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Free Online German-English and English-German Dictionaries
And Translators

Online dictionaries are constantly being changed and extended, which is an advantage to printed dictionaries. Every language continuously changes depending on the people, the region and the context it is used; therefore, online dictionaries are likely to be more accurate and offer a wider variety of words than printed dictionaries. Most of the online dictionaries listed below will also offer a range of colloquial words, slang or dialectic varieties.

The following sections are subdivided into German to English, English to German and German to German dictionaries, followed by a list of online translators, which help to translate whole sentences and paragraphs. Please note that most of these translators work on a word-to-word basis, which means that some translators only translate the literal meaning of words without paying attention to fixed expressions or grammatical regulations and therefore might not be as correct.

German-German

Dictionaries:

• http://www.duden.de/
  Duden is the official company that's regulating changes in the German language and grammar. New words and grammatical or semantic constructions are adopted into "the Duden", as it is called in Germany. It is the basic German dictionary if they are being considered and recognized within the whole of Germany. Since the Duden is an official dictionary, it does not contain any colloquial or slang words. Nevertheless, there are a variety of versions that focus on different types of the language such as collocations, idioms, etc.
• http://www.canoo.net/
  This website consists of a compilation of different dictionaries and grammar files. Just by clicking through you can get an insight into a large variation of the German language, its grammatical structures, words and typical expressions. It also offers different monolingual dictionaries divided into orthography, word formation, flexion and morphology.
• http://www.dwds.de/
  The "Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache" (digital dictionary of the German language) is a monolingual dictionary that is designed to transfer knowledge online and be adapted and changed on a regular basis. By typing in a word it also gives you a grammatical introduction, the etymology and an extract of a corpus, which shows sentences where the search word is mainly used.

Medical Terms:

• http://www.medizinische-abkuerzungen.de/
  This medical dictionary gives information about abbreviations and its meanings. It is especially dedicated to people who are not familiar with medical words and expressions. Unfortunately, it does not explain the meaning but rather states the exact term.

Law:

• http://www.bpb.de/wissen/H75VXG,0,0,Begriffe_nachschlagen.html
  This dictionary contains all legal terms, which might be important for academic use or if you just want to find out about their exact meaning.

Pictorial:

• http://www.bildwoerterbuch.com/
  This pictorial dictionary designed by PONS is a good way to extend your basic German vocabulary as it shows you corresponding pictures to the words.

English-German

Dictionaries:

• http://www.pons.de/
  PONS is one of the most accurate online dictionaries the German language has to offer. It contains everyday words and grammar constructions as well as colloquial words. On this website you can also translate words into eleven other languages besides German, and you can also buy the latest version of the dictionary.
• http://www.dict.cc/
  In contrast to the PONS dictionary, this dictionary only exists online. It offers a great range of words but lacks grammatical constructions and information.
• http://dict.leo.org/
  This is probably the most popular English-German dictionary online. This dictionary offers a lot of translations for single words and fixed expressions in formal and colloquial language style. An additional forum offers a wide range of contexts where your particular search word is used.
• http://www.woerterbuch.info/
  Whether you are looking for word-to-word translations or synonyms for specific words, this website is a great help. It also offers a translation tool for full sentences and paragraphs.
• http://www.linguee.de/
  With more than 100 million translations, this website offers a wide range of vocabulary, as well as grammatical constructions and explanations. This dictionary is highly recommended in Germany, especially for academic use.
• http://www.woerterbuch-englisch.info/
  This rather small dictionary is very useful when looking for single and composed word translations. If you are looking for a word, it also gives you numerous translations the word is used with, as well as contextual information.

Voice Reader:

• http://www.linguatec.de/onlineservices/linguadict
  This new dictionary is a highly multimedia-based website which operates in different ways. Not only does it translate single words, but it also offers a voice reader, which vocalizes the translation. This might be really useful for your pronunciation, especially with unfamiliar and difficult German words.

Synonyms:

• http://www.openthesaurus.de/
  This thesaurus is very useful when looking for synonyms of a particular German word in order to use it in the right context.
• http://ein.anderes-wort.de/
  To find an equivalent for a particular word this website is really useful as it gives a great variation of different synonyms. It also contains old-fashioned and rather unknown German words, which might come in useful to extend your language and vocabulary.

Business:

• http://www.quickdic.de/
  If you need any business terms in order to talk or write, you might find this dictionary quite helpful. It offers a range of business words in the German and English language. You can type in whole expressions and also see in which context certain words are used.

Law:

• http://bab.la//
  This online dictionary consists of a number of legal terms described in English and German.

Medical:

• http://www.englischwoerterbuch-medizin.de/
  This medical online dictionary supplies you with all technical terms you might need to know. Discover the range of medical words by browsing through it in either English or German.

Music:

• http://dict.caseymongoven.com/
  This German-English music dictionary offers a wide range of musical and technical terms you might need in order to talk specifically about music.

Idioms:

• http://www.english-idioms.de/#
  Idioms are always a good way to make your language authentic. This website provides a list of English idioms translated into German. Browse through and have a laugh at some of them since their context (and sometimes even the origin) is explained!

Translators:

As already mentioned above, there is a great variety of German to English translators online. That said, their help and reliability is restricted since the translators tend to translate word-for-word rather than whole sentences and the correct meaning.

• http://translate.google.de/#
  Google Translate is probably the most recognized and widely used translator for all languages. You can choose which language you want your text to be translated, and if you are not satisfied with the result you can read further results by other users.
• http://uebersetzung.babylon.com/englisch/deutsch/#
  This translator functions exactly the same as Google Translate. Just type in the sentence or paragraph you want translated and it offers you a translation in the language you want.
• http://www.woerterbuch.info/volltext-uebersetzung.php
  This online translator offers you the chance to translate up to 250 characters at a time. Please note that this is a computerized translator and therefore does not recognized linked words or fixed expressions. Nevertheless, it works perfectly fine for simple use.