Customer Reviews

NTC's Bulgarian and English Dictionary

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My old Bulgarian to English/English to Bulgarian dictionary was past the stage of being dog-eared, so I ordered this one to give it a try. After using it for a few weeks, I find it a perfectly adequate practical dictionary. I'm Bulgarian-American, not a scholar, so I can't speak for every nuance, but the translations are sound.

What I do have to mention is that this is clearly a dictionary for Bulgarians repackaged to fit a wider user base. What this means is that there are no pronounciation guides in English for Bulgarian words, but there are pronounciation guides for English words in Bulgarian. As well, all word definitions are in Bulgarian, in both the Bulgarian to English and the English to Bulgarian sections of the book. This is fairly typical for Bulgarian/English dictionaries and does not make this book any more lacking than others on the market.

My point being is that if you're trying to learn Bulgarian for the first time for a brief trip or an occasion, you might do better with a travel dictionary or phrasebook. What I as a Bulgarian-American who knows the language might find quirky or quaint would be frustrating and confusing to someone looking at words for the first time.

They say never to buy phrasebooks, but in this case, if you fit the group above, you might rather have that instead.

On a side note, this book is bound extremely well and has a nice, durable cover. This one won't be getting dog-eared anytime soon!

I will be serving a two-year Christian mission in Bulgaria. My first language is English and I have been learning Bulgarian, a task that would be nearly impossible without a good English-Bulgarian dictionary. I have looked at all the dictionaries on the market and this one is by far the best. The following three paragraphs are responses to the review made by "phoenixwinged".

It is true that the Bulgarian-to-English portion of the dictionary does not contain pronunciations for each individual Bulgarian word, but that is because Bulgarian can be read phonetically! The Bulgarian pronunciation guide in the front of the book is all you need to know in order to pronounce the words correctly. Once you memorize the Cyrillic alphabet (which is quite easy) you will be able to correctly pronounce any Bulgarian word. English, on the other hand, is not always spelled phonetically (i.e. knife, psychology, tough, etc.). This is why the pronunciations are provided only in the English-to-Bulgarian portion of the dictionary.

Contrary to what "phoenixwinged" stated, the definitions in the Bulgarian section of the dictionary are in English and the definitions in the English section of the dictionary are in Bulgarian. It is possible that "phoenixwinged" has an older edition of the book in which all of the definitions are presented in Bulgarian, but that is not the case with this edition.

It would be unwise to purchase a phrasebook instead of this dictionary. A phrasebook may be a useful companion to this dictionary, but certainly not a replacement. I have a Bulgarian phrasebook and it has not helped me very much at all. If you are serious about learning Bulgarian you need a dictionary, and this one is the best available!

After reading the mostly positive reviews here I ordered this dictionary, since the only reference I currently have is the glossary at the end of my "Intensive Bulgarian" textbook. What a disappointment it was to finally receive it and discover that not only are no aspect pairs listed, but *no* perfective verbs are listed at all! This makes it virtually useless to me and anyone else who does not know the perfective forms to begin with.

The printing is also substandard (it looks like a photocopy of a textbook), but I would be more than willing to overlook its aesthetic drawbacks if the content were satisfactory. Sadly, it is not. I will be returning this book and, unless I can find a compact and affordable alternative, will make the investment in the Rankova/Atanasova Bulgarian-English and English-Bulgarian dictionaries, although these are considerably more comprehensive than my present needs warrant (and are hardly affordable at about $140 for both!). If anyone knows of a better alternative, please let me know!

NTC'S BULGARIAN AND ENGLISH DICTIONARY, edited by Elena Stankova and Ivanka Harlakova, is one of the few options for English-speaking students of the Bulgarian language. As with most of NTC's dictionaries, this is an rebranded edition of a work originally compiled abroad. The dictionary was originally published in Sofia in 1991.

Each language has around 10,000 main entries. There are no frills here, such as a brief grammar, but the dictionary includes nearly every word a beginner would need to look up. The dictionary was quite clearly compiled for Bulgarian student of English, as the notes provided to show variant translations of a lexical item are in Bulgarian and the English-Bulgarian section has the pronunciation of each English word indicated in IPA. It is, however, still entirely useful for English-speakers and, an essential, the stress of each Bulgarian word is indicated. At the end of each direction of translation is a single-page list of geographical entities and their equivalents in the other language. These amount to only major world capitals and (mostly) European nations. This lack of geographical terms was for me the biggest failing of the dictionary.

I would have liked a more substantial dictionary, and hope to acquire such in future travels to Bulgaria. However, the dictionary does serve beginning students of this lovely and sadly unappreciated Slavonic language rather well.