Dictionary Reviews

I was pleasantly surprised at how handy this little electronic dictionary was! I'm taking a beginning Spanish class right now and find it extremely useful. I use it in class and outside to do my homework. The best part is I now no longer have to lug a big heavy dictionary around!

This electronic version of the Oxford English-Spanish dictionary is great -- the dictionary is true to its paper version. The personal organizer is a great additional plus! This dictionary fits right in your shirt pocket, and I carry it with me all the the time.

The Oxford Reverse Dictionary converges on the elusive word you canft bring to mind or do not know. It letfs you take a round about route by applying a concept, or asking a question to find the word you want. For example you probably canft recall the name of Japanese acupuncture. I thought of puncturing the skin with needles, but neither puncturing nor needles got me very far but it did raise the question, what is it? A treatment, this entry led me to the keyword therapy: shiatsu. You canft do that either with dictionary or thesaurus. I wondered whether there was a word to describe the fear of number thirteen. Under the keyword fear: triskaidekaphobia.

The Oxford Reverse Dictionary groups words by subject-related keywords: for example organ, advertorial, kill, D notice, silly season, chequebook journalism can all be found under the keyword: newspaper. A helpful feature is the apt and succinct and right-on-target definition that precedes every word or phrase. Taking a word out of the above list for example silly season is defined as high summer, when there is a dearth of serious news.

Presented in the most ideal format yet compiled to find and learn new words. Keywords are in bold print to assist with going back and forth from text to monitor to notes so you get the information you need in the shortest and easiest fashion. The typeset, layout, choice of paper and heft of the ORD will soon make it familiar and comfortable and a word tool of choice of the student, writer, crossword buff and anyone whose business is words. - - This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

So often I'll have a word I need "on the tip of my tongue" and then it disappears. The Oxford Reverse Dictionary is a marvelous source for finding those elusive words. The other day I wanted the word for pig intestines used as food, so I looked under "pig" and there it was: "chitterlings." I find this an indispensable resource.

I used this dictionary for 2 years of highschool Russian and it was irreplacable. It is relatively up-to-date so you will find technical terms in it and the appendixes in the back are great. Most of the other people in my class liked it too. Its very small size (about the size of an index card) made it handy to carry around but sometimes the small type was slightly hard to read.

What is more important then learn the language? If you agree with that -buy the book! It's execellent!.....Keep it next to the computer! Have few of them....

I learned everyday English by reading a lot of comics and I always wanted a comic strip in Spanish. This book is exactly that and has a vocab reference for each strip. Great way to learn!

From the perspective of a Spanish teacher, this is a wonderful book to help build your Spanish vocabulary and comprehension.

The way the it's set up is: On one page there is a FULL page cartoon strip in color. There is a lot of dialogue, idioms, and basic vocabulary. One the opposite page is a list of vocabulary found in the comic strip in Spanish and English, divided into categories. The book is organized by cartoon title and topic. Some topics include: food & drink, money, travelling, etc. There are 30 cartoons in total, a well-organized table of contents, a glossary and a verb conjugation help section.

I definitely think this would be a great way to expand your knowledge (or your students' knowledge) of Spanish in a very interesting and humorous context.

The content is appropriate for high school and college level students, and for any level of study, although first and second year students would need help understanding the more complex structures.

I was so thrilled to find this book! I just wish I'd had it in college, but - oh, well, now I'm going to catch up on what I missed in college! This book is a must-have for beginners learning French! Obviously, it has only the vocabulary you would need for the first two or so years of French, but all the confusing, tricky things are beautifully and clearly explained, to get you over the first hurdles! The entries are listed in both French and English, with examples of usage. I even bought the Oxford Starter German Dictionary as well, because I had so many false starts and difficulties trying to learn German. I feel confident that I will now sort out the problems I had with these languages. This is a great concept!!!

This French-English and English-French dictionary is very well-designed and easy to use. Keywords are highlighted, which makes you find what you need very fast. The translations don't have any confusing grammar-specific abbreviations, all the information is very clear. Special symbols show the points to pay attention to. Thematic boxes are dedicated to the often used words and everyday topics (talking about time, numbers, aches and pains etc.). The book doesn't cover all the French words and cannot be used as a grammar reference, but it has everything the good dictionary should contain. A must have for those learning French from scratch.

This book is really worth the money. It comes with 5 hours of audio on CD or cassette. The narrator sounds like a Russian Arnold Schwarzenegger (complete with the occasional witticism).
I started learning Russian from Nicholas Brown's Penguin Russian course, which is a very professional book, but alas doesn't come with tapes. Sure, Brown gives good phonetic transcriptions, but you need the actual audio to reassure yourself you're actually saying the right thing! Nothing in language learning is so conspicuous as a good or bad accent, and I'm glad I have this unpretentious Oxford course to help me along.

This is an excellent way to get started in Russian. The blend of exercises in audio and written gives the student a lot of exposure to spoken and written Russian in very short order. One thing I really like about this is the mixing of functional and literary Russian in both the book and the tapes or CD. This will prepare the student for a variety of experiences in the language, both from a cultural and business perspective.

I will not say you get a lot of cultural exposure from the tapes, but rather, you will be prepared to access cultural material such as Russian magazines, newspapers, television, and the like. It isnt the fish, but rather the teaching how to fish.

