Collins Robert French Dictionary Complete and Unabridged edition: For Advanced Learners and Professionals

The best of all? asks one reviewer. NON! Collins isn't and never was. It's only an intermediate dictionary, as one reviewer points out.30 years ago when I was reading French every day I ditched my Collins in favour of a *concise* Oxford. Mainly it was because idioms were impossibly badly organised in Collins.Le Petit Robert is a fabulous dictionary - it's basically the French equivalent of Chambers or better. I've never felt any need for Le Robert, the full one. I have no idea what Hachette are like.I was hoping now to ditch my cumbersome 1985 four-volume Harrap in favour of a single volume, but that is not going to be possible. I bought this Collins French by mistake: - I thought, stupidly, from the limited preview facilities and the fact that it describes itself as French (whereas all the old editions used to say French-English-English-French), that it was monolingual (all I need for reading) - a translation of Le Petit Robert would have been nice.If you are thinking of reading French at university, and you go to a good university, you should be thinking of owning both a monolingual etymological dictionary and the best possible bilingual dictionary (e.g. bécasse is French for woodcock - a monolingual dictionary isn't much use for that kind of thing). That is, try to find a 4-volume Harrap, a Harrap Slang and a Petit Robert.Having said that, part of what these Collins and Oxfords do is keep you up-to-date with the ultra-modern, and you won't get that from an old Harrap. During the last 40 years, Collins French has improved - it uses bold typeface and blue ink to make things more legible. But I also got a cheap second-hand Oxford/Hachette for comparison, 2007 edition.Both dictionaries have the same limitations in the size of their vocab, but I'll probably stick with Oxford on past experience (and because of newfound problems with Collins Spanish, see below). The explanation of "a la guerre comme a la guerre" is slightly better in Oxford/Hachette, but someone else might find an explanation of something that's better in Collins.I recently re-read Clochemerle: -Harrap says,le rosaire - rosary of 165 beadsle chapelet - lesser rosary of 55 beads (you may want to check the Catholic Encyclopaedia to confirm that)Collins and Oxford say: -le rosaire - rosaryle chapelet - rosary, not to mention words, e.g. bistrouille, bobi(nard), ratichon, that aren't even in Collins or Oxford at all.I had always liked Spanish Collins in conjunction with Vox and Grijalbo (although, despite the South American content, there are plenty of dialect/Indian words you'll have to look up online if you read Marquez), but recently I read Tintin en el Congo and have started to have grave doubts about the methodology of these intermediate dictionaries - brevity is OK for a Collins Gem, but for the full Collins, fuller explanation is needed.For German I use Oxford Duden (with Mackensen and others), 2008 edition, already a bit old!Cambridge Italian and Garzanti.Since both my Oxfords are old, I'm starting to wonder if OUP are generally lazier than Collins - in addition Oxford Classical Texts are nearly a dead duck.CD-ROMs (combined with the internet) are the future of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, but they can be insanely overpriced.

I have been using large foreign language dictionaries for over 50 years as a student and teacher of languages.I bought this 2020 11th edition as an update to the 2016 10th edition. Upon opening it I thought my eyesight had suffered a dramatic loss overnight. Accustomed to being able to scan whole paragraphs and pick out detail easily, this was not the case with this book. I pulled out my previous edition and compared the two.The blue used in the older edition is darker and slightly easier to see. However, the real problems lie with the black print which is paler and offers less contrast and with the apparently thinner or lesser quality paper itself which suffers from the print on the back showing through more noticeably than on the old edition, despite the paler print. Looking at the first pages of the two editions you can also see that in the new edition more letters have been packed into each line of print which, along with the paler print and more transparent paper makes clarity and easy reading even more of an issue.Unlike another reviewer here I would normally suggest the Collins Robert as totally suitable for university study. Especially when alternative French-English dictionaries with such up-to-date vocabulary are thin on the ground. The Oxford Hachette is 14 years old and will clearly not contain a lot of vocabulary which is now in everyday use. This Collins Robert is an update of their 2016 update, but even so does not contain items like Covid or coronavirus because of the long lead-up time for creating a dictionary.I seem to have damaged the blue covering material on a corner and on the front cover as I took some photographs - the cover on my older copy is still intact. Another quality issue or my clumsiness?I think it is remarkable to be able to buy a fairly comprehensive dictionary of two languages at such a cheap price, and to have fitted all that material into one book which it is still possible to handle fairly easily. However, the issues I have highlighted here suggest to me that a 2-volume edition may necessary in the future. Most people probably only use one half of the book at any one time, so that would not be a major problem, and 2 slightly lighter, slimmer volumes with very clear print would be my preference.I hope the photos of the 2016 edition (darker blue) and the 2020 edition (lighter blue) are helpful, but I think the difference is starker in real life.

Very thorough, listings, explanations, extra info, maps... covers every subject u can think of ... im v pleased with my purchase. After losing the thread of French post Hi School im just dabbling on Duolingal/'French for Dummies'/Verb books... enjoying it so much. This dictionary is very helpful/entertaining. Pages are thin - to accommodate amount of data - but it is well bound, stitched, and its hard cover should protect it for years to come(tho, as usual with all my books), i shall be covering it in clear plastic protector). Glad i purchased this.

Love it. I've taken up studying French recently and this is a very useful book for reference. Although there is a wealth of information available online, you just can't beat having a book you can pick up. For some of the more common words, it's really useful to see examples of them being used in a sentence. The verb tables, tips on letter writing and job applications, and a map of la Francophonie are a nice touch. Très bien !

First of all the size of this book took me by surprise; it's 270mm x 200mm x 70mm, weighs 2.7Kgs & has 2300 pages, plus 23 pages of maps; definitely not something to carry in your school bag. (I am told that teachers and French users of this book refer to it as "Le Petit Robert")At £23.40 with free "Prime" delivery I think this is unbelievably good value.The best features of the dictionary are the wealth of additional information that it gives: not only the maps of the World in French and English but also examples of writing a letter, sending and invitation, composing an Email and a host of suggested phrases to use in various situations (such as making a phone call) and translations of commonly used expressions (eg there are 10 examples of how to apologise or make excuses in a letter in French)In each entry every use of the word is explored in depth and alternative meanings are identified and translated. On many pages there are text-boxes giving cultural reference to the use and origin of words.I am absolutely delighted with my new "friend" Robert.