Dictionaries and reference books for the translator

Only the best translator working in a narrow specialist field and in only one or perhaps two foreign languages can do without dictionaries. For most of us dictionaries and other works of reference are essential tools. It is often thought that translators can get by on two or three dictionaries—more than once a client has asked me, when I told him that I was unable to find a word: ‘Why don't you look it up in the dictionary?’ And it is not only non‐translators who think in this way. I have come across freelance translators who work with a general Cassell's dictionary and an out‐of‐date multilingual technical dictionary. One freelance translator told me he used Patterson's (not very good and not very comprehensive) French‐English Dictionary for Chemists for all his French work!