Customer Reviews

Berlitz Swedish-English Dictionary/Engelsk-Svensk Ordbok

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
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I just spent a month in Sweden, and I brought along this dictionary.

Advantages:
* its size meant that I could carry it around in the back pocket of my jeans
* its English pronunciation transcriptions are easy to understand (note: it's based on Standard British pronunciation)
* it has a small section of traveler phrases, conversation tables, etc. which can be useful to carry around

Disadvantages:
* poor word selection
* could be much more helpful with verb conjugations
* no help with word usage or idioms

What the disadvantages mean is that this dictionary alone is not sufficient for doing Swedish language homework or for translating anything of substance, like newspaper articles. I ended up buying a large reference dictionary that I would keep at home; I would use this one only when shopping etc.

Admittedly, this is a pocket dictionary, but even so, its word selection could be much better. It's missing basic Swedish words like 'somna' (to fall asleep), 'motionera' (to exercise), and 'lexikon' (dictionary). It's missing basic English words like 'creative' and 'chapter.' On the other hand, it has entries for English words like 'carry-cot', 'thundery,' and 'esplanade', entries that I can't imagine being nearly as useful. It's also missing day-to-day Swedish expressions like 'varsågod' (here you are), 'sådär' (as such), and 'hej då' (goodbye).

This dictionary will work in a pinch, but I would shop around more first.

Not a bad starting point for someone with no prior knowledge of Swedish. This is my first book. The food section is nice also. Although there could be a little more multiple (connected) word entry's I've seen in the more advanced dictionary's it's definitley worth purchasing.

This is a nice, compact dictionary with lots of useful words, phrases and a grammar reference. It's not an all-inclusive dictionary and doesn't pretend to be, but for the money it's a great buy. For people just learning Swedish -- like me -- it's more than sufficient.

Even it's small it's very usefull in a variety of situations, especially on travel, a good summary of high used swedish words.

This book is pocket size with English to Swedish as well as Swedish to English translations with pronunciations.
Perfect for a travelor or anyone that wants to begin to learn the language.

Berlitz Swedish-English Pocket Dictionary by the Berlitz Publishing Company is a handy little reference guide when you need to look up a word in Swedish and find its English equivalent, and it is not obvious at a glance on the internet. Occasionally useful for checking out a book title on Librarythign too, for combining.

Anyway, not too bad at all.

I bought this while living in Sweden for 6 weeks. I bought it because it was cheap. Actually it was the cheapest Swedish-English dictiionary in a Swedish book store. It was about 2/3 the cost of the next most expensive dictionary. It was about 70 Kronor or about $15 in Sweden. It is cheaper here on line.

My version was bought in Europe and it is a more recent printing. It has a different ISBN number but has a similar cover and came out in 2002, about 4 years after the 1998 version. The following ISBN numbers all seem to be for a very similar book: ISBN-10: 2831563852, ISBN-13: 978-2831563855, and ISBN 91-46-18276-4. My recent version is slightly more compact than the 1998 version. It is the last ISBN number and it is 333 pages, about 10% smaller than the 1998 version, but contains the same number of words as the other two versions: 12,000 words. All versions seem very similar: they have similar covers, similar words, all have phrases, and all have tips on grammar.

It was not purchased with the intent of learning the language. My goals were more modest, i.e.: I needed help reading some transport signs, signs in banks, safety labels, telephone instructions, and other written material such as labels on over the counter medications, etc.

For example, if you go to a store in Sweden you will find that the products are different from North America and almost all the labels are in Swedish only. One needs a dictionary or a guide. The dictionary has 12,000 words. That might seem like a lot but I could almost never find a word, or so it seemed. For example, when I bought detergent, I was able to find bleach added (bleka) but when I bought hand creams etc at the drug store, or apotek as it is called in Sweden, I could never match any of the words on any of the labels to words in the dictionary. So I could not determine the ingredients and the book was essentially useless for that.

It seemed that most of the time I hit a dead end. Also they have many words in the dictionary that are virtually identical in either language such as AIDS and similar international words that have been adopted into a number of languages, and I thought it was a waste of space to put in so many identical words.

This book is a two way book, i.e.: one can be English speaking or Swedish speaking. There is one half for each with comments on the languages in both langauges, but the book has limited word selection for both languages, and the book is not exactly symmetric going back and forth between languages.

I suggest alternative books with more words.

Hej! Jag heter Violeta Moroc och jag kommer fraan Romania. Jag behover en lexicon, jag tenker paa en svensk lexikon for synonimer eller svensk-rysk rysk-svensk lexicon eller svensk-engelsk engelsk-svensk ordbok. Jag ber ni att gi mer informasjon hur kan jag kopa en saadan lexikon. Basta halsningar Violeta Moroc Min adress: Str, Castanilor 2, ap.34 Cluj-Napoca, Romenien. tel: 04064.43.80.14 e-mail: vmoroc@hotmail.com