Translation Pedagogy: Strategies for Improving Dictionary Use

Bilingual dictionaries are obviously indispensable working tools for translators and translation trainees. And yet, there is widespread dissatisfaction with such dictionaries expressed in the literature on translation. This love-hate relationship existing between translators and bilingual dictionaries, which has been explored in some depth by Ingrid Meyer (1987, pp. 18-36), is based on the presumption that there is such a thing as an ideal general bilingual dictionary or at least an ideal general bilingual dictionary for translators. In other words, the attitude has been, and still is, that if the bilingual dictionary is not the perfect tool for translators, it is the fault of lexicographers. Thus, much attention has been focused recently on better adapting such dictionaries to meet translators' needs.