I mentioned online dictionaries earlier, including LEO. I don’t use it myself, but I see Chris of Crooked Timber is learning German and says how useful it is for him.
bq. Not only is Leo invaluable as youre trying to decipher that article in Der Spiegel or FAZ, it also enables registered users to enter the words they dont know into a little personal list and then to test themselves repeatedly on their chosen vocabulary. Leo is also very easy to integrate with Mozilla Firefox both by adding to the search engines box and this is really great by installing the ConQuery plugin so you can highlight the German text and then have the dictionary open with a translation in a new tab.
According to a commenter (Tobias of Fistful of Euros), LEO is also ‘Google-enabled, though only for google.de queries’, if you enter ‘de-en’ or ‘en-de’ as part of the search. I haven’t quite got that to work, but I see in the latest Firefox, although I have English in the language settings, the original Google toolbar takes me to Google.de, and on top of that the start page has a Google search bang in the middle, but where that takes me I don’t know. Ah yes, the first real hit for Bisamratte is for me, but before that is a link to take you straight to Leo.
(Thanks to Abnu for the link)
I’m using dict.cc as dictionary “homepage” because although it’s not the best (I haven’t decided which one is, yet), it gives you the opportunity of linking to about 10 others, including ProZ, without having to retype the headword. Very useful, especially for suggestions for common expressions and words as they are actually used rather than what paper dictionaries say.
Now that sounds very useful. I do sometimes look at Proz, especially for the discussions (the askers are often not capable of choosing the best answer, but the answerers outdo each other in quoting and supporting their answers, all with links). Thanks, Nick.
I use LEO too, on those rare occasions when I need to read or write something in German, and can heartily recommed it.
I obviously don’t do it justice. Mind you, a client of mine uses it and sometimes allows it to mislead him. A collection of synonyms is only as good as the person selecting.