[frei]

Pretty neat! Similarly, I often use Wikipedia to find translations for specific technical terms that aren't in bilingual dictionaries or Google Translate. If you go to a wiki page about a term, there are usually many links on the sidebar to versions in other languages, which are usually titled with the canonical term in that language.

[itaysk]

I do this as well, I find that wikipedia is the best dictionary

[bausano_michael]

I found this to be a great method too. Especially for topics which I have been educated on in my mother tongue in high school. I know the term in Czech but I'd be unsure about the direct translation.

[hk__2]

+1; I’ve used that method so many times that I wrote a Python CLI tool for that a few years ago: https://github.com/bfontaine/wptranslate

[iakh]

Self plugging a quick page I wrote to do exactly this some time ago: http://adamhwang.github.io/wikitranslator/

[nitrogen]

Out of curiosity, how well does Wiktionary fare in this regard?

[greenpresident]

I use it primarily for cooking ingredients. The names on some unconventional grains and vegetables are easy to translate using this method and not always available in conventional dictionaries.

It would also be useful for identifying cuts of meat, as US cuts and, for example, Italian cuts differ not only in name but in how they are made. Compare the images on this article for an example of what I mean:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_of_beef

[carlob]

I own an illustrated encyclopedia of Italian food: there are 9 pages of regional cuts of beef!

That's what you get in a country that unified 160 years ago...

[matsemann]

I often do it as well. It's not perfect, but it's nice for things not directly translateable. For instance events known by different names in different languages, where translating the name of the event with google just does a literal translation.

[nicbou]

Dict.cc is excellent for that, if you're translating between German and English. Linguee can also be really good.

[EE84M3i]

Similarly, jisho.org for English <-> Japanese often has search results from Wikipedia too.

[cpach]

I also do this :) It would be cool to build a dictionary that uses this method.