Poll: Are most of your work resources digital or hard copy?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Jan 9, 2020

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Are most of your work resources digital or hard copy?".

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Chelsea Berry
 
Justin Peterson
Justin Peterson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 06:05
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
Never Opened My Dictionary Jan 9, 2020

When I started out I bought a giant Spanish-English dictionary, just in case I needed a hard copy some day.
I've never opened it.

For better or for worse, we live in a digital world.


Liena Vijupe
Robert Brown
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 05:05
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Maybe half and half Jan 9, 2020

When I started translating digital resources belonged to science fiction. So, over the years I built up a considerable stock of paper dictionaries. They sit on a bookcase near my desk, though I use them less and less. I'm happy to have both at my disposal.

Anna Herbst
Christine Andersen
Muriel Vasconcellos
Robert Rietvelt
Yetta Jensen Bogarde
Gibril Koroma
 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 06:05
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
Impossible to say Jan 9, 2020

I voted half and half. I have collected a lot of hard-copy resources. They are not all dictionaries: some are reading material or reference books, for instance textbooks on law, medical terminology and subject areas like cardiology.
I check in these to be sure I understand the background and context for using a term, and I strongly prefer to have them on paper when I riffle through or read a whole chapter.

I also have a collection of hard-copy dictionaries that either are not
... See more
I voted half and half. I have collected a lot of hard-copy resources. They are not all dictionaries: some are reading material or reference books, for instance textbooks on law, medical terminology and subject areas like cardiology.
I check in these to be sure I understand the background and context for using a term, and I strongly prefer to have them on paper when I riffle through or read a whole chapter.

I also have a collection of hard-copy dictionaries that either are not available online, or would be too expensive if I had to subscribe to them all - I don't use them often enough. The same goes for style manuals - I could not do without them, but I don´t use them all every month!

For constant daily checking, the electronic sources, dictionaries on CD or online, are indispensable. They save a lot of time and distraction!

[Edited at 2020-01-09 12:19 GMT]
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Chelsea Berry
Yetta Jensen Bogarde
Gibril Koroma
 
Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 22:05
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Mostly digital Jan 9, 2020

But I still rely on my collection of hardcopy dictionaries.

 
Maria da Glória Teixeira
Maria da Glória Teixeira  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:05
Member (2020)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
digital Jan 9, 2020

When I started, I used a printed French dictionary. Today, I use digital because it's faster. but sometimes I ask for help for the old dictionary on the shelf.

 
Alexandra Speirs
Alexandra Speirs  Identity Verified
Local time: 06:05
Italian to English
+ ...
digital now Jan 9, 2020

I have so many real dictionaries I hardly ever use, some of them falling to bits, but I can't throw them out.
I got rid of my store of old catalogues for now obsolete machines, they were useful in their day ....


 
Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:05
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
100% digital Jan 9, 2020

I know there are colleagues who still like to use paper dictionaries and other sources. But it's merely a habit. The same dictionaries online are updated versions, not the former version you have at home. Plus, you search 100 dictionaries in the same operation, and other sources in addition to dictionaries, which are even more usefull and accurate for specific jargons than any dictionary.
I'm sorry for the arrogance, but using paper dictionaries in 2020 is like riding a horse on the street
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I know there are colleagues who still like to use paper dictionaries and other sources. But it's merely a habit. The same dictionaries online are updated versions, not the former version you have at home. Plus, you search 100 dictionaries in the same operation, and other sources in addition to dictionaries, which are even more usefull and accurate for specific jargons than any dictionary.
I'm sorry for the arrogance, but using paper dictionaries in 2020 is like riding a horse on the streets.
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Sumaiya Nishat
Jorge Payan
 
Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 22:05
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Not all good dictionaries are online and ... Jan 10, 2020

... not all online dictionaries are as good as their hardcopy counterparts.

One of the hardcopy dictionaries I use a lot for Spanish-English is Martínez Amador, which is not online. It's famous for long entries with multiple synonyms. It's almost like a thesaurus. I tend to use dictionaries more often to find the "mot juste" in the target language, rather than to find out what the source word means.

And not all online versions are as good as their hardcopy counterpart
... See more
... not all online dictionaries are as good as their hardcopy counterparts.

