# The quality of the Portuguese-Spanish dictionary



## Dymn

I've been learning Portuguese these days and I've been using the WR Portuguese-Spanish dictionary. Unluckily, I'm afraid I'll stop doing so because it gets really annoying due to missing words, uncomplete definitions, etc.

I'll give some examples:

1. It translates Portuguese _perceber _as if it were totally equivalent to Spanish _percibir_, when it is obvious Lusophones use this verb much more. As far as I know, _perceber _means "to understand" in Portugal and "to realize" in Brazil.
2. It doesn't even mention Brazilians often use _propina _instead of _suborno_ "bribe", which is quite important since it is a noteworthy false friend with Spanish.
3. It translates Spanish _por cierto _"by the way" as Portuguese _por certo_, which means "for sure", and not the equivalent _a propósito_.
4. And finally, sorry to get vulgar, but the only translation that it gives for _polla _(Spain slang for "penis") is _porra_, which isn't even the usual word in either São Paulo (_pinto_), Rio de Janeiro (_pau_), or Portugal (_piça_), according to a friend of mine.

I don't know if there's any chance of improving the dictonary, or finding another one, or what could be done.

Muito obrigado, muchas gracias


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## mkellogg

Dymn, thanks for your honest review and the examples.  I will see what can be done in the short-term and the long-term to improve quality. I think I know something that we can do in the next couple of weeks that isn't perfect, but it will probably be better.

Mike


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## Nanon

Hello Dymn,

As a user of the Spanish <-> French and Portuguese dictionaries (both (c) Espasa-Calpe in the past, now only the SP-PT part is), I opened a similar thread a while ago. Here it is.
At that time, the solution we found for the Spanish <-> French pair was to open forum threads and tag them as "error in the dictionary". @mkellogg, do you think it would work in the meantime?


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## mkellogg

Reporting errors in that way is certainly an option for people who continue to use it. I think Dymn is done with the dictionary and it might not be something he is willing to do.

Nanon, we were able to create our own Spanish-French dictionary since then. It should be much better than the Espasa dictionary.


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## Nanon

Sure, Mike - my bad. The French dictionary is now ours - and way better than it was. I am editing my post above


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## mkellogg

No problem! You linked to a thread from 2010 and we have made progress since then!  Let's see if we can make similar progress with Spanish-Portuguese.


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## Dymn

Well, one obvious error is spelling _cauda _as _calda _I guess. Here.


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## Nanon

@Dymn, it seems that the issue has been reported, but to no avail... See here: cola, calda e cauda no dicionario Espasa
The good thing (see above) is that when such issues are reported in the forum, one can see the link in the corresponding dictionary entry - until we have a complete Spanish-Portuguese dictionary of our own . By the way, the "virtual dictionary" part, i.e. our part, reads _cauda_.


> WordReference Español-Portugués Virtual Dictionary © 2018:
> 
> *Traduções principais*
> Español Português
> *cola* _nf_ (aviación) (_de aeronave_) cauda _sf_
> El logo de la línea aérea estaba en la cola del avión.
> O logo da companhia aérea estava na cauda do avião.


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