Ultralingua Dictionaries

Ultralingua Dictionaries

     This is the most expensive app I have ever purchased, and probably ever will buy.  I used to lug my enormous Oxford Spanish-English dictionary to class everyday for my students to use (did I mention big and heavy?).  When I got an iPhone a few years back I decided to look for apps that my students might use to translate their work (as opposed to learning the language if you catch my drift) and came across these dictionaries in that search.  Now all I have to do is bring my phone to class and I have access to tens of thousands of words, just like I did with that hefty book.
     The main difference and advantage I see with this dictionary as compared to one of the many translation apps that are available is that just like an actual dictionary, when you look up a word, it lists the words that surround it alphabetically in the word list.  This is great because an avid learner will look at those words and perhaps learn new words just by way of a dictionary search.  Like many of the translators you can switch the direction of your search, Target Language to English and vice versa.  They also offer several bilingual dictionaries that do not feature English, which is I think is pretty great.
     If you have this dictionary on your phone, you can read a book in the target language and have your phone nearby (in your hand even!) as you read and it really makes looking up a word a lot more efficient.  
     From the webpage these features are listed:

• Conjugations of thousands of Spanish and English verbs in all standard forms.
• Number translation into Spanish or English text.
• History of recent look-ups so you can return to results quickly.

     So, is it worth the $19.99 that I paid for it?  Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! If I went out and bought a physical dictionary with as many words, plus all of the verb conjugations it would cost as much if not much more: Dictionaries available on Amazon.  Plus, it's a lot more portable!