Maschinenfabrikwörterbuch

This time I would show you quite nice and still useful little book called German - Finnish Machine workshop dictionary / Saksalais-suomalainen konepajasanasto.  Author Nestori Lukkari, Self-published, Salasteen Kirjapaino, Hyvinkää 1954.

In forewords author describes how proper dictionary for purely machine workshop use does not exist and he has made book for demand. First versions of "book" were introduced in 1940 and 1944 which were prints, not yet at shape of proper book. Those were sold out immediately. In this first real book version contains about double amount of words than those early prints.

Source material to this book was every available German- Finnish dictionary and also author describes that he has taken many words from industry books, magazines, sales catalogues, tool operating manuals and industry standards. Engineer Gerhard Schiltzer gets special compliments for commenting and proofreading.

Using of book is rather easy. Words are arranged at alphabetical order by German word from A to Z. That takes about 182 pages from book. After those are specialized groups and some words linked straight to those. Those groups are Strength of materials (Lujuusoppi), Heat treatment (Lämpökäsittely),  Machining tools (Työstökoneet), Die-cutting (Meistotekniikka), Gearwheels (Hammaspyörät), Welding technology (Hitsaustekniikka), Materials (Aineoppi) and Metal spraying (Metallinruiskutus). In total 224 pages and about 15 000 words.

For my opinion this is quite useful book still today. Many free online translators are not fully capable to produce correct professional terminology for technical use. For sure there are commercial software and dictionaries which now a days contains needed terms, but in other hand this is quite small (read "easy to carry with you") book, so it is rather fast to search correct words from there (especially because this is only from German to Finnish, useful when reading old German literature). I have also seen similar book from Swedish to Finnish, so maybe I need to find my own copy from that also someday.....