Excellent, but significant problems – WordReference Dictionary Review

WordReference Is excellent in many ways but also has frustrating problems. First the excellent: this app and it’s associated website are free resources which you can rely on for both quick and detailed info on words in many languages. In many cases it provides excellent example sentences, and gives you a way to get more detailed information when needed. It’s something a language learner will use every day. However, after much use I’ve discovered many problems. First: it is so good that you become willing to pay to remove the ads. However the only way to remove ads costs $20 per year. $20 for a one time payment would be reasonable, but $20 per year is too much, especially when you consider the specific shortcomings that I detail below. The ad problem is a significant issue because their ads can take up a large amount of screen space. For example if you try scrolling through their conjugation tables in landscape mode iPhone 6, you’ll find that you have very little real estate to look at the content because of the inflexible layout and space-hogging ad. I have also seen other occasions were even in portrait mode the ad overlaps content. In brief, ads are a big distraction with this app. Before I found WordReference, I spent over €20 to buy the Oxford Italian and was really disappointed with that. For example, if you look up the conjugated form of a verb with the Oxford dictionary you will usually get nothing as if the word does not exist. Even with very common verbs such as “andiamo.” But with WordReference it takes you to the infinitive “andare” immediately. Furthermore the conjugation tables are much clearer and intelligently laid out. In other words this is a modern app/dictionary, and the Oxford one is not. So don’t be fooled by the names. If as a beginning language learner you search for some word you don’t know, you may be taken to a page that shows that word in bold at the top, where it looks like a page specific for that word. However sometimes this is deceptive. For example, if you search for “dirmelo” you will not find any specific help for that composite word form on it’s page (only links to their forums). This provides little help. I’ve been frustrated by this many times. Second, essentially no etymology information is provided. Providing word origins in a dictionary is extremely helpful to help in understanding and remembering the word, even if it is only simplistic. Third, although it provides a way to save favorite vocabulary words, there is no way to keep notes associated with these words. A vocabulary list is nice, but being able to provide a note with the word used in context would be much more useful. Worse yet, there’s no way to export the list. Fourth, it lacks dark mode so if you are using your phone at night and want to look up a word you need to weigh whether it's worth it to be blinded when you switch to the app! Finally, the examples with the word used in context (extremely important feature) are both good and bad. In Italian, I would say they are excellent half the time, being quite detailed and organized well. But unfortunately about half of the time the example is provided without a translation. And it’s a real mixed bag as to how appropriate the examples are. What’s needed are both very simple examples and more complex. So in conclusion, WordReference is good — really good — but there’s much room for improvement, and you’re stuck with their space-hogging ads unless you’d like to pay $20 year.
Review by discerning learner on WordReference Dictionary.