What is the best one? I need to buy it as a gift.

Robert-Collins

I absolutely agree with francophile. It's rather bulky but I cannot imagine being without it.

ttt

What is a petit robert?

The "Petit Robert" is an explaining dictionary. An enyclopedia of the French vocabulary, not translating

What is your definition of the &quot;best?&quot; It depends the level of knowledge as well as the purpose.<BR><BR>The dictionary roughly comes in following printed forms (English-French):<BR><BR>Mini ~60k ref<BR>Pocket ~80k ref<BR>Concise ~200k ref<BR>College ~300k ref<BR>Unabridged ~600k ref<BR><BR>I like Collins for Mini thru Conicise because of the amount of references included as well as the ease of finding sub entries. But for College and up, Larousse is more comprehensive, but quite difficult to go thru the sub headings.<BR><BR>For an electronic version, I like my Collins, about 2.4MB on Palm at $40 with ~100k ref, but oh so convenient to have the dictionary with me all the time!<BR><BR>If the person is at an advanced level, French-French Larousse concise is a much better option than French-English college size.<BR><BR>