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How old dictionaries are still usable? | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Dictionaries | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 1 of 6 20 March 2011 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
I have a plan to use a dictionary as a main source for my french vocabulary learning for several reasons. The only trouble is, that my best bilingual dictionary is from 1974. I am going to buy a new monolingual one on monday and i've been thinking about a newer bilingual as well but it would be too expensive to buy two new dictionaries. Has French developped too much from seventies or will I be only missing vocabulary concerning new technologies, new colloquial expressions etc? The old dictionary has never failed me so far but I'm just not sure. Thanks for any advice. P.S. In general, how old dictionaries do you use? I like second-hand bookshops but there are usually older dictionaries only and I'll soon need a good Spanish dictionary as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 6 20 March 2011 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||
It depends on the language and what's available. For example, the most thorough and comprehensive bilingual dictionary between Spanish and a Scandinavian language is a Spanish–Danish dictionary published in 1947 (and still on sale). I use this dictionary when I can't find the word I'm looking for in my newer (and smaller) dictionary. Though you obviously won't find all the words relating to the most recent technological advances in an old dictionary, the core vocabulary doesn't change over a few decades. There are many factors to consider when choosing a dictionary, and age is only one of them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 6 20 March 2011 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | ||
The dictionaries that I seek usually strike a balance between age and usefulness. As tractor posted, age (or title in one case - see below) is only one consideration when looking for dictionaries. Most of the dictionaries on my shelf were published after 1980 but my front-line Ukrainian-English dictionary is a reprint of Andrusyshen's dictionary from 1955 since it's the only large Ukrainian-English dictionary that I know of which shows a fair bit of inflectional information for entries (i.e. genitive singular, aspectual counterparts and present tense endings for 1st and 2nd person singular). I also still refer to Stanisławski's "The Great English-Polish Dictionary" and "The Great Polish-English Dictionary" from 1975 when my medium-sized Polish dictionaries published by Collins in 2000 don't have what I'm looking for. Benson's "SerboCroatian English Dictionary" from 1994 despite its politically-incorrect inclusion of "SerboCroatian" is still my front-line resource when looking up words in BCMS/SC. None of the bilingual dictionaries that I've come across for "Croatian" so far can match Benson's combination of breadth (60,000 headwords in SC) with prosodic and inflectional information. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 6 20 March 2011 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Hehe, that's Carl Bratli's dictionary, - a monumental book by any standard! I have also got it, but I practically never use it. It is far too heavy, and I even prefer sitting with my old red Gyldendal instead of the newer edition which is twice as fat, simply because it is much easier to handle the smaller one. But it is nice to have the new one as a reserve, and I also have a German-Spanish Langenscheidt and a couple of monolingual Spanish dictionaries - sometimes it is useful to see translations into different languages if you want to deduce the exact meaning of a word. The age of those dictionaries is not an important factor unless you are very interested in slang and other kinds of informal speech. If you see the word for some new technical gadget then it is mostly a loanword from English or descriptive in some way, and words for new laws or institutions or goods or TV programs would not necessarily be included even in a brand dictionary - looking such things up on the internet is a much safer solution. Edited by Iversen on 20 March 2011 at 10:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 6 20 March 2011 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | ||
:-) Some time ago I was surprised to read that the french have often two words for many technical gadgets, one is the English-made one most people use and the other is pure french, created because of some french-protecting-at-all-costs bureaucrats. Not that I thought valuing ones own language is a bad thing, it is surely not, just that some of the words were just too artificial. Thanks for all the replies. I'll stay with my good old red dictionary. And there is not only Google, I found Wikipedia to be a useful tool as well:-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 6 20 March 2011 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sometimes you'll need that thick, heavy, thorough dictionary because you're looking for a rare word, an idiom,
nuances, examples of correct usage, etymological information and so on that you won't find in smaller dictionaries. On the other hand, smaller dictionaries are more manageable, lighter and generally easier and quicker to use. The layout and typography matter too. Some dictionaries have small print, set in a not so easy to read font. In some of the larger dictionaries it's difficult to get an overview of those long articles under some of the headwords. EDIT: I see you have decided to stick to your old dictionary. Good. If it has never failed you, there is no reason to spend money on a new one. Edited by tractor on 20 March 2011 at 11:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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