If you’re anything like me, there’s nothing more exciting than finding a new online resource! A good resource can open up a wealth of possibilities to save you time and help you find that key bit of information you were looking for.
In a previous blog, we spoke about some of the resources that our Arabic>English translators and editors use. Here, I will talk about the resources I use on a day-to-day basis as an in-house French>English and Spanish>English editor at Cadenza. You may already be aware of some of these websites, but I hope you will discover something new and useful!
Chicago Manual of Style Online and CMoS Shop Talk – Chicago is our preferred style guide for US English. The full style guide can be accessed online if you have a subscription. The CMoS Shop Talk blog also has lots of interesting posts about style and grammar issues.
CNRTL – A monolingual French dictionary that includes some more obscure historical definitions.
Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas – This dictionary, linked to the Real Academia Española, goes into extensive detail about Spanish linguistic issues.
FundéuRAE – Another good resource for anything to do with Spanish grammar and style.
IATE – The EU’s terminology database. It’s very useful if you want to know how certain terms are translated at the EU level.
Larousse – A reliable French monolingual dictionary.
Linguee – A bilingual dictionary that presents words or phrases in their context.
Merriam Webster – Our preferred dictionary for US English. It also has a thesaurus.
Oxford Collocation Dictionary – This dictionary shows the collocates commonly associated with a word. It’s really useful for making your writing sound more natural.
Oxford English Dictionary – Our preferred dictionary for UK English.
PerfectIt – This is a piece of editing software that can be used within MS Word. It’s extremely useful for picking up on any inconsistencies and enforcing style rules.
ProZ – ProZ is an online community for language professionals. Its forum contains lots of helpful translation suggestions, but they must of course be taken with a pinch of salt.
Real Academia Española – The Real Academia Española’s monolingual dictionary is a must for anyone working with Spanish.
Reverso Context – Another bilingual dictionary, similar to Linguee.
WordReference – WordReference has multiple bilingual dictionaries in various language pairs. It also has a dedicated language forum where users can discuss terms.
