ÿþ<HTML> <HEAD><TITLE>Dictionary review: Le Petit Larousse : Dictionnaire multim&#233;dia 2006</TITLE></HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#3299CC"> <P> <Font size="4"><B>Le Petit Larousse : Dictionnaire multim&#233;dia 2006 </B></Font><BR> Reviewed by Fran&#231;oise Herrmann<BR> <BR> 2005 - Larousse <BR> ISBN 537112649X<BR> 39.90&#8364;<BR> </P> <P><HR WIDTH=300 Align=CENTER></P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36"> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The French monolingual and encyclopedic dictionary <i>Le Petit Larousse</i> is 101 years old! The second electronic edition of this French institutional giant is completely revamped, sporting a brand new animated and intuitive user interface, stellar search & exploration functions that slice through every angle of the dictionary and encyclopedia, hi-definition audio and visual media, and its very own web search engine called <i>Copilot</i>. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36"><i>Le Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i> includes the complete hardcopy word listings of <i>Le Petit Larousse IIlustré 2006</i>, that is, 59,000 common words (including a new words section), 28,000 proper nouns, 60 tables and charts, the famous Pink section with proverbs, and a 32-page grammar. <i>Le Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i> also includes a fabulous multimedia component consisting of 2100, remarkably crisp and high-definition, pictures and photos, 313 interactive maps, 200 sound files and 100 audio-videos, the presence of which abundantly and vibrantly transforms the magnificent illustrations of the hardcopy edition. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">As the editor points out in the Preface to the CD-ROM edition: &#147;If <i>Le Petit Larousse</i> has changed across time it is because the words that are collected and explained in it have changed, as well as the world that it describes and captures.&#148; Not the least of which, one might add, is the medium of delivery, which in this edition serves to further augment and simplify access; magnify, enliven, and enlighten the fabulous content, and its century-old, part-dictionary, part-encyclopedia, format. <i>Le Petit Larousse</i> is a great dictionary of French. The new 2006 multimedia and electronic version is a beautiful tool that is more than worthy of this reputation.</P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">You may obtain a copy of <i>Le Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i> via Amazon as you would for many of your dictionary purchases. On an innovative note, you may also buy a downloadable copy directly from www.larousse.fr, with an option to receive a back-up CD copy in the mail for an extra small fee of 10.00 Euros. In both cases, you will need a PC with a Pentium&#153; III, 500 mHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 118 MB of space on your hard drive, Windows&#174; 98/2000/NT 4.0 /XP, a 4X CD-Rom drive, a 1MB graphic card, and a sound card compatible with Soundblaster&#153;. The InstallWizard handles installation, and offers two standard installation options: minimal or complete. The Minimum installation option requires less than 30 MB on your hard drive and use of the CD in your computer drive. The Complete installation option requires 650 MB of space on your hard drive and it frees the CD drive on your computer for use with other programs. The <i>Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i> CD (as well as the back-up copy you may order with the downloadable version) is copy protected. This means that every six months you will be prompted to re-insert it briefly. So don t loose it! </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The interface of the <i>Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i> opening Index screen sports an animated scroll bar on the lower portion of the screen (see Figure 1). This scroll bar gently displays, in a continuous motion, the images of the articles or entries, preceding and following the article or entry that is currently consulted. The animation stops when you mouseover an image, and it re-sets when the entry or article changes since it is designed to supply surrounding visual information. However, beyond supplying you with an immediate link to the surrounding visual context of the listing, this animated scroll bar functions as a wonderful intuitive introduction to the tool. The images traveling along the lower portion of the screen are strikingly high definition and inviting. Thus, should you respond to the call, without a particular targeted search in mind, you will immediately click yourself into the dictionary, to discover some of its contents in a perusal, flip-page mode. You may even find yourself initially, simply watching the images travel, clicking randomly on one, or out of sheer fancy, just to see how the tool works, and the kind of information it contains. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The succinct 11-page user guide that is inserted in the CD-Rom case, and the help function of the application will both supply you with all the information you need to use <i>Le Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i>, but it will probably be far more fun to let the application charm you into clicking on the images of the animated scroll bar. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Once you have emerged from this less driven mode of intuitive discovery, and are ready to target your navigation, you will find <i>Le Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i> up to the challenge. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The splash Index screen [Figure 1] may be set to either one, or to both, of the two main sections of the <i>Le Petit Larousse</i>: the Noms communs [common nouns] dictionary section, and/or the Noms propres [proper nouns] encyclopedia section. Then, you may select a term in the Index column on the right of the screen, or type your search word in the field above it. Results are displayed in the window to the right, above the animated scroll bar. For a search on the term &#147;t&#233;l&#@33;phone&#148; [telephone], the magnificent and illuminating set of results include a dictionary entry, an encyclopedic article, and 4 related video files (cellular telephony, mobile telephony, satellite telephony and  How the telephone works. ) appearing as large thumbnails, as well as a satellite map of mobile telephony, appearing in the above corner to the right. A frozen printscreen of these results however, falls short of conveying the wonderful didactic power of the animated audio-visual explanations and of the comprehensive multimedia definitions. You must see sounds waves traveling or transformed into electrical impulses to understand! And for translators without electrical engineering backgrounds these kinds of short video definitions are invaluable. When results include sound files and charts, these appear as iconic symbols below the the article or entry, while conjugations appear as a large &#147;C&#148;, and articles as an &#147;A&#148; in the Upper right corner, each enabling you to effortlessly toggle in and out of the related information. