60 Another Dictionary

I could not resist the temptation, and once more I brought back a full-sized dictionary from my trip. [See blog 46. Buying A Dictionary When in Italy]. This time it was the full-size all-Italian Hazon – Dizionario Garzanti di Italiano 2.0. The reason I chose it was that it offered a CD with a “speakaggio”. This feature allows you to hear the word spoken. Although there are other dictionaries that offer the same feature, or at least one that I saw, I like some of Hazon’s other features.

However, the Hazon is not my favourite dictionary because of the annoying requirement of having to re-insert the CD every three months. What happens when the CD wears out or becomes damaged, I don’t really know. For this reason, if I could have found a Sabatini with the same feature I would have bought it instead of the Hazon.

I bought my dictionary from Feltrinelli, the largest bookstore in Bologna and located opposite the two towers. They were offering a 30% discount, but when I went to pay with my Visa the cashier pulled out a Feltrinelli card and went into a long tirade that I didn’t understand, and as I didn’t want another card, I did not buy the books. It was not until the following Monday when the sale was over that I discovered that the Feltrinelli card is not a payment card but a ‘membership” card that gives an automatic discount in any Feltrinelli store! Oh well, I did get the publisher’s 15% discount anyway.

This may sound excessive but when I am reading I have all three dictionaries open on my computer, and each has a role to play. I use the Italian-to-English Hazon as my standard, but note that a bilingual is not as complete as an all-Italian dictionary. I use the all-Italian Garzanti when I want to hear the way a word is pronounced, and I use the all-Italian Sabatini when I want to check on the conjugation of a verb. Overkill perhaps, but pleasurable.