Customer Reviews

Collins Portuguese Concise Dictionary, 2e (HarperCollins Concise Dictionaries) (English and Portuguese Edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I work in a restaurant where over half the staff is Brazilian. They are wonderful people trying very hard to learn English, but between my intermediate Spanish and minimal Portuguese and their scant English, we sometimes slam into a language barrier. This dictionary has had every word we've ever wanted to translate, including slang, vulgarities, and just random words that are hard to explain to someone who's not native to this country, yet the dictionary itself not heavy or oversized. You could easily carry it around with you when traveling. The definitions also include all of the possible contexts and different tenses (eg "bouncing" as well as "to bounce"). In the front of book there is a pronounciation guide, but it is just that: a guide. I looked it over, but it was too lengthy to really be an effective quick reference for pronounciation. The only other complaint I have is that the dictionary is starting to fall apart from so much use! (To be fair, we are a little hard on it - throwing it around and such.) But if you need an excellent, accurate, and extensive Portuguese-English English-Portuguese dictionary, this is the one to buy.

What do Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Sao Tome e Principe, East Timor, Macao, Guinea-Bissau, Goa, Diu, and parts of New England (U.S.A.) have in common? Well, if you didn't know already, these nations and territories encompass the Portuguese-speaking world, and if you are looking for an excellent, well-researched Portuguese-English dictionary on the market,Harper-Collins' Portuguese-English dictionary is simply the best one out on the market.

Recently revised and redesigned, the dictionary offers the best coverage on Portuguese vocabulary, grammar, and structure that other famous foreign-language dictionaries such as Lagenscheidt and Oxford have never been able to grasp. The book, which is in a condensed collegiate edition, is great for its' classification of usage (e.g. it distinguishes words used in Brazil vs. those used in Portugal), and the book's overall design is excellent. Other dictionaries don't take the time and organization in clearly stating where each word is used in the Portuguese-speaking world, and unless you're well known with Lusitanian and Brazilian norms, then not including this classification will make it more difficult when learning or using the language.

If you need the best Portuguese-English dictionary on the market, then you have found it! Somente o melhor dicionario no mercado!

I am not like the others here who seem to know a lot about reviewing dictionaries. I just know and love Portuguese, and have found this book to contain about 96% percent of the words I look up (I look up a lot of computing technology words that still aren't there). My Brazilian friends have been impressed with the accuracy of the definitions in it, if that counts for anything.

I've been using this dictionary for about 6 months and have found it invaluable in my communications with friends in Brasil. It's very rare that a word cannot be found, or its meaning be off the mark. It's even rather up-to-date with common technical terms. I agree with other reviews that the quality of the binding is poor. I'm not hard on the book and already the binding is breaking apart in two or three places. Although it's not a grammar study book, some of the basic verb conjugations are given in a list in the front of the book. Every dictionary editor seems to have their own proprietary scheme of showing how a word should be pronounced. It always takes a bit of study to figure this out with a new dictionary. This book is no exception. All in all, I think it's an excellent resource and I recommend it highly. I'm even going to take a copy to Brasil with me as a gift to my friend there who wants to improve her English.

A great dictionary but like most Portuguese reference books, it is behind its French and Spanish counterparts. True to its cover, it does have a lot of contemporary words and meanings. It's easy to use but lacks the grammar sections the Harper Collins Spanish and French Concise dictionaries have. My dicionary fell apart at the binding too. The adhesive isn't very durable. I also wonder why the English-Portuguese section comes first while in the Harper Collins Spanish and French dictionaries the Spanish-English and French-English sections come first respectively. This dictionary is worth the money but future editions should be better.

I have found the dictionary to be excellent. But the dictionary's binding quickly began to fail. Also, at my college a class was using the dictionary and they all fell apart so it wasn't just mine that was defective. I still use my copy even though it must now be in about twenty pieces and held together by an elastic band. I wish a hard cover edition was available.