(Part 3) Best dictionaries & thesauruses according to redditors
We found 1,016 Reddit comments discussing the best dictionaries & thesauruses. We ranked the 537 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
43. Modern Aramaic-English/English-Modern Aramaic Dictionary & Phrasebook: Assyrian/Syriac
3 mentions
47. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, Third Edition
3 mentions
Houghton Mifflin
See also: The Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate
Does that mean if you need to buy books specifically for dummies, you're probably not very dumb?
Asking for a friend.
These should at least be of use:
Reading German
German for Reading
French for Reading
Reading French in the Arts and Sciences
It's available and free on Amazon.it too, check here: https://www.amazon.it/Great-Book-American-Idioms-Expressions-ebook/dp/B07Z2WP8SH
Dirty Chinese
You want this. Chapter 5. There is even an e-book version if you need it RIGHT NOW.
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
amazon.in
amazon.com.mx
amazon.de
amazon.it
amazon.es
amazon.com.br
amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
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Another question:
I'm currently learning to read and write Assyrian and I must say that online resources and material are really scarce. As an academic specializing in Syriac studies and with your vast knowledge of Syriac, you are in a great position to amend this.
My question: Do you have any personal plans to create more resources to make it easier to learn Assyrian? Like books, apps, websites etc making it easier to learn both Western and Eastern Assyrian?
If not, then please consider doing it, preferably as easy as possible with a low threshold. There are numerous young disconnected Assyrians who would benefit greatly from this!
Btw, I've already purchased one of your excellent books, Modern Aramaic, Assyrian/Syriac Dictionary and Phrasebook, which has been invaluable for me so far.
Thank you so much! :)
Thanks for the contest :D
Great question. Closest I have is the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, but it's not as useful as what you're describing for that purpose.
Buy:
Colloquial Icelandic by Daisy L. Neijmann
Icelandic by Stefán Einarsson
Bookmark:
Íslensk-ensk orðabók (dictionary)
Icelandic Online (course from the University of Iceland, start with 'Bjargir')
Beygingarlýsing íslensks nútímamáls (even if you don't know what it is now, you'll need it later)
2. Make Icelandic friends.
3. Get ahold of Icelandic movies/tv/books.
4. Work your ass off.
5. Move to Iceland.
6. Profit.
I've been learning Icelandic for a couple years and I love to help out new learners. Would you be interested in helping me put together a site for learners?
I've been meaning to do it for a while but haven't gotten around to it. I have a good collection of material and a handful of Icelanders at my disposal. It's simply a matter of having someone there to push me to get things done.
A collocation dictionary is similar to, but not exactly, what you're looking for. The Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English is an example, and the way an entry is structured is to give different collocations for the key you've looked up.
In a similar vein, there's REDES diccionario combinatorio del español contemporáneo (REDES combinatorial dictionary for contemporary Spanish) for Spanish. In addition to collocations, it presents linguistic restrictions on what kinds of words can pair with or occur near whatever word you've looked up. It doesn't necessarily present its collocations and entries as constructions, but it does end up inadvertently giving information that could easily lend itself to construction grammar. There's a flash website here that gives examples of the kinds of entries it has. It's in Spanish, and Google can't translate Flash apps, so it might not be accessible for you, though.
You will usually take a language exam to test out of this requirement or 2 years of coursework in the language, or sometimes there is a reading course that counts (which is either 1 semester/2 quarters/1 year long). The language test is usually just before you are awarded your MA on the way to the PhD, which is about 2 years in. So you don't need to worry about knowing them before you enter.
That said, if you want to get started, pick up:
German
French
http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Chinese-Everyday-Slang-ebook/dp/B003ODHOA4
This book helped me a lot with learning lots of vulgarities, the Chinasmack glossary someone else posted was pretty helpful for stuff that's used more online.
I took the course with absolutely no background in French and the majority of the students also didn't have any background in French. I found the class to be very easy, but that might not be true for everyone. If you're worried about it, you could purchase a copy of the textbook in advance and go through it. Like I said, though, it's pass or fail, so you don't need to excel but just get by. You'll have plenty of time to enhance your French reading abilities when (and if) you need them.
