References and tools

The Visual Thesaurus creates an innovative “map” to visualize relationships among words of similar meanings.

Wordsmith.org is a favorite hangout for English-speaking linguists the world over, beginning with the excellent A.Word.A.Day.

Expressio “dissects” French expressions, explains their meaning and origins – often irreverently! – and includes equivalencies in English, German, Spanish, Russian, and countless other languages from contributors.

In general

Writing and translating tools should be used with discernment.

Loyal users swear by various translating tools according to specialties and needs. Compose your own palette.

Lexigos, Reverso and Linguee have a panoply of lingual services.

Word Reference gets straight to the point.

Bing and Google render the gist of a text or web page with results ranging from readable to gibberish.

The same is true for dictionaries and spell checkers: British or American? French or Canadian? Beware of “fake friends”.

For important matters always consult an expert.