Today, I walked about stealing glances at
Langenscheidts Taschenwörterbuch: Spanisch - Deutsch, marking my first mini-foray into a world of German bilingual dictionaries. To put it gently, I have come to a point in my studies where explicit vocabulary exposure couldn't hurt.
Over time, I noticed a pattern studying Spanish, namely that whatever I bought in print, I eventually consumed. Competing electronic resources in any of a barrage of formats were often out of sight and mind, the fate of each dependent on devices in various states of charge and dysfunctionality. I took a couple of photos of what I bought and posted them in the May/June entries of my Spanish journal
hereabouts.
Reading-wise, I started alphabetically today with the dictionary, German headwords, Spanish definitions. In retrospect, a pocketbook dictionary isn't a great standalone choice for my goals as it is very light on content. I was a bit drawn in by the 80k word claim on the back. I am reading out of interest and enjoyment more than anything.
All in all, the pocket dictionary hasn't been impressive. In contrast, however, I have quite fallen for
dict.cc, specifically with EN<->DE settings and can gladly recommend it. I attempted to read some of Kraut's dictionary resource article in German
here (sprachheld.de). My tactic on pronunciation and subvocalization is to read silently if I don't feel confident with a word. Dict.cc has been great with pronunciation. Articles are another matter and I am focusing on paying attention to them for common words first.