A couple weeks ago, the word of the day was "pruvi" and the first definition was "Montri per rezonado aŭ faktoj, ke io estas vera". Now, in this context it's clear that "rezonado" is supposed to mean "reasoning", but I very much dislike that the word "rezono" can have two totally different meanings.

I guess the real problem is that the online dictionary is so spotty or incorrect that I can only get a reasonable answer from it half of the time. For example, "reason" is not listed as an English translation for "rezono". Instead, it's broken-down into the parts "re-" (re-, again) and "zono" (belt, girdle; zone).

Is there another online translator/dictionary that is more complete and accurate?

The lernu dictionary's system of breaking apart words, unfortunately, works better in some cases than in others!

In this case, there wasn't a translation for rezono in the Esperanto-English dictionary at lernu, which is why the word analysis system didn't give the right definition. I've added some definitions, and the lernu English dictionary now has the words rezoni, rezono, and rezonado.

I can't recommend a better one online. It's hard to put into an online dictionary the level of information found in a good paper dictionary. I can say that if you feel that there's something important that's lacking, please do write to me personally, or to the lernu team (teamo@lernu.net), or use the comments link at the bottom of every page. We can add the word that you're asking for.

I think that every Esperanto speaker or student should own a good paper dictionary. This is an excellent time for English speakers to purchase one, since a new edition of the Wells dictionary is about to be published by Mondial, and you can pre-order it for a discount.

I will say that reta vortaro is an excellent Esperanto-only online dictionary.

I'm not sure if reta vortaro has more content than the Lernu dictionary, but it has the advantage that it automatically shows entries in all languages, so that if a word is missing in your language, you may still be able to look it up.

One big advantage to the lernu dictionary, over the other online dictionaries, is that it will break up the words into roots and affixes for you. Yes, sometimes it is wrong. But it's better than nothing! I recall that as a beginner, I'd run into a word, and I'd have to take a guess about which part was the root word and which part was affixes, so it made it hard for me to look things up, and sometimes required a couple of tries.

A side note to all the beginners out there - you do develop a very good word sense after you have studied Esperanto for a while, and the difficulty of deciding which part of word is the root, and which part is an affix, will almost completely disappear.

The Reta Vortaro does seem to miss a few translations though, so it's really best (and probably intended) for EO-EO use.

Regarding what Erinja said, if there is a word missing you can also ask those of us who can edit the vortaro (there was a nice contributor list going last time I checked... a year ago). So if something is missing just let one of us know and we can add the word in as well, if you're avoiding the main lernu team for some reason... -shifty eyes-

Also, no doubt a reason why there are words missing is that it never occurred to the translators that it was missing (maybe they already knew the word and never looked it up), or maybe it did occur to them and they forgot to add it (cough cough), or they didn't know it was a word in the first place.

Of course, it should also be noted that rezoni can mean to "re-gird"!

erinja:I think that every Esperanto speaker or student should own a good paper dictionary. This is an excellent time for English speakers to purchase one, since a new edition of the Wells dictionary is about to be published by Mondial, and you can pre-order it for a discount.

I ordered it last month. Now I'm just waiting for it to be delivered.