Dictionary Reviews

SE nos convirtió en el idioma MUNDIAL, y si estas en negocios o simplemente en una oficina, TE ES INDISPENSABLE...
Y la mejor forma para dominarlo, es estudiando un poco con este libro. APRENDES FACILMENTE Y CON RAPIDEZ !

Seattle, mi esposo no sabía decir más que "I love you !", lo cual a mi me parecias muy bien...pero para ella era un inconveniente.
Pero mi hermano nos recomendo este libro...CON EL QUE MARIELA SE SOLTÓ HABLANDO EN MENOS DE DOS MESES !
FABULOSO !
Ahora, hasta pelea conmigo en inglés...¡Me encanta !

EXCELENTE Y SENCILLO PARA APRENDER INGLES
Mi hermanita lo aptendio en menos de un mes cuando llego de Guatemala

THE JOYS OF YIDDISH is a delightful little dictionary of Yiddish words and expressions that have worked their way into the English language, or at least should have. I can't count the times I've heard people with no background in Yiddish use words like "mavin" (expert), or "shnuk" (a real pitiful character), or dozens of others.

Rosten's frequent approach is to take a word or expression, explain its pronunciation, define it as nearly as is possible, and give an anecdote or example of its use. When the word lends itself to humor, Rosten usually opts for a humorous anecdote.

For an example, I've chosen the word "chutzpah." It is pronounced to rhyme with foot spa, with the ch rolled in your throat to give the German gutteral "kh" sound, not like the ch in "choo-choo." The nearest you can come to defining "chutzpah" in English is unmitigated gall or perhaps brazen effrontery. An example of "chutzpah" is the man who, after killing his mother and father, asks the court for mercy because, after all, he IS an orphan.

There are hundreds of such examples in the book. There are also many more serious examples of words that do not lend themselves to humor.

At the end of the book there are appendices which discuss Jewish Traditions, Ceremonies, Religious Writings, Names, and more.

Rosten has evidently done his research to come up with the many hundreds of entries in the book. He has provided a valuable research document and a book that can be opened to almost any page and elicit a chuckle or two.

The most authoritative book on Yiddish expressions (for general readers) is Leo Rosten's "The Joy of Yiddish." It not only catalogues and defines Yiddish expressions and words, but contains illustrations and jokes that use Yiddish words.

Yiddish, though born of suffering, is an amusing language, and the late Mr. Rosten explained it in such a way as to be universally enjoyable. There are philological snobs who sniff at and recoil from this book. Those with edelkeit and a sense of absurdity (the one needed and possessed by the founders of this delightful tongue) would do well to purchase this.

I'm a college student eager to learn Japanese and found this book to be almost perfect. It gives instructions on the writing of the characters and quizzes after each section. I studied it a couple weeks before I took my first Nihongo class and found myself ahead of everyone in the class. Yes, it only took me a couple weeks with a little writing practice and memorizing each day. The only problem with the book is that they don't provide answers to the quizzes in each section and the character for "so" may be written differently as my sensei taught me at school.(their format is the way a brush writes it, not pen) Go buy it for fast, easy Hiragana lessons.

Let's Learn Hiragana is the first book all students wanting to learn to read and write Japanese should buy. I learned all the 107 hiragana in two weeks practicing only a couple hours each day. There are only really 46 hiragana to learn. The remainder are made with the addition of what look like " ,or with the addition of a small circle, or by writing one hiragana on top of another to make a new syllable. This book shows you the basic stokes which are numbered and easy to follow, and it gives a tracing exercise for each syllable. After you have mastered all 107 syllables/(46 symbols) it walks you through how to write words. Then it walks you through how to write sentences. It gives lots of practice translating romanji to hiragana and vice versa but manages to ween the learner from romanji which builds confidence. It points out ample, pertinent examples of spelling and writing "exceptions" in the exercises. Six stars. Next get Let's Learn Katakana. Mitamura-san is a wonderful sensei. The only critisism I can offer is that the hiragana are written in brush and it can be confusing for the beginner to know the importance of those little check marks at the end of the lines. I advise begginners to look in other Japanese books to get a sense for the amount of flexibility permitted in Japanese writing and to expose themselves to print styles other than ink brush, but this is a very minor critisism. With this book alone, you will easily be able to write beautiful Japanese even if you are in a Siberian jail in solitary confinement..which thankfully, I am not.