One of the hardcopy dictionaries I use a lot for Spanish-English is Martínez Amador, which is not online. It's famous for long entries with multiple synonyms. It's almost like a thesaurus. I tend to use dictionaries more often to find the "mot juste" in the target language, rather than to find out what the source word means.

And not all online versions are as good as their hardcopy counterparts. For example, the online Roget's Thesaurus in English actually has far fewer options than my hardcopy version. Also, the online version of Dorland's Medical dictionary is so slow and cumbersome that I can find what I'm looking for faster.

And finally, some of the online databases are polluted and one doesn't know where the poison cookies are. This problem is getting worse with the increased use of statistical corpora.
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Christine Andersen
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Chelsea Berry
Yetta Jensen Bogarde
Kevin Fulton
 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 06:05
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
I'm with Muriel Jan 10, 2020

Mario Freitas wrote:

I know there are colleagues who still like to use paper dictionaries and other sources. But it's merely a habit. The same dictionaries online are updated versions, not the former version you have at home. Plus, you search 100 dictionaries in the same operation, and other sources in addition to dictionaries, which are even more usefull and accurate for specific jargons than any dictionary.
I'm sorry for the arrogance, but using paper dictionaries in 2020 is like riding a horse on the streets.


Why search 100 dictionaries, when I know precisely where to find the answer in just one? I go for quality first, not quantity. My 'jargon' textbooks, as I said earlier, are not online at all.

I'm a librarian, I like books, and I admit using them is a habit. There are etymologies and expressions in my old monolingual Danish and English dictionaries that you don't find in the online versions, and the big thesaurus is in fact MUCH handier on paper. It would be too expensive to subscribe online to all the dictionaries I use occasionally - the big Swedish one, Chicago Style Manual (I have the latest version in print), APA, Dorland and many others.

I can't always find the original KudoZ answers to questions that are not in the online resources, but I KNOW I have added the ones I use regularly to my dictionaries, thanks to Bertil Karlsson, Lone and many others who are not all actively with us any more. OK, most answers are in Multiterm these days, but I love the notes on paper!

To my great delight, one of the good paper dictionaries is now online - Ib Bailey has very recently appeared in the Gyldendal package, if any Danes are interested. But I have had the benefit of the paper copy all these years! Some terms do not change and there are far more examples and details in many of the old paper dictionaries.

And when the big online dictionary goes down - they all do occasionally - I am not completely lost. I just get my old hard-copy friends off the shelf and carry on working.

Horses for courses…


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Chelsea Berry
 
Chelsea Berry
Chelsea Berry  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 22:05
English to Spanish
+ ...
Curious abt Language breakdown Jan 10, 2020

I am very curious what language pairs people using “mostly” and 100% hard copy fall into. Is there a way to look at that?

Thanks!
Chelsea


 
Rita Utt
Rita Utt  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 06:05
English to German
+ ...
Subscription to service offering hard copy dictionaries online Jan 10, 2020

It makes my work so much easier when I can look up everything online. But these are not free online dictionaries but very specialised paper dictionaries, digitalised and combined with a research function.

 
Luiz Barucke
Luiz Barucke  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:05
Spanish to Portuguese
+ ...
Yes and no Jan 11, 2020

Mario Freitas wrote:

I know there are colleagues who still like to use paper dictionaries and other sources. But it's merely a habit. The same dictionaries online are updated versions, not the former version you have at home. Plus, you search 100 dictionaries in the same operation, and other sources in addition to dictionaries, which are even more usefull and accurate for specific jargons than any dictionary.
I'm sorry for the arrogance, but using paper dictionaries in 2020 is like riding a horse on the streets.


I almost agree with Mario. I virtually use only online dictionaries. But there are some paper ones with a kind of content I cannot find on web (at least, not in a same place) and I have them right here next to my desk.

I'm not talking necessarily about bilingual dictionaries. For example, "Dicionário Prático de Regência Verbal" and "Dicionário Prático de Regência Nominal" (Brazilian Portuguese, both from Celso Pedro Luft)... There are no online resources that replace them entirely (online Aulete dictionary tries to, but not with the same wealth of content/corpus). These hard treasures save me at least once a day.

And I must confess I love paper grammars. I have 8 of them right here. I almost never use them, but it's good to know they are here as inspiring companions

[Editada em 2020-01-11 03:32 GMT]


 


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Poll: Are most of your work resources digital or hard copy?






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