During my 4 years studying French and Spanish at university, I mainly used WordReference as an online dictionary. The new Collins version has a lot of features which make it a lot better for language learners and its well-designed, modern interface makes it more user-friendly, too. I also used Linguee which allows you to translate groups of words or phrases at the same time and provides translations based on texts found online. While the new Collins online dictionary provides usage examples too, I still find Linguee more helpful when translating more complex texts, such as legal contracts.

Some of the best features of collinsdictionary.com:

1. “in other languages” - when looking for a particular word in say, French, the word will also appear in its Spanish and German forms which is useful for those who are learning more than one language as it allows them to expand their knowledge of all their languages more easily.
2. “similar words” - just like a thesaurus, this feature provides alternative translations which are great when you are trying to expand your vocabulary and avoid repetition.
3. “verb conjugator” - most online dictionaries have this essential feature which always comes in handy and saves you from reaching for your verb book.

I would definitely recommend collinsdictionary.com to my fellow linguists and tutors at university. These new features make it stand out and enhance the user’s experience. Finally, I think that many linguists will be reassured by the fact that it was created by Collins and therefore have more faith in its content than other sites.