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Furthermore, the full contents of the results are hyperlinked <i>interactively</i>. This means that a small dialog box pops up to parse and field your hyperlink request when there are several options. For example, the hyperlinked dialog box for the term &#147;forme&#148; [form] will prompt you with hyperlinked choices according to grammatical category: verb, adjective or noun. Similarly, hyperlink dialog boxes prompt you with the several choices invoked in polysemy, compounds or homonymy. This will no doubt be the most sophisticated design of hyperlinks you have used to date, and you will wonder how hyperlinks ever worked before. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Beyond the basic Index search there two additional search modes (simple and advanced), and an exploration mode. The simple search mode enables you to search for a term, including dates, anywhere in <i>Le Petit Larousse</i>, and to have results returned in the order of their importance, according to the sublists that were searched (the Dictionary, Media files, or Annexes). Thus, for example, you may want to target the media files exclusively (videos, pictures or drawings) for terms such as &#147;anatomie&#148; [anatomy], &#147;c&#156;ur&#148; [heart], or insecte [insect]. The advanced search mode enables you to filter searches in the encyclopedia section, and to search for prefixes and suffixes in the dictionary section. Thus, for example, you could do an advanced search on &#147;French film makers of the 21st century&#148; using the various filters or options in the time, place, domain and category fields, which could be further combined with a search on words beginning &#147;le&#148;, returning &#147;Lelouch, Claude&#148; [a French film maker] as a result, for example. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The exploration tool (see Figure 2), accessible everywhere you see an &#147;eye&#148; icon, offers a way of slicing and examining the full contents of the dictionary according to media types (photos, maps, charts, drawings, animations, flags), as well as the Pink Section (containing proverbs, and idioms), the Grammar, and a novel section called &#147;New words&3148;. For each of these sections, an alphabetical index pad appears on the left, while a clickable list of the contents, as thumbnails, or links, appears on the right. This exploration mode is particularly useful for bird s eye access and dissection of the contents. The New Words section is a blessing. In it you will find such terms as &#147;blog&#148;, &#147;Bluetooth&#148;, &#147;d&#233;remboursement&#148;, &#147;fa&#231;adisme&#148;, &#147;grignotine&#148; and the verb &#147;formater&#148;, for example. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Finally, <i>Le Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i>, also includes its very own web search engine, a research assistant tool called &#147;<i>Copilote</i>&#148;. The &#64; sign, and link, to the <i>Copilote</i> appears at the top right corner of the Index interface (Figure 1). The <i>Copilote</i> front ends web searches to make sure that only one meaning of a polysemic term is searched. Results are returned using a default search engine you have selected (Yahoo!&#174;, Google&#174; or Evalead&#174;). Design and use of the <i>Copilote </i>addresses all of the issues associated with the lightening speed of change on the web (obsolete URLs and domain names, new gateways and sites, etc..), while extending the boundaries of searches and the scope of information available. It is both clever and immensely useful. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">For all the <i>Des chiffres et des letters </i>[French Wheel of fortune!] buffs, as well as Scrabble, Boggle! and crossword puzzle fans, there is also a <i>Jeu de lettres</i> [Word Game] tool, that will help you to impress even the most skeptical of your acquaintances. Just type in the sequence of letters, and hit search& You are guaranteed to win every time. </P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Consistent with a one-hundred year tradition of excellent lexicography, marvelous illustration, and famed didactics,<i> Le Petit Larousse multim&$233;dia 2006</i> brings all this, and much, much more. Sounds of musical instruments, compositions and animals, national anthems linked to flags; photos, images and drawings of the highest resolution, motion picture animation with crystal clear audio commentary, these new and vibrant dimensions serve to both transform and extend the traditional definitions of this dictionary and encyclopedia. The redesign of the <i>Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i>, with a brand new intuitive and animated interface, new search and explore functions, interactive hyperlinks, the <i>Copilot</i> web search engine, hi-definition audio and video, and a word play tool, will both facilitate and illuminate your searches. When you need to understand quickly how many technical and scientific innovations work, a good picture of a sparrow or a praying mantis, or to hear the differences between a trombone and a trumpet, the <i>Petit Larousse multim&#233;dia 2006</i> is truly irreplaceable. Get it, and enjoy!</P> <P><HR WIDTH=300 Align=CENTER></P> <p><FONT SIZE="2"><b>Figure 1:</b> Splash index interface displaying the animated scroll bar and a search on the term téléphone [telephone].</i> </FONT></P> <IMG HEIGHT=768 WIDTH=1024 SRC="MMTel.jpg"> </A> <BR> <p><FONT SIZE="2"><b>Figure 2:</B> The Exploration tool for New words of the <i>Petit Larousse multimedia 2006.</i> </FONT></P> <IMG HEIGHT=768 WIDTH=1024 SRC="MMExp.jpg" > </A> <BR> <P><B><A HREF="Publications.html">Publications</A></B></P> <P><B><A HREF="Bookrev.html">Reviews</A></B></P> <P><B><A HREF="index.html">Home</A></B></P> </BODY> </HTML>