Excellent resource. I actually bought The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots from Amazon last week. It's basically the same list, but it also has English words derived from the roots. Highly recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802068197/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=allthipoe-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0802068197
I have read foreign novels on the Touch, the Paperwhite 1, the Paperwhite 2, and the Voyage. Of the three, I definitely like the Voyage the best, but I have to agree that the Paperwhite 2 is probably the best value, if price is a consideration.
You absolutely want the latest software, though. they made a lot of improvements in the last update that were specifically targeted at users reading foreign languages and using multiple dictionaries. My own strategy is to use the built-in mono-lingual dictionary first and then switch to the bilingual one only if that fails. That was harder to do before the latest upgrade.
I'm planning to work on German next year, and I expect to buy the PONS Advanced German -> English Dictionary. I've read through the reviews on Amazon for four dictionaries, and this one seems like the best of the bunch. I used Collins dictionaries to read Spanish, French, and Italian, and while the first two were good, the Italian one was missing lots of word forms. I saw some reviews making the same complaint about the German one, so I'll probably avoid it.
I've been waiting for this thread, although sadly I will most likely only be able to torment you.
I grew up with these collections in the local library, and reread them until they literally fell apart. I hope they will offer some guidance in your search for amazing sci fi shorts.
First, some specifics:
Science Fiction A to Z is an excellent cross section of sci fi, covering the far corners and various points inbetween. From everything to a strange time traveling western, to the comical problem of Santa Clause being a threat to national security, and then reaching from an awesome space opera all the way to the simple question of 'why not mount heavy weapons on all vehicles in America', this book is an excellent read.
Asimov's Laughing Space lives up to its name. Filled with the most zany and hilarious sci fi shorts, with scattered poems, comics, and pictures to keep you coming back for more. This is a jewel among sci fi, showcasing some of the best humorists and just plain funniness of sci fi.
The Treasury of Science Fiction (and it's cousin, the World Treasury of Science Fiction) covers some of the giants of sci fi. Well known stories, and some not so well known, fill the pages of this tome.
Onto more general anthologies:
The Masterpieces anthology attempts to pick the best stories from each generation (which I feel is an oxymoron, as there is simply too many "best stories" to fit into a single collection). Regardless, the editor sought to showcase a number of stories, and some are quite excellent, ranging from Ellison's classic "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman", to Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" (both personal favorites of mine); and of course, "Tunesmith", by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
The titans of these anthologies are quite arguably Asimov and Campbell, as they both edited and selected the vast majority of these stories. Asimoc truly shined with The Hugo Winners, a giant collection of every story that won the Hugo Award. These stories are truly incredible, made all the more so by Asimov personally introducing each story and giving his thoughts on the story and its' author. This truly helps bring perspective and focus to each story, as well as giving delightful history and background! But do not forget the stories; they will be some of the best literature you will have ever experienced.
Not to be forgotten would be the New Hugo Winners collections, partially edited by Asimov. However, if as I suspect you are looking for more of the older classics, this might be less of what you're looking for.
Campbell however was the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, one of the premier sci fi magazines. And the Astounding Science Fiction Anthology is exactly what it sounds like: the best stories Astounding published under Campbell's editorship. An excellent read of a wide ranging selection of authors.
The Hall of Fame anthologies (Vol. 2) are also worth mentioning, and feature what other great sci fi writers believe to be great sci fi. While many of these stories are well known, there are some that are unknown to the general public, and are well worth reading.
The Best Of collections go into greater detail of several specific years, near the height of the Golden Age. Most of these are lesser known works, but contain a certain energy and uniqueness. I found most of them to be quite enjoyable reading.
And to round it all out, Asimov once again returns with his Great Sci Fi Stories a series that encompasses even more sci fi shorts, many of them not well known (but should be!). Some amazing sci fi stories exist within the pages of these books, including "Ether Breather" by Theodore Sturgeon (and it's followup, "Butyl and the Breather"). I could wax on about the stories contained, but they should speak for themselves.