I've purchased other books on the subject of Japanese writing but this one is by far the best. It has great exercises in both writing and reading Hiragana and teaches you everything you need to know. Super book!

nuestra hija...

¿Puede haber mayor aprobación ?

QUE HE ENCONTRADO CON NOMBRES PARA NIÑAS...
EN REALIDAD, TODOS VIENEN MEZCLADOS...Y ES COMO PARA EL TOTAL PARA QUE SOLO TE DEN LA MITAD...porque si lo buscas para tu nenita,en los otros libros, por lo menos la mitad es de nombres para hombrecitos...

PERFECTO !

WISH TO DESCRIBE THE TEMPERAMENT OF YOUR BABY GIRL...
But this is THE ONLY GOOD NAME BOOK FOR girls !

This reference is fantastic. One only wishes it were longer! Each of 125 authors are given a dense two-page spread that includes a picture and short bio, an essay on their works and characters, lists of best books and companion volumes, and recommendations for the book you should read first as well as similar authors. All modern time periods are represented and include Jane Austen, Isaac Asimov, John Cheever, Margaret Atwood, John Irving, Leo Tolstoy, C.S. Forester, E.M. Forster, Joseph Conrad, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Leonard Elmore, Louis L'Amour, Joseph Heller, Jane Smiley etc. A wonderful selection.

The book would be great if it ended there, but further sections list literary award winners, the best of genre fiction, "best of" lists from The Modern Library and The New York Public Library, readers' resources (including those found online), information about reading groups, audiobooks, catalogues, used books, e-books, sources for book reviews and a list of national and state book festivals. Each section is exhaustive and well-organized.

An excellent index includes even those authors listed as suggestions, and highlights featured authors in bold type.

Just wonderful, if a bit dangerous. Highest recommendation.

If you are a voracious fiction reader, take time out to browse through and get lost in this book. It really is addictive. The wealth of information here is astounding - each of the 125 well loved authors in the book has his or her own two page spread featuring a picture, background info, incredibly interesting "good to know" facts about the author, which of the author's books to read first, Websites featuring even more info about the author.......and more, and more, and more...... Following the author info there is more 'book-junkie' information to tempt we readers of fiction; award winners, dos and don'ts of writing to an author, information on the different fiction genres. I see this as a perfect gift for fiction readers, especially if you don't know what books the recipient has already read. It's also an invaluable resource for book groups, teachers, and booksellers. An absolute treasure for the bibliophile!

I love this book. It's so terrific to read the little bios on my favorite authors, as well as have a listing of all their works in the order of their creation.

This is the Chinese to English dictionary I have seen the most frequently used by ROC immigrants. Written in Traditional Chinese and primarily using Zhu4 Yin1 Fu3 Hao4 (bo po mo fo) (but having a GR romanization and hanyu pinyin index,) this dictionary is great for the user who wants to have a good reference. Has a total stroke count and radical index as well, creating 5 total indexes. Very comprehensive, including many literary phrases out of modern use. Far East book company also publishes an English-Chinese edition.

This is an excellent Chinese to English dictionaries containing over 7300 characters and 120,000 entries thereunder. The definitions are clear, concise and accurate; the print is sufficiently large, and, more importantly, clearly printed. The dictionary itself is not inordinately large, so as to be inconvenient to carry around. It is well bound, and the paper is of high quality; the book is surprisingly thin for one of some 2000 pages. The arrangement of the characters is by the traditional Kangxi radicals, by far the best method of arranging a dictionary; included is a table of characters whose radicals are difficult to identify, thereby making it easier to find these characters. In short, this is by far the best medium-sized Chinese-English dictionary available that I've seen.

