More often than not, I grab my soapbox, head towards the Retiro Park in Madrid, and shout to the four winds, to all and sundry to beware of Bilingual Dictionaries. Two-language lexicography is scorned and abused every time a new dictionary is published.
The Collins dictionaries are supposed to be the best on the market. Not really. For instance, under "push" we will find the idiomatic expression "when push comes to shove" and the parallel Spanish idiom is given as "a la hora de la verdad". If we look up "verdad" we will not find "a la hora de la verdad." That means that a Spanish-speaking student would never get to "when push comes to shove". Why? The answer is simple: bilingual dictionaries are not such, they are monolingual dictionaries: English-Spanish. and Spanish-English which are not synchronized but simply put together as one book. Two independent teams compose two independent workbooks which are sold, together, as one unit. Very confusing all of it.
The Collins dictionaries are supposed to be the best on the market. Not really. For instance, under "push" we will find the idiomatic expression "when push comes to shove" and the parallel Spanish idiom is given as "a la hora de la verdad". If we look up "verdad" we will not find "a la hora de la verdad." That means that a Spanish-speaking student would never get to "when push comes to shove". Why? The answer is simple: bilingual dictionaries are not such, they are monolingual dictionaries: English-Spanish. and Spanish-English which are not synchronized but simply put together as one book. Two independent teams compose two independent workbooks which are sold, together, as one unit. Very confusing all of it.
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