, as well as standard words. It provides usefull tips throughout, and has a comprehensive section with verb conjugations, 'false friends' (words spelled the same, but with different meanings, and more that I havent explored. The cover is vinyl, which makes it much harder to destroy if you're like me and just throw it into your bag.My ONLY complaint is that the electronic download isn't Mac compatible (although I knew that when I bought it).HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!

Fantastic Dictionary. American English, but this obvious as it is an American Publisher. I love it so much I purchased the Italian one. This one is Fantastic Value for Money, and a fantastic reference book.

イギリスのものと違う特徴があるかと思って買ったのだが、中身は Pons Reference: Pons Worterbuch Deutsch-English MIT CD-Rom と Pons Reference: Pons Worterbuch English-Deutsch MIT CD-Rom の簡約版だった。このPonsの辞書はかなり詳しいもので、語数・例文とも学習用の独和辞典を上回るぐらい。ドイツでは、独英・英独を１冊にしたものや、その簡約版がいろいろ出ているので、それらの一つをBarronの名前で出したものだろう。（なお、さらに詳しいものとして PONS Grosswoerterbuch Englisch がある）従って、内容は信頼できるが、アメリカ英語中心とか、そういう特徴は特にない。実質はドイツ＋イギリスの辞書。もっと詳しいものがほしい人には、上のものがお勧め。なお、Ponsのものは青色を使った二色刷になっているが、これは単色。しかし、活字は大きめで読みやすい。電子辞書は、サイトにアクセスすると、「何ページの最初の単語」と同封のカードに記してある文字列の記入を求められる。そこで辞書本体と辞書アプリがダウンロードできる。検索は簡単な検索しかできないが、本体の内容はすべてＰＣでも見ることができる。 Pons Reference: Pons Worterbuch Deutsch-English MIT CD-RomPons Reference: Pons Worterbuch English-Deutsch MIT CD-RomPONS Grosswoerterbuch Englisch

Barron's の教材は、昔から　見やすくて、読んで楽しいものが多かったので、独英−英独辞典を買ってみました。見やすく楽しいという特長は失われてはいませんが、学習のためのドイツ語辞典としては、記述が簡潔すぎ、例文も少ないなど、「この一冊」というわけにはいきません。しかし、数は少ないながら例文は面白いものが多く、そこそこ楽しめるとは思います。