I use this dictionary for translating into English transcripts of dialogues as well as for reading top-of-the-range contemporary Chinese novels (mainland, Taiwan & HK), in traditional character print, and it works to my satisfaction.
As a complement to this one, I believe you will always need a character dictionary, since at 7000 characters it is a bit on the short side.
It's weak point is on the grammatical usage of characters but again you can use a character dictionary, those are usually good in that respect.
No example sentences are provided (well, it's not that kind of dictionary) so it's probably best value for students with at least intermediate Chinese.
For student of Chinese, it's also best to know that the phonetic is Standard Madarin but only from the point of view of Mandarin speakers in Taiwan, so there are a limited number of discrepencies with Mainland dictionaries (but it's nothing compared with the differences between standard and actual pronunciations both in Taiwan and in Mainland China, not to mention HK).
I believe it is the only dictionary in traditional print with as large a vocabulary (although still not quite enough).

como dice la canción, que nos vinimos a radicar a Los Ängeles y yo no hablaba ni papa de inglés excepto por el OK y el I love you..
Mi esposo me regaló este libro, y me dijo que a él le había servido para aprender todo o que sabe de inglés ( y ya sabía bastantito )
Lo leí, un capítulo diario, y lo estudié todo lo que pude. Es bien agradable, porque no es un libro seco y pesado: Ofrece la historia de una familia y te lleva a pasar un mes con ella.
Tiene ortografía en inglés, pronunciación y traducción al español.
Al mes, comencé a entender si la gente hablaba despacio. Luego, leí el segundo libro que se llama el segundo mes de inglés..Y ahora hasta a mi marido le doy clases!
Te divierte y te enseña. Vas con la familia al super, al trabajop, a la escuela...a todos lados y aprendes todo...
Está muy bueno, amiga...Y si acabas de llegar por acá LO NECESITAS

Parece mentira, porque es para aprender inglés..¡Y LO APRENDES EN SUS 30 LECCIONES !
Pero te cuenta una historia super interesante de una familia, y ni sientes que estás estudiando !

DE CHISTES TAN EXTRAORDINARIO COMO "LO MEJOR DE LA PICARDIA MUNDIAL " NI TEXTO PARA APRENDER INGLES TAN EFICAZ, AMENO, DIVERTIDO, BIEN ESCRITO Y DISEÑADO PARA GENTE DE HABLA HISPANA COMO ESTE !

This dictionary is an absolute must-have for every writer, fiction or nonfiction. We haven't found a better slang dictionary yet. It has virtually all the slang words in there, words that you just won't find anywhere else. One of the very nice and helpful features is that it tells you in what year the word was used first and susequently, and in which publication (book or newspaper, etc.), and how the meaning changed over the course of the decades. The dictionary also has sentence examples on how the word was used, e.g. in which context, so you know exactly when and how to use it in your applications. It's just very interesting to find out the original meaning and usage of certain slang words and to enrich your own vocabulary. We highly recommend it!

If you're into words, slang, and idioms like I am, then you probably already own a reference book like this and realize that you need at least 2-3 similar books to find the real nuances of meaning that you want.

This book definitely qualifies to be one of them. The definitions are thoughtful and precise, and there are significantly fewer 'disappointments' (at lousy or omitted definitions/terms) than with other books of it's kind.

One of the best lexicons I have on slang. It lists uses of the word and the authors as well as the when. The best part of it is that it's fun just to read it as well as usefull. It's not all inclusive by any means, I've failed to find a few of the words that I've looked for in it. But for the listings are great. I can't wait to see the next edition and to see what's been added.

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They completely butchered these songs. I'm not that picky, but it's painful to listen to. It honestly sounds like chipmunks with an electronic keyboard.

The whole CD runs in Adobe Acrobat which isn't that convenient to navigate around. The music plays in a jukebox run by Flash.

This CD and thin book was a great idea, but more effort needed to be put into this production.

Why didn't someone write this books years ago? We paid for a tutor to help our 16-yr. old son, who was struggling with Spanish. She did help him conjugate verbs, but her pronunciation was terrible. Musical Spanish has helped our son sound like a native, and it has helped him to love learning the language. In fact, we all sing La Bamba around our house since we bought this book and cd rom. We highly recommend it to all parents who want to help their children enjoy language learning.

Musical Spanish is proving to hold the attention of my adult language learners. The content is so easy to understand and the book is colorful and interesting. The CD is packed full of exercises and hands on activities that keep students engaged and learning effortlessly. Don't miss the index page. Stacey Tipton lightens the load of heavy grammar rules.......my students are learning and singing their way into a new language. Thank you Stacey Tipton.