Dictionary woes

I got marked down on my weekly vocab sheet last week due to using my English-Spanish dictionary rather than using a Spanish dictionary that gives definitions in Spanish. The professor wrote on my sheet that I should use the dictionary linked on the resources section of the class management system, which is the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary.

I like my other dictionary better.

• I looked up jalea for example, which said "f. Conserva transparente, hecha de zumo de algunas frutas." Conserva I took to be something saved or preserved, transparente is transparent, made of zumo of some fruits.
• So I look up zumo and it tells me "m. Líquido de las hierbas, flores, frutas u otras cosas semejantes, que se saca exprimiéndolas o majándolas." Liquid of the herbs, flowers, fruits, or other similar things, that are taken out by exprimir or majandar.
• I look up exprimir, which I determined in my vast knowledge of conjugation to be the root of the word exprimiéndolas. It says "Extraer el zumo o líquido de una cosa, apretándola o retorciéndola."  To extract the zumo or liquid of a thing, squeezing or twisting it. (Remember, zumo is defined as the thing that you exprimir, making a circular definition. A is made when you do B to fruits. B is what you do to fruits to make A.)
• I then look up majandar, which in my vast knowledge of conjugation (see above) I determine to be the probable root of the word majándolas. It doesn't exist, neither does majándolas or majando (las is a suffix meaning to a female them). I give up on that part of the definition. (I later discover, by browsing in my Spanish-English dictionary, that the root word is majar, which it defines as "to crush, to mash." I don't get "mash" out of any of the three definitions in Spanish!)
  

What does my Spanish-English dictionary say about jalea? "nf. (noun, feminine) jelly."

Lovely, huh?

The next word, which was found in the story we read for homework over the weekend, again doesn't exist at all in any form I can think of (again, in my vast knowledge of Spanish conjugation) until I browse the Spanish-English dictionary.

Here's another one:

• I found the word caló in the reading. The definition says "m. Lenguaje de los gitanos españoles." Masculine word, meaning the language of the Spanish gitanos.
• I think a gitano is some sort of native, but I decide to check. I copy and paste it, and "gitanos" isn't in the dictionary, only "gitano" is. This is the problem with dictionaries that you can't browse, only search. But one letter differences, such as plural to singular, should be correctable by the system.
  

Me using the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary is like a person who's never spoken English being given a link to Wikipedia as a dictionary.  You have to know the words to learn the words!

The next word I looked up was defined by three synonyms, only two of which I had any faint idea how to translate.

This is going to be a long homework assignment, and Charles is already asleep... *sigh* (Not that he was going to help me with my homework or anything, but I don't like waking him when I get into bed after he's been asleep a while.)