Quote:
Originally Posted by r3turn3r
Hey guys, I'm currently attempting to read my first book in spanish (El Aleph by Borges) and I'm really struggling to find a good spanish to english dictionary that would recognize different verb forms. I've tried several in this thread, but none of them seem good enough.
So, a little help, please
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Hi r3turn3r, you have put your finger on what seems to me too a major defect of Spanish to English dictionaries for e-readers: they almost all are largely incapable of finding the infinitive of a verb form in a very inflected language. The defects seem incredible as though the dictionaries were compiled by people who don't understand that Spanish has complex inflected forms! There is little hope of being led to CANTAR in you come across CANTANDOLO for example but even the most simple regular inflected forms such as CANTABA are not recognised as forms of CANTAR. Sometimes one is pleasantly surprised to be led directly to the correct infinitive but it's not frequent whereas it should be the norm. There is a lot of progress to be made in this field in which even a few simple tweaks could bring considerable progress but the "experts" seem totally unaware of the fact that Spanish has complex inflected forms.
This will not help you I'm afraid but I share the same problem as you and probably many other readers who are learning that marvellous language with its very rich literature. Who knows perhaps some dictionary expert will become aware of the problem in the not too distant future!