As an honorable mention, I should include the Tales series from Star Wars, edited by Kevin J. Anderson: Jabba's Palace, Mos Eisley Cantina, Empire, and The New Republic.
And with that, it's late, and I can't remember any other specifics, so I shall leave you with that. I with you luck in trying to acquire the very rare hard copies of these, as most of them have become old, forgotten, and faded into history :(
I learned Icelandic with the book Colloquial Icelandic by Daisy L. Neijmann. I just read that book until I knew it by heart.
Then I moved on to this book, which is very old and uses very strange language. But it's great because Icelandic is an old and formal language, so it exposed me to a whole new level of Icelandic.
Lots to read in it.
Unfortunately, al-kitaab is not very vocab heavy until the second book. One textbook I like is Standard Arabic: an advanced course. There's also an elementary-intermediate course, which may be of benefit to you, but I'm not personally familiar with it. Something I've been mining for random, everyday vocab words (something that al-kitaab is horrible about) is the Arabic-English bilingual visual dictionary. It has lots of good words and seems pretty accurate. Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions for books or movies, but something you can do is read wikipedia. Pick a topic you know about, look it up in English wikipedia then click over to Arabic. If it's something you already know, it'll be much easier to pick up the vocabulary. Write down all the words you look up and put them onto flashcards.
All of the big Advanced Learner dictionaries will work for that: Merriam-Webster's, Collins COBUILD, Cambridge, Oxford - American and so on.
However... studying vocabulary from a dictionary is not optimal. I like vocabulary builders for that a lot more: Merriam-Websters and Oxford American are the the two I had used - plus TOEFL, CPE and IELTS vocabulary books. And Swan's Practical English Usage - that last section is a gold mine - highlighting the small differences between words and expressions and whatsnot). And I had found Oxford Collocations Dictionary very useful as well.
And do not underestimate the online resources - all of the big dictionaries are also online and you can look up examples and explanations very easy.
Aw, that's too bad. There used to be a free online index of Indo-European roots at bartleby.com, but it looks like it's been taken down. Well, Wikipedia can get you started, and your university will definitely have something, but watch out for stuff by Germans, since it can be very user-unfriendly. It's also a seriously hardcore area of scholarship in general, since everyone who works in it knows very many languages, many of them dead. If you're really desperate, you might get better shipping rates from amazon.de, but as I can see the list price is quite a bit higher.
I know of "American Heritage Word Frequency Book" and "The Teachers Word Book of 30,000 words"
This one looks promising too. http://www.amazon.com/Frequency-Dictionary-Contemporary-American-English/dp/0415490634/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264117499&sr=8-1
Also, you can find frequency in online corpora, but it's hard to find one with a general list of all words.
http://expsy.ugent.be/subtlexus/
http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk/bnc-readme.html#lemmatised
http://www.academicvocabulary.info/download.asp
You can check out the reviews on the dictionary's Amazon page.
I mostly scoff at the idea that physical books are fundamentally somehow better than their digitized counterparts, but for some reason I prefer physical dictionaries, thesauri and RPG Core Rulebooks. I think it has something to do with my attachment to flipping through these kinds of books.
The compact OED kinda blew my mind. Here is an unboxing I found for those curious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYfHqaKp874
Every English word in one book, for the low price of $441.75
> This is the main thing here. Canada doesn't feel like my country. I don't feel any difference visiting New England than visiting Ontario.
I suggest you travel more if you're able! If you can, go to L'Anse aux Meadows, and Moncton, Sudbury and Brandon, Moose Jaw and Kamloops, and yes even Vancouver and Toronto. If you visit those places and all you can see is New England, then I'm sorry my friend, the problem is with you. Seriously, no rational person can spend a night with a bunch of drunk newfies and think to themselves "this language I'm hearing is very much English just like others speak".
