Random House Webster's Pocket Russian Dictionary

by Irmhild C. Sperrle

Release Date: 14 March, 2000

Edition: Paperback

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Russian wife LOVES this dictionary

My wife, who is Russian, LOVES this dictionary because it contains the pronunciation of each English word. Something so simple and yet some of the more expensive and complete dictionaries failed to include. She wore out the first one I bought for her and now wants a third. This is the one she recommends to her Russian friends.

Imperfect, but helpful for students of Russian

While I'm partial to the Collins Gem series for pocket foreign-language dictionaries, I found this Random House Webster's POCKET RUSSIAN DICTIONARY a worthwhile purchase in learning Russian.

This dictionary has several good qualities. While small, it is not short and squat and thus is more comfortable in one's pocket. The binding appears more durable because the dictionary has a cover around it that gives more support to the binding and would hide unsightly lines. As for the content, the dictionary contains a suprising amount of words for its size, and the layout makes lookup easy. I was disappointed, however, by the lack of usage information in definitions. For example, looking up the translation for the English translation "darling" gives Russian "lyubimec." However, the dictionary does not tell the reader that this is "darling" in the sense of favourite, such as "the author Pastnernak was the darling of Western intelligentsia" and not a term of affection for a significant other.

For travellers, the dictionary includes at the end a short list of useful phrases and a menu reader. I think, however, that these are too short to be of any real use and a traveller would be better off with a real phrasebook. This dictionary is really meant for students.

While it's imperfect, the Random House Webster's POCKET RUSSIAN DICTIONARY is one of the better pocket dictionaries of Russian. If you're learning the language, I'd recommend taking a look at it.