Harrap's Mini German Dictionary [antikvár]

Preface Treatment of entries As in all other Harrap dictionarics, wide-ranging use is made of a system of 'labels*. These are abbreviations, prímed in italics, and positioned before the translation, for examplevSp: for sport, Ch: for cbemistry or Z: for zoology. As far as possible we have used only easily recognizable short forms. To make the dictionary entries easy to work with we have used Román numerals (I., II. etc.) to subdivide grammatical categoríes (noun, verb etc.) and Arabic numerals (1., 2. etc.) and letters ((a), (b) etc.) to mark differences in meaning. \ Compound nouns One of the main difficulties in a Germán-English dictionary lies in the treatment of Germán compounds. In this dictionary we have, where appropriate, used a system of 'combining form' entries (comb. fm.). This shows - with examples - how to translate nouns that form the first part of a compound word. In this way it is possible to include more compounds in the dictionary than would be the case if each compound were given a separate entry. However, if a compound does not fit the pattern shown by the combining form then it is treated as a separate entry. Structure of entries Headwords are given in bold type. Main headwords are followed by a phonetic transcríptíon in square brackets. Sub-headwords are only given stress marks unless their pronunciation differs substantially from that of the main headword. There then follows an abbreviation descríbing the part of speech. Then, if the word is a Germán noun, come the genitíve and the plural ending (with the exception of compounds of which the second element is independent-ly listed as a separate headword). For English nouns we give irregular plurals only. Irregular verbs are given in a separate list and marked up in the text with in. The numbers given with certain irregular Germán verbs refer to the list of verbs which shows the pattern according to which the parts of these verbs are förmed. Attention should be paid to the use of brackets and obliques. Brackets are used for additional parts of a usage and the bracketed part will alsó appear in the translation, unless it is superfluous. Obliques are used to indicate alternative elements, for example in a set expression, and corresponding translations are given. Brackets are alsó used around typical objects of verbs and around nouns that are typically used with adjectives.