| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Does anyone still use paper dictionaries? Thread poster: Fiona Grace Peterson
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Rolf Keller
Germany
Local time: 01:09
English to German
| Leafing through books instead of buying a second keyboard? | Jan 4, 2019 |
EvaVer wrote:
no Cyrillic keyboard, so (...) I have to compose the word by inserting letters one by one as special characters.
Why don't you plug in an additional Cyrillc USB keyboard and use both keyboards in parallel. This works even with a laptop.
| | | | Tanja Oresnik 
Slovenia
Local time: 01:09
French to Slovenian
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| Yes, I still use paper dictionaries | Jan 4, 2019 |
From my experience, paper dictionaries are still a valuable resource in my language pairs, because online dictionaries and other ressources in my combos are insufficient. I also own and use paper books in my work, as I do not want to rely on internet sources only. I do my internet research too, though.
| | | | | Yes and I love them! | Jan 4, 2019 |
I have dozens of them, some rare ones included.
Although most of the time I need to consult a dictionary only for the confirmation and thus electronic dictionaries are OK for this purpose, I love printed dictionaries.
Actually, old and heavy (!) dictionaries from my younger ages are much better than the new ones probably because more work was dedicated to them and dictionaries were taken more seriously by then.
The paper dictionaries I mostly use are eith... See more I have dozens of them, some rare ones included.
Although most of the time I need to consult a dictionary only for the confirmation and thus electronic dictionaries are OK for this purpose, I love printed dictionaries.
Actually, old and heavy (!) dictionaries from my younger ages are much better than the new ones probably because more work was dedicated to them and dictionaries were taken more seriously by then.
The paper dictionaries I mostly use are either monolingual or tri-quadrilingual etc. One of the languages is almost always Latin. I must add that I translate documents in medical and life sciences fields and confirmation of terms via Latin is sometimes essential.
This week I have found two second-hand dictionaries in a charity shop, one Dutch-German and one Duden Français. Of course, I bought them and I am trying to decide which one I should use first. I will probably go with the Dutch one, a language I wanted to learn for a long time. I believe that printed dictionaries are appeal more to people who love languages 
Said that, any printed dictionaries you don't need are more than welcome here
Elif ▲ Collapse
| | | | DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
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While I also have digitized my specialized dictionaries, yet I occasionally print some text/TM extracts for refreshing, proofreading, correction, and practicing. Furthermore, I still enjoy coming into a study (more like a reading room), opening a dictionary on a random page--and reading through several pages non-stop, checking my memory... In my small home library there're over a thousand books, hundreds of bound volumes of journals and magazines, and about a few tens of interesting dictionaries... See more While I also have digitized my specialized dictionaries, yet I occasionally print some text/TM extracts for refreshing, proofreading, correction, and practicing. Furthermore, I still enjoy coming into a study (more like a reading room), opening a dictionary on a random page--and reading through several pages non-stop, checking my memory... In my small home library there're over a thousand books, hundreds of bound volumes of journals and magazines, and about a few tens of interesting dictionaries in different language pairs and topics.
Of course, sometimes I feel like donating it, but it was my parents' hobby and many items are personally signed since 1950's or even came from earlier times, so I just enjoy the touch, the look, the content, my time and memories) ▲ Collapse
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Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:09
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| No - all electronic now | Jan 4, 2019 |
Fiona Grace Peterson wrote:
Just curious to hear what others have to say - do you still use paper dictionaries or have they become redundant for you?
I can imagine using them for something ultra-specialised, but in reality I never do.
Regards,
Dan
| | | | Oliver Walter
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:09
German to English
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| Yes, I use them. Not much but sometimes important | Jan 4, 2019 |
For term searching on the internet I usually use dict.cc and linguee.com, sometimes one or two others, but I still think paper dicos are useful and sometimes very valuable.
I have the general Collins Fr-En and De-En dicos (about 2 kilograms each) and a few specialist technical ones, all of which are just occasionally very useful. One was recommended by somebody here on Proz in 2008 and is very good for electrical matters. It is from Siemens: Wörterbuch industrielle Elektrotechnik, Energie... See more For term searching on the internet I usually use dict.cc and linguee.com, sometimes one or two others, but I still think paper dicos are useful and sometimes very valuable.
I have the general Collins Fr-En and De-En dicos (about 2 kilograms each) and a few specialist technical ones, all of which are just occasionally very useful. One was recommended by somebody here on Proz in 2008 and is very good for electrical matters. It is from Siemens: Wörterbuch industrielle Elektrotechnik, Energie- und Automatisierungstechnik; Dictionary of Electrical Engineering, Power Engineering and Automation.