The functional aspect of the course avoids stock phrasing, per se, but teaches you how to put things together in order to achieve the goal, such as buyin Pravda, or ice cream, or navigating the Metro. So you can get some work done, and have a good time while you are at it.

I would not say that one becomes an expert after finishing this course (I will let you know when I finish it.) But I am already beginning to enough in Pravda to figure out what the article is about. It is a great start on learning Russian as far as I am concerned.

I finished reading this book a few days ago, and I quickly realized that next summer I will have to read it again. The book is an overflowing fountain of information about Polynesian, Austronesian, and Papauan languages. It is written in a similar style to the Cambridge Language Survey books, though it is shorter and written in a colloquial style designed for those with only a basic knowledge of linguistics. (This is not to say the information is simplistic. Lynch starts with rather basic explanations, and then jumps into a massive amount of comparative linguistic data.)

The book also goes beyond the scope of grammar sketches. It starts with a history of the Pacific region. It then discusses commonalities of the Pacific languages. Next come chapters dealing specifically with each of the three languages families (above). He then discusses the development and current use of pidgins, including Tok Pisin, Bislama, and Hiri Motu (including where the name "Hiri Motu" comes from). Following this is material on cultural use of language: politeness registers, gender registers, kinship terms, areas of social importance, etc. Lastly, he discusses language shift, death, and revival.

Overall, this is an excellent work for anyone who has any interest in Polynesian languages. As I said, I will probably read it again next year so more information can sink in.

Lynch goes where no one has gone before in attempting to cover, however briefly, the salient characteristics and historical development of something like fourteen hundred Oceanic and Polynesian languages. Most readers will never have heard of any of them, but they occupy a far-flung territory from Easter Island to Australia. Many are dying out; Lynch gives figures for the number of speakers of some languages, and these are a real revelation to those of us who speak English. Fifty speakers? Astonishing. Six speakers? How can this be? Lynch lives in Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides), and his dicussion of Bislama-the creole that the native French and English speakers of those islands use with each other in preference to either English or French-is particularly interesting. In general the linguistic diversity of the region is mind-boggling. As the only book ever to attempt such a survey, this must rate five stars, and I doubt that anyone would ever be able to do a better job.

Alas! A good reason for you not to buy any of those joke books. Instead, acquire this wonderful recollection of funny phrases actually said or written........ Suggested to witty quotation fans, of course, but a must for those that don't possess humor but do have a good memory !!!!! A compilation of hilarious phrases, edited by Fred Metcalf that will not let you down, in any argument or discussion. Good to break the ice, superb to outwit your opponent, it is the perfect tool to keep at bay the drama, in heavier conversations. Talking to the pretentious literati or author, you get to say: "A good writer is not, per se, a good critic. No more than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender..." If he replies: "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves" then you can say: "I never read a book before reviewing it- it prejudices a man so...." and then add: "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time in reading it..."

"The trouble with my car is that it won't start and the payments won't stop"

"I care a lot about my wife's happiness. So much so that's I've hired a private detective to find out who's responsible for it."

This book is an excellent collection of one-liners. Unlike many joke books, over 90% of its jokes are actually funny! There's a good indexing system as well. Though admittedly there's no entry for jokes on bicycles.

I bought the book way back in a London book-shop. I had to climb down the narrow stairs to the basement and ask where I could find a rhyming dictionary. A nod sent me to the remotest corner. Halfway, a voice from behind suddenly said: "The Penguine is the best." I don't know whether the people in this place worked on commission - if so, they sure lost money on that day, because the man was right!

I found and compared some 5 or 6 weighty and expensive dictionaries and an ugly duckling: Ms Ferguson's excellent listing. It is comprehensive, it is easy and quickly accessible, it never let me down in all these years. I had found THE tool for the professional translator of poetry. 5 stars and beer for everyone! That's the good news.

However: the only available edition is a typical Penguin production: tiny letters, lousy paper, shoddy binding - yes you guessed it, I am a snob when it comes to paperbacks, but I especially hate the Penguin way of producing books. And this here is a DICTIONARY for crying out loud!! It requires by definition sturdy boards and good paper and an easy to read typeface to weather rough handling and ceaseless thumping for never ending months and years of work. 1 star and an aspirin.

But then - on balance, this is the publisher's sly way to make you buy several copies I guess, and you know what: it is worth it. Fergusson's dictionary has been my indispensable companion for many years now. Perhaps we owe Penguin even a debt of gratitude, that they produce it at all ... .

I had heard that a rhyming dictionary existed, but never could find one, until I stumbled on this one while on vaction. It is everything I hoped it would be. It's easy to use and just plain fun. Anyone who enjoys words, particularly the sound of words, won't be able to put this book down. It expands the possibilities of poetry. Who would have tnought that "debonair" rhymes with "musketeer?"

Well Penguins grammar book was a bust, but this dictionary is awesome!

I didn't know how great it was until I lost my copy of it and had to buy the Oxford one. This dictionary is like 20 times better than the Oxford one!

If fact, it was no suprise to me as the other Penguin foreign language dictionaries I own are also top notch. Buy this one and you will need no other as it has everything from common words to idioms and even naughty words as well.

One might think that there are many good dictionaries available - false! But this one is a diamond among rocks. I knew it when I saw the word "schadenfreude" there. This dictionary covers the widest range of both languages, academic and slang, terminology, everything! You can stop looking for the good Russian-English dictionary - this is it!