Harper Collins Robert French College Dictionary

Rating:
Summary: WELL-STRUCTURED, VERY GOOD
Review: "Harper Collins Robert French College Dictionary" has a rather long name, but that is the only big blame I have for it. It quickly opens the door at the request of any French enthusiast.
This well-compiled lexicon covers almost all the contemporary words that French natives use in daily conversations. It has a good structure, and its double-spaced outlay makes it easy to locate words. However, intending (American) buyers should bear in mind that this edition paid more attention to the Queen's English than it did to the American one.

Rating:
Summary: The British English - not American??
Review: I am finding the English translations predominantly British and scores of American English words and expressions missing. I thought this was because I bought mine in France but my LaRousse pocket dictionary doesn't have the same problem. I am writing a series of books and use this constantly, hours and hours every day, and so I am further able to see a disturbing trend: the things females talk about, the words and expressions they use tend to be the shortest entries in the book! This is making my research very rough going since half my audience is female! This may be a function of the American vs. British thing; maybe British females aren't as fluent with psychology, for example, as American women... but I doubt it. Talking about emotions and relationships is a pretty globally female trend, yet many of the words describing these things are labelled "Psych", as though they are used only by professionals when in fact in the US they are part of the vernacular. This is forcing me to cross-reference three or four times to be sure I'm using the correct form of the word.

My next complaint is that the meanings are sometimes inaccurate. For example: the second connotation of the word "appreciation" is "gratefulness" and the onlyFrench word they supply is "reconnaissance." The sense "like, admire" is not addressed at all. There are many examples like this and I am not really sure to what it can be attributed but I can't imagine it would be a good resource for college students if it doesn't work for a writer.

This is my experience and I would love to hear an American provide some tips because I bought 2 versions of this brand!

Rating:
Summary: I detest this book, can't replace it fast enough
Review: I cannot figure out why this book has such
a good reputation. As a beginning French
student I want to be able to easly find
the corresponding French/English-English/French
word, and the phonetic pronounciation.

I can't do either with this book.

When I find the word there are paragraphs
of text to wade through to find the many meanings.
Yes I know. There probably are many nuances and
meanings depending on context, but it's just too
much for my purposes.

Too many words; too little useful information.
This book is utterly worthless.