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Dictionary Review: Hungarian Practical Dictionary
When I picked up this small dictionary of 31,000 entries,
I wondered 'Why do we need a small dictionary when we
have the benchmark large Országh?' The title explains
it one way: it is a practical dictionary. The Preface
mentions the other reason: it is a contemporary dictionary.
Indeed, we all know that no matter how comprehensive a
dictionary might be, it becomes obsolete by the time it
emerges from the printer. An interesting phenomenon can
be illustrated through the term ATM, for example…
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What Should a Learner's Dictionary Include?
The present study aims at the comparison and contrast
of three monolingual (English-English) dictionaries namely:
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English,
Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary and Cambridge
International Dictionary of English, with the learner
in mind. It has been found that there are differences
in presenting lexical items in each of the three dictionaries,
which prompted me to invent a heuristic checklist against
which each dictionary is evaluated with reference to twenty
six representative lexical items chosen at random…
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the full article…
e-Dictionaries
Dictionaries are a serious and time-consuming matter
with a lot of work to do before publishing and e-dictionaries
cannot be an exception.
Real dictionaries can be characterized as follows:
Dictionaries make a complete
or partial inventory of a language in one or more
languages…
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the full article…
Guaraní
Dictionary
This paper-bound, small-sized (4 x 6 inches) booklet
is one in a series of concise dictionaries published
by Hippocrene Books, Inc. The inside cover lists
41 other dictionaries in print, including such mainstream
languages as Arabic, Czech, Dutch, Norwegian, Russian,
Spanish, etc., but also such esoteric languages
as Gypsy, Ladino, Nahuatl, Twi and Zapotec (Isthmus).
The back cover mentions other types of books published
by Hippocrene Books, with such interesting topics
as the culinary practices of various Latin American
countries and a Dictionary and Phrasebook of Chilenismos…
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On Dictionaries: A Conversation with Ilan Stavans
VA: What is language?
IS: The use of standardized symbols to communicate in a structured and consistent fashion.
VA: Standardized symbols?
IS: Sounds make words and words are symbols. By circumscribing the sounds PE-YO-TE to the small, soft, thornless, blue-and-green cactus found in Mexico and in the Southwestern United States, society attaches a name to the object. The name represents the object and stands in its stead. Objects have specific words attached. This specificity is crucial, for if the cactus changed every minute, language would defeat its own purpose. It would be shaped by chaos
…
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Research on Dictionary Use by Trainee Translators
It is a generally held belief that using dictionaries efficiently can provide valuable benefits to trainee translators. However, as some authors have stated (Roberts, 1992; Mackintosh, 1998; Corpas et al., 2001), there has not been enough empirical research to establish the profile of trainee translators as dictionary users. In this paper, we outline the results we obtained from an empirical research carried out among students of Translation Studies at University Jaume I (Castellon, Spain) in order to understand the situation of our students
…
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Online dictionary resources for patent, technical and medical translation from Japanese, German and French to English
Part 2 - Useful Websites for Translation of Patents from German and French
Part 2 will look at websites and techniques that can be used in a similar way for translation into English of patent applications published mainly in German and French, but to some extent also in other European languages
…
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Time Pressure and Dictionary Availability
Electronic
documentation has become an essential tool in the area
of translation studies research. Needless to say, psycholinguistic
methods of verbal reporting (Think-Aloud Protocols -
TAPs) have also been efficiently used to conduct scientific
experiments in this field. This paper is concerned with
a summary of two articles, which were published by the
Copenhagen Business School in its publication
"Probing the process in translation: methods
and results" in 1999. The two articles were
chosen because both of them are concerned with two essential
issues that worry most translators: time pressure and
dictionary availability…
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Choosing a Good Spanish English Translation Dictionary
English Spanish dictionaries come in all shapes, sizes, specialties, and mediums. There are paperback dictionaries, medical dictionaries, desktop dictionaries, electronic dictionaries, good dictionaries, and bad dictionaries
…
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Online dictionary resources for patent, technical and medical translation from
Japanese, German and French to English. Part 1 The Japan Patent Office
Website.
I have always been intrigued by
the very idea of a dictionary. Or at least since a very young age, I think I
must have had an instinctive understanding of the value of a good dictionary.
When I was 15 (1967), I found in the attic an unexpected treasure: an old
Latin-Greek-German-Czech dictionary, published around 1920. It had more than 600
pages and it was in perfectly good shape except for the binding which was
falling apart. I somehow found the money to have it bound again and it came in
very handy because for the next 5 years or so I was quite obsessed with Latin.
But passion for Latin proved to be a passing phase in the life of this teenager.
French proved to be much more interesting, German much more useful, and Japanese
… well, Japanese was a challenge that I just could not resist, which is why I
started learning Japanese as a full time student at Charles University in Prague
in 1975, and 30 years later, I am a pretty good beginner… Read the full article…
For the Benefit & Helpe of Ladies and Gentlewomen: A Translators Historical Review of Dictionaries and Their Eccentricities
Although the major European countries have been prolific in bringing dictionaries to press since the early seventeenth century, dictionary production in the twentieth century has grown exponentially in all the major European languages. It is worth mentioning that although in the last two decades there have been revolutionary electronic innovations in format, searchability, presentation and design, in many fundamental respects monolingual general dictionaries produced today, whether in the United States or in Europe, are very similar to those of earlier centuries…
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New
English-Polish and Polish-English Dictionaries: Some Problems Related to Legal, Financial
and Insurance Terminology
Until recently Polish-English translators had to do with Jan Stanisławski's The Great English-Polish and Polish-English Dictionary or The Kosciuszko Foundation English-Polish and Polish-English Dictionary,
both of which were published in the late '50s or early '60s. For nearly forty
years they were the largest source of reference, although not always a reliable
one due to errors/omissions and a lapse of time. They had a dozen or so
reprints but their content remained basically unchanged. My 1998 edition of the
Stanisławski Dictionary has a new modern and colorful cover, but it does not
contain a large number of new speciaL terms related to computers, Internet,
modern technology, biotechnology, etc., as well as terms corresponding to the
new Polish political, economic and legal environment after the fall of
Communism in the late '80s…
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