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Whether you’re on holiday or staying in a Spanish-speaking country for a slightly longer period of time, your Collins Visual Dictionary is designed to help you find exactly what you need, when you need it. With over a thousand clear and helpful images, you can quickly locate the vocabulary you are looking for.

The Visual Dictionary includes:

 10 chapters arranged thematically, so that you can easily find what you need to suit the situation

 images – illustrating essential items

 YOU MIGHT SAY… – common phrases that you might want to use

 YOU MIGHT HEAR… – common phrases that you might come across

 VOCABULARY – common words that you might need

 YOU SHOULD KNOW… – tips about local customs or etiquette

USING YOUR COLLINS VISUAL DICTIONARY

In order to make sure that the phrases and vocabulary in the Collins Visual Dictionary are presented in a way that’s clear and easy to understand, we have followed certain policies when translating:

1) In Spain, “tú” can be used for anyone you are on first-name terms with, as well as when talking to children and young people. It is also generally considered appropriate to use “tú” in shops, banks and so on to address the people working there, particularly if they are young. However, it is best avoided when addressing people in authority or older strangers, unless you are invited to use “tú”, for instance:

Shall we call each other “tú”? ¿Nos tuteamos?

In this dictionary, we have used either “tú” or “usted” depending on what was deemed to be more likely in a given context, for example:

When is your birthday? ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? (informal)

May I ask how old you are? ¿Puedo preguntarle qué edad tiene? (formal)

2) The grammatical gender of Spanish nouns has been indicated using the articles “el” (masculine singular), “la” (feminine singular), “los” (masculine plural) and “las” (feminine plural).

key la llave

building el edificio

curtains las cortinas

shoes los zapatos

When a feminine word in Spanish starts with stressed “a”, it takes the masculine article, rather than the feminine, to make it easier to pronounce. These have been marked with the label f to indicate that it is a feminine word even if preceded by the masculine article “el”:

water el agua f

eagle el águila f

When a Spanish noun has both a masculine and feminine form (as in the case of many professions), both forms are shown:

nurse el enfermero / la enfermera

3) The masculine form of adjectives only has been shown for vocabulary items and in phrases, for example:

happy contento

I’m tired. Estoy cansado.

Remember that, in Spanish, the adjective often changes depending on whether the noun it describes is masculine or feminine. Often the ending of the adjective changes from “o” to “a”, so “cansado” becomes “cansada”, although there are some adjective endings that behave differently.

Plural forms of both adjectives and nouns are generally formed by adding “-s” or “-es” to the end of the word:

The girls are tired. Las niñas están cansadas.

However, some words, among them the days of the week, are the same in both singular and plural:

the umbrella el paraguas

the umbrellas los paraguas

I’m busy next Monday Estoy ocupado el próximo lunes.

I’m always busy on Mondays. Siempre estoy ocupado los lunes.

When an adjective or noun ends in “-z”, the plural form becomes “-ces”:

feliz => pl felices

FREE AUDIO

We have created a free audio resource to help you learn and practise the Spanish words for all of the images shown in this dictionary. The Spanish words in each chapter are spoken by native speakers, giving you the opportunity to listen to each word twice and repeat it yourself. Download the audio from the website below to learn all of the vocabulary you need for communicating in Spanish.

www.collinsdictionary.com/resources