Canada is home to a very rich diversity of cultures, and a multitude of nations (within nations), all with the common goal of working together collectively.
And yes, we all have tragedy in our pasts. We're largely a nation of immigrants. Life sucks, the world sucks, countries/governments suck. You had relatives that were wrongly imprisoned or abused, some going back centuries. /u/Tartra probably has a list a mile long as well. As do I, where my relatives had all their land stolen, and those that couldn't flee were raped/beaten/starved/and killed.
People don't come to Canada to give up their lives of being Kings and Barons in their past country, they came here to start over (Unless you are First Nations, in which case you were conquered by the French/English/Spanish by guns and pox).
The defining trait of Canadians isn't that we all have these tragedies in our past, it's that we move past it and work together to create a better future. I'm glad you're part of it, even if you're not!
here.
Here is a list. http://www.amazon.ca/Frequency-Dictionary-Contemporary-American-English/dp/0415490634
As enthusiastic and knowledgeable as they might be, I have a hard time trusting authors who may actually believe in this stuff. Which is why I have had such a rough time shopping for the appropriate book.
Just as an example, one book I found on Amazon was The Dictionary of Demons, which looked like what I have have been looking for. But on closer inspection, the author, Michelle Belanger, doesn't look like an authority whom one should trust. Her author blurb on Amazon claims she is an renowned "occult expert", but she doesn't seem to have any sort of higher education. Much, much worse, she apparently identifies as a "psychic vampire" and has written books about living the vampire lifestyle. It makes it difficult to to take what she has to say about demons with any authority, and feels like it'll be a book plagued by modern popular occult ideas and personal whimsy.
I know there are medievalist, early modern, and religious historians out there who are interested in these sorts of topics, who can cite their sources and examine the subject material from a more objective perspective. It has just been difficult navigating all the titles out there, especially without the ability to pick up books and peruse them.
Spanish
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1465459316/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3/139-3914457-3656352?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_r=S9HEV6304SXFCEN966R2&pf_rd_r=S9HEV6304SXFCEN966R2&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=7a8f5654-37f5-4688-a266-a74309cad748&pf_rd_p=7a8f5654-37f5-4688-a266-a74309cad748&pf_rd_i=0756649838
​
Arabic
https://www.amazon.com/Arabic-English-Bilingual-Dictionary-DK-Publishing/dp/0756649838
​
There are for many other languages
Stefan Einarsson's Icelandic: Grammar, Text and Glossary (1945) seems to be pretty well received.
>Kibokh mijgolat turoyo?
Yes
>If yes did you grow up speaking it or did you learn it?
Well the two
>I'm trying to learn Turoyo online right now.
Here is what you have to do:
Watch:
AssyriaTV Many good interviews, by far the best channel, good journalism also.
SuroyoTV News / Tebe / other programs in Arabic and Suryoyo Our first channel!
SuryoyoSAT, Live here with other programs, another link with News in Sureyt/Turoyo AND Classical (the only one), good shows on Seyfo our literature and Aramean & WCA propaganda.
Books:
Modern Aramaic-English/English-Modern Aramaic Dictionary & Phrasebook: Assyrian/Syriac: Best book to learn both dialect!
Last but not least, the best of the best:
Kthowo Qadisho bSureyt: The new testament in Surety/Turoyo and Suryoyo/Classical Syriac. Translated by Malfono 'AbdMshiho Saa'di, he introduced a new syntax/Orthography for our spoken dialect so that it's close to Classical Syriac, by far one of the best contribution to our language in the XXI century!
I think you would enjoy this book
http://www.amazon.com/Highly-Selective-Dictionary-Extraordinarily-Literate/dp/0062701908
and this bookhttp://www.amazon.com/Highly-Selective-Thesaurus-Extraordinarily-Literate/dp/0062700162
somethin like that.
you need this
$24/mo is absurd. The best way to check grammar is to put it down and come back an hour or two later to proofread. If you're desperate, MS Word does have a built-in grammar check tool you can use or Open Office has some grammar check extensions you can download such as LanguageTool.
