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Google Translator may be popular but it is actually not so good as it is just a machine. Here I’m going to give you links to some good and free alternatives.

Although you may disagree at first sight, a monolingual dictionary gives you so much more (usage notes, examples, synonyms and most of all the actual and real meaning of the word, not just an equivalent in another language). So you may use these. There are special versions for learners:

 

http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com

is a long link but leads to one of the best and well-know dictionaries by Oxford.

An alternative by Longman is

http://www.ldoceonline.com

 

If you need, for some reason (maybe for a translation) a bilingual dictionary, consider this:

http://www.pons.eu

 

Be very careful with http://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/ as this is again user-generated and may have wrong entries.

The freaks and geeks will certainly have fun with this tool:

http://www.linguee.de

It can compare translations.

So, best thing is to try them all out right now…