Electronic Dictionaries
Anyone exercising some kind of writing for a living should have Electronic Dictionaries.
Do you?
As a translator, I cannot live without this app! I have electronic dictionaries and glossaries paraphernalia compiled in one software, and for me, living or working without it, would be almost like not having a keyboard to type!
When not sure about a word, or not liking it, needing synonym ideas, I just click on that word that is making my life so difficult and a window pops up with Webster’s, Oxford and Thesaurus, Larousse, Britannica, Granada, Aurelio, to name a few, other languages monolinguals, bilingual dictionaries, and specialized glossaries. They all dispute in definitions, connotations and synonyms like pretenders in line.
Because I work with English, Portuguese, French and Spanish, I have all these languages configured, so when a dictionary in a specific language pair does not give me what I want, or doesn’t make me feel safe about the best choice, I’m not faithful, I switch to another language pair to make comparisons.
It’s like sales, and I’ll choose the best offer of word.
I decided to inquire in a few translators’ discussion groups if they use electronic dictionaries and what kind of software. To my dismay, such threads didn’t take off, and very few colleagues acknowledged to be using electronic dictionaries and the adequate software. Why is it so? I just can’t imagine stopping my work to open a big heavy book every time I miss a word!
Is it possible that translators buy expensive translation software but are still rudimental when it comes to linguistic research, i.e., electronic dictionaries software?
If you are one of those still not using or trusting in electronic dictionaries, you can find more information on this link:
