I'm new to Italian. I'm studying the language in college. So I was looking for a good dictionary and this is a good one. It has quite a few idiomatic expressions in it as well as the standard definitions of words. My professor has had a few minor disagreements with the dictionary in regard to a couple of definitions. For example, her word for graceful is different than the one provided. But she didn't say the word the dictionary gave was wrong, just not as commonly used.

My one caveat is that this is actually a British-Italian dictionary; after all, it's printed in England. As an American, for the most part, that doesn't matter much. When you look up the Italian word, colore, you'll find the British spelling, colour. That's very minor. However, it does make a bit more different in the examples provided. Sometimes, when words are used in a sentence in this dictionary, the example is specific to England. For example, they'll use Pound Sterling in a sentence about money instead of dollars and Euros. Still not a big deal, but something you might want to be aware of. That may explain some of the differences my Italian professor had with the definitions of certain words.

But overall, a good basic Italian-English (with a British slant) dictionary.

I was surprised to see that this dictionary shared many of the definitions with the Harper Collins Italian College Dictionary. Then I noticed that Catherine E. Love was involved in the editing of both. It appears that the Harper Collins book is an expanded version of the Webster's New World Italian Dictionary.

What do I love about this book? (1)It's size is perfect for carrying from room to room. The larger dictionaries are too heavy and large. (2)The print, while not as large as the College format, is large enough to read comfortably. (3)the definitions are robust enough for most of my needs.

For the price, it's a "no brainer" to buy. If you have the money, I'd also get the Harper Collins College version, if only for those instances where it has a definition that's lacking in the Webster's "concise" version. It happens rarely, but it does happen.

I'm a student in a beginning Italian class and I found this book to be excellent. Easy to use and full of information, I'd recommend it to anyone.