If you question your own grammar, get a couple of light and easy grammar references to keep by your desk. Eats, Shoots & Leaves or The Transitive Vampire are two that are easy to work with and don't take themselves too seriously.
EDIT: Also, if you need to write regularly, buy one of these: The Synonym Finder. Hands down one of the best, easiest to use on the market. I write professionally and I have 5 copies of this book -- one for every place I may wind up writing. That's how useful I find it.
I have been using this for my kindle, and it has worked fine. Sometimes it has trouble reading the conjugated forms of verbs, but I think that's just an issue with the kindle, not the dictionary.
I don't know if it will help but I've been reading a book called, "The Dictionary of Demons: Names of the Damned" by Michelle Belanger. Maybe you can find the "demon" that has been bothering you and maybe take some action to stop it. I hope everything works out for you.
Here is the mobile version of your link
I got started on science fiction short stories. Just enough to introduce some science, but not too deep a dive into details to be intimidating.
Science Fiction A to Z
Wanting to learn ASL (I am starting to build a relationship with a local deaf & blind school for work and want to communicate with the students better) so this
A Kindle 4. When I take books from Aozora Bunko, convert them and put them on my Kindle they work just fine. As I said, even dictionaries work, so the Kindle definitely can handle the characters — even displays them correctly in input fields (can't type them ofc. but it works when they're placed there automatically for dictionary search).
Yet, for every book with Japanese content on Amazon: not available for the non paperwhite Kindle
Yeah, everybody knows REAL smart people read [this] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0446370290/ref=cm_cr_othr_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8)
"There Will Come Soft Rains" is in a great book that's a compilation of a bunch of SF short stories. I had read this in high school in the late 80's and tracked it down via a few of the stories that I remembered.
...though "There Will Come Soft Rains" wasn't one of the ones that I had remembered at the time. :)
http://www.amazon.com/SCIENCE-FICTION-Z-Charles-Waugh/dp/039531285X/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217947980&sr=8-7
When I got a Kindle I bought the PONS German - English dictionary (link). It's $10 but it works very well.
I bought this a while ago. I'm surprised that some of the words I use are actually western (I speak mostly eastern)
http://www.amazon.com/Aramaic-English-English-Modern-Aramaic-Dictionary-Phrasebook/dp/0781810876
I know that in English there exists a series of books called Hide This [Language] Book that goes over pick-up lines, swear words, how to curse and have sex and acquire illegals in other languages. This may very well be the Chinese/Mandarin equivalent.
http://www.amazon.com/Hide-This-French-Book-Editors/dp/B0085SL4E0
I wouldn't be able to do the topic much justice through a reddit post, but I'll reccomend you some great books on the topic
The encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology
The Dictionary of Demons: Names of the damned
The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agenda of Genies
The book of Yokai: Mysterious creatures of Japanese folklore
That oughta be a good start, because believe me the topic is as interesting as it is detailed.
Newfoundlander here, and I agree. Whenever I hear an Irish accent, I automatically associate it with the south coast of our island haha.
We do have some very unique language and terminology though. We even have our own dictionary!
https://www.amazon.ca/Dictionary-Newfoundland-English-W-J-Kirwin/dp/0802068197
[This] (http://imgur.com/7OvBTNy) is a photo of two of my babies, Jimmex and Lola. The cuddliest, hairless cats ever :)
And honestly, any gift would be appreciated, but the [Signing Made Easy] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0399514902/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=17NON4X8QY4C4&coliid=IEQZH9SVQANNJ) book would really make my week :)
Don't forget that socks rock.
Does anyone know of any J->E collocation dictionaries? I know the book "Common Japanese Collocations," but can't seem to find anything like a bilingual edition of the Oxford Collocations Dictionary.
dude, wtf are you talking about?
ps. here a book you should look over. http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Complete-Reproduced-Micrographically-slipcase/dp/0198612583
Bhai, thoda paisa kharch karke apne liye kuch achha kar lo. 1 2