Many people who studied Spanish in high school remember having a Spanish dictionary

as part of the required books. Like all things this has now improved. Today anyone can translate back and forth from English to Spanish.

Google has a Spanish dictionary. Many languages can be translated. Spanish is one of the these. It can translate anything from a single word to a whole document. These translations aren't exact, but they're pretty good.

Babelfish and later Alta Vista provided the first translator on the Web. This included what could be called a Spanish dictionary. That means translations from English to Spanish and vice versa. But people wondered if it was accurate because a block of text translated to Spanish then back to English was greatly altered. To some people this was a 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.

Google's Spanish dictionary is another story. Going from English to Spanish and then back results in the same text. This benefits people who want accurate translations.

A translator isn't the only Spanish dictionary. Oxford's Spanish dictionary translates, but also offers pronunciation keys and definitions of English and Spanish words. The word water, for instance. That's agua in Spanish. The plural version is feminine while the singular version is masculine. The Oxford entry continues by showing many different forms for the Spanish word for water. It's very detailed.

In the Spanish dictionary you would find madre for mother. It also brings up a transitive verb version mimar. This might be used in a sentence such as she mothers me. But for mother tongue the Spanish use lengua materna.

The Spanish dictionary has the word jacket. If worn it's chaqueta. 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.