Spanish Dictionary
Many people who studied Spanish in high school remember having a Spanish dictionary as part of the required books. Things have come a long way from paging through a book looking for individual words and phrases. Now there are English to Spanish and Spanish to English translators easily available to everyone.
One of the best of new brand of Spanish dictionaries is Google. Its translation service can translate from many languages to many languages. Spanish is one of the these. It can translate single words, phrases, sentences, or even entire paragraphs. They aren't perfect but they're better than nothing.
For years on the Internet AltaVista and its Babel Fish have the market cornered on translation. This included what could be called a Spanish dictionary. That is Spanish to English and English to Spanish translations. The problem with this site was at once something was translated from English to Spanish, translating it back into English would often significantly change it. Some people found this a useful "feature." It could be used to generate alternate versions of sentences or paragraphs. But it also seemed to mean that the translations weren't very accurate.
The Spanish dictionary at Google is quite different. If a phrase is translated from English to Spanish and then back from that Spanish to English it's usually identical to the original phrase. Although people who want to come up with alternate versions of a phrase or paragraphs are disappointed, people who want accurate translations are happy.
A translator isn't the only Spanish dictionary. Oxford has a Spanish dictionary. Not only does this dictionary translates, and also offers definitions and pronunciations of both the English and Spanish words. For example, look up the word water. The result shows that the Spanish equivalent is agua. It's a feminine noun but becomes masculine when it's singular. The entry goes on to show all sorts of other Spanish verbs that mean water in different contexts. It's a very useful tool.
Looking up mother in the Spanish dictionary brings us the Spanish madre. It also brings up a transitive verb version mimar. This might be used in a sentence such as she mothers me. The Spanish version of the phrase mother tongue is lengua materna.
The online dictionary has a listing for jacket. The clothing item is chaqueta in Spanish. The jacket of a book has a different Spanish word. It's sobrecubierta.
It seems that when it comes to a Spanish dictionary, Oxford's is the best and most useful.