Compact Oxford Hachette French Dictionary

The Compact Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary offers over 90,000 words and phrases, and 120,000 translations of contemporary French and English. It covers all the words you need for everday use, carefully selected from evidence from the Oxford Languages Tracker and the Oxford English Corpus. Also includes French cultural and grammar supplements to help you improve your French. Includes 12 months' access to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online at oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com

My daughter is moving to high school in September and will be learning French for the first time. She will be starting from scratch and although I also studied French to GCSE and started A Level (but never completed it, concentrated on German), this will be well used over the next few years!

This is the compact dictionary - not the smallest dictionary avaliable, but still manageable to have in a school bag. I remember when  I was doing A Level languages, we had to lug the thicker hardback dictionaries to and from school. 

As with most language dictionaries, translations are avaliable French-English and English-French. Each dictionary entry is clearly laid out and defined and highlight 2000 words which are the most frequently used.

At the end of the dictionary there is also a concise summary of French Grammar, French Verbs  and also a section on numbers. At school I remember the endless lessons spent on verbs and the various participles - all of which are shown in the dictionary, a very useful section to have to hand for french homework, and not one I am looking forward to revisiting with my daughter over the coming years. I will be making sure this dictionary is close to hand.

The purchase of this dictionary also gives twelve months access to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online - something I have not yet accessed as I will wait until my daughter starts French in September to make sure we have full use of the twelve months. It is something I am sure will be of great use to students who are studying French.

In summary, I found this dictionary to be a very good one - clear, concise and well laid out. The key words being highlighted was very useful and I also think that the section at the end with grammar and verb explanations very useful. I think it would be great for students who are starting to learn the language to have to hand for homework tasks but could also see it being detailed enough for GCSE examinations also. The added bonus of online access is the icing on the cake - a fantastic resource for students. 

I recommend this as a great purchase for students of French.

I received this dictionary through the Amazon Vine Programme.