Another interesting one was given to me by my uncle more than 50 years ago when I was about to graduate in electrical engineering and before I was interested in translation as a professional activity: Elsevier's Fachwörterbuch der Regelungstechnik (specialist dictionary of control engineering, which in fact I studied 4 years later); I have typed up its En, Fr and De terms into spreadsheet files (gradually, over several months), about 2000 terms in each language, including some omissions (for terms that I considered obvious or trivial), additions and corrections that I thought of at the time.
Another specialist De-En dico, recommended, I think, by somebody in Proz in 2002, that is also occasionally useful for difficult terms: Langenscheidts Fachwörterbuch Technik und angewandte Wissenschaften (Specialist dictionary of technology and applied sciences) by Peter Schmitt. I have started to type that up as a spreadsheet, but it's so big that I might eventually give up: it has about 500000 target terms (yes, half a million) from about 250000 source terms, so to make a spreadsheet from it I'll need to be fairly selective and it will take a long time. So, keeping, and occasionally using, the paper version is something worth doing.
Oliver
[Edited at 2019-01-05 21:38 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I love paper dictionaries! | Jan 5, 2019 |
I love lexicography. I am a lexicographer also. So naturally I love paper dictionaries. I will never ever throw them away. Online dictionaries are highly useful. Still I like and use paper dictionaries regularly. Using paper dictionaries for translation is a joyful exercise to me. As long as I live I will use and keep paper dictionaries. For me, dictionaries are not mere tools, they are treasures. Yes, every paper dictionary is a tangible treasure.
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Fiona Grace Peterson wrote:
Just curious to hear what others have to say - do you still use paper dictionaries or have they become redundant for you?
Yes! I use my Chambers Twentieth Century to hold up one end of my whiteboard. I use my Collins French to balance my footrest on.
(And I keep my Oxford German Dictionary on my desk, just in case...)
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Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 02:09
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
| Yes, sometimes | Jan 5, 2019 |
I have a general multilanguage electronic dictionary for the EU-languages and special technical and commercial dictionaries on the shelve. I could get these electronically too, but I would have to pay a fee every month while the books are paid 20 years ago and still quite up-to-date. If I need to find a term I mostly search on the net and confirm any dictionary term.
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I often use paper dictionaries. As others have said, while leafing through them you sometimes come across words and expressions you would never have thought of looking for online. And they also make a nice change from scrolling through webpages. Holding and feeling a physical book is much more satisfying than negotiating its online equivalent.
| | | | | @Michael Beijer - about scanning books | Jan 6, 2019 |
Michael Beijer wrote: I have a special company here in the UK do it, for a very low price they scan the entire dictionary, create a PDF, then run OCR on the PDF to convert it into a searchable document. It's these people: http://digitisemybooks.co.uk/
How does this business handles copyright? Or they just ignore it?
| | | | finnword1
United States
Local time: 19:09
English to Finnish
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| Project Runeberg | Jan 6, 2019 |
This Swedish organization has posted much literature, including scanned dictionaries on the web. One of the languages is usually, but not always, Swedish or some other Nordic language. Also, most of the dictionaries are very old, but one, which I use frequently, is the 760-page English - Finnish Technical and Business Dictionary from 1960. Another, which I occasionally find useful, is 322-page Latin - Finnish Dictionary from 1974. One which I never use is the 684-page Latvian - English Dictionar... See more This Swedish organization has posted much literature, including scanned dictionaries on the web. One of the languages is usually, but not always, Swedish or some other Nordic language. Also, most of the dictionaries are very old, but one, which I use frequently, is the 760-page English - Finnish Technical and Business Dictionary from 1960. Another, which I occasionally find useful, is 322-page Latin - Finnish Dictionary from 1974. One which I never use is the 684-page Latvian - English Dictionary from 1984.
here is the list of their dictionaries:
http://runeberg.org/tema/dict.html ▲ Collapse
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Why would I pay to use the online version of a dictionary I already have in paper form?
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 19:09
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| I thought there are a lot of free online versions of dictionaries | Jan 6, 2019 |
Chris S wrote:
Why would I pay to use the online version of a dictionary I already have in paper form?
Why would you have to use a paid version?
[Edited at 2019-01-06 21:39 GMT]
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 19:09
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| I didn't use any of my paper dictionaries in the past 10 years or so | Jan 6, 2019 |
Not on a single occasion. When I come across a term whose translation I'm not sure of, I just search the internet for it. The solution more often than not comes from a website that contains the term that is not even an on-line dictionary.
[Edited at 2019-01-07 00:19 GMT]
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