Language and Conversion Tools for Mexico

Learning Spanish

Among the challenges of living in Mexico, for Americans, is using Spanish on a daily basis. Language immersion classes are helpful, but there is no substitute for homework and study. A fairly compact, useful dictionary, available from Amazon, is The University of Chicago Spanish-English Dictionary, Fifth Edition.Amazon clear pixel image Another invaluable reference shows representative verbs in all of their conjugations; its title is 501 Spanish Verbs: with CD-ROM (Barron's Foreign Language Guides); Amazon clear pixel image also available from Amazon.

Convert Units

Several unit conversion tools are available. Click to a basic unit conversion tool.

Or see the food page, which features Spanish names for herbs and spices and unit conversion tools for cooking. You can convert the units in your recipes and look up the Spanish names of ingredients before heading to the market. The page also has links to a site about traditional Mexican markets, and to a page about Mexican produce which might not be familiar.

Exchange Dollars for Pesos or Pesos for Dollars

The online currency exchange tool reports Mexican Peso – US Dollar and Mexican Peso – Canadian Dollar rates.

Convert Temperature

The food page also has a temperature conversion tool to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit or Fahrenheit to Celsius.

Language Resources

Google Translate

You can translate words, phrases, individual web pages, or the text portions of entire websites with

Computer translation such as this is not ideal, but can usually help you grasp concepts.

Online Spanish Dictionaries

There are nearly 200,000 resutls on Google for online Spanish dictionary; here are some of the top results:

Span¡shD!ct
www.spanishdict.com/
WordReference.com (also has a verb conjugator)
www.wordreference.com/
Freedict.com
www.freedict.com/
American Heritage® on Yahoo! Education
education.yahoo.com/