Customer Reviews

Comprehensive English-Esperanto Dictionary

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

 

 

The coverage of English and the distinction between various senses of the English words and idioms defined is very thorough. However, the Esperanto equivalents given are not always the words in most common use for the given concept. Benson has a tendency to list a precise neologism while failing to mention the actual, everyday word for the concept (which may have a broader or less precise meaning than the rarely used word). E.g., for "to count" he lists "kompti", a word hardly ever used, and does not mention "kalkuli", the word routinely used for that action (though it also means "to calculate, do arithmetic", etc.). There are several similar errors that make me hesitate to trust Benson on any given word until I have checked what he tells me against other sources such as the Plena Vortaro or the Reta Vortaro. But, in combination with other sources, Benson can be very useful, especially in translating materials from English into Esperanto.

The Comprehensive English-Esperanto Dictionary is so thorough in its coverage of English and in its inclusion of idiomatic expression that it is simply a must-have for Anglophone Esperantists who wish to compose in the Inter-National Language. I should stress that it would not be of much use if you do not speak Esperanto with some degree of fluency. But CEED can be of immeasurable value in breaking out of phrase-book and beginner's textbook Esperanto.

Without a doubt, this is the most complete English-Esperanto dictionary currently available. Certainly no bilingual person, or translator should rely solely on a single source, but this should be one of the most important ones. The only reason that I rate this at 4 stars instead of five is that there are a few obvious typos scattered through it.

CEED is almost universally recommended as the best English-Esperanto dictionary out there, and from what I've seen, it definitely is. Yet, it still falls a bit short of what we really need in the ideal English-Esperanto dictionary.

The first major problem is that is NOT comprehensive... this isn't for lack of bizarrely specialized words "azygous" (which it has) or "nicad" (which it also has), but actually useful words like "coconut" and "furry," which are nowhere to be found.

Benson is overly fond of grouping related words together, rather than simply using the alphabetical order one expects in a dictionary. If you look up the entry for "nut", you'll also find the translations for Brazil nut, candlenut, chestnut, "nut" in slang uses, "nut" in the sense of nut and bolt, etc. I imagine he meant to include "coconut" here, but in departing from simple alphabetizing, this (and many other would-be entries) were inadvertently left out.

Similarly for "furry," if you look up "fur" you'll find the definition for a mammal's skin (pelto), clothing made from it (peltajxo) and "fur" as "coating on the tongue" (tartro)! But something got left out... what is is it that you pet when you pet your cat? Nothing directs you to the word in general use for fur, "hararo" with its adjective form "harara" serving for furry. However, if you want to look up the words "furan" or "furbelow" (whatever they are), don't worry, they have their proper Esperanto equivalents proudly printed at their side.

Secondly, the given Esperanto equivalents sometimes seem to represent a personal preference rather than the predominant usage among Esperanto speakers. For instance, if you want to know the word for "airplane," the translation is simply given as "avio." The fact is that "aviadilo" is still the most common word for "airplane," although "avio" is thankfully gaining in popularity. Benson translates "aircraft" correctly as "aviadilo" but doesn't indicate that it still is the everyday word to use for airplane, as well.

Thirdly, there is no Esperanto grammar provided. It's common for most bilingual dictionaries to include a short grammatical summary, and after the wonderful 35-page grammatical summary of Esperanto in J.C. Wells' Teach Yourself Esperanto Dictionary, it's a travesty for any later effort to omit this.

Lastly, why not an Esperanto-English dictionary with it? The one-way direction of this dictionary means that everyone is forced to turn to another source for translating unfamiliar Esperanto words to English. If Benson had skimped on the esoteric entries, there could well be room for a Esperanto-English section, which given the nature of Esperanto's structure, would be much shorter than the English-Esperanto section.

Now the good news, and it is VERY good:

In spite of all shortcomings, CEED IS an essential tool. It does have the vast majority of the words you'll need, and its translations are always understandable even if they are sometimes more specific, or more unusual than you would expect.

But by far the greatest advantage is its numerous full-sentence translations of idiomatic English expressions into Esperanto. This is goes far beyond what I've seen any other bilingual dictionary attempt. The entry for "go" for example, has a page-and-a-half of wonderful example sentences on almost every sense of the word you can imagine. The helpfulness of this feature cannot be exaggerated. No Anglophone Esperantist should be without it.

This reference lives up to it's claim..."Comprehensive". If you're going to write in esperanto this a great book to have. I selected it over other works because it appeared to be the most up-to-date esperanto dictionary available, although I do wish it went both ways (ENG <-> ESP). Though I'm new to the language of esperanto, those who have an expert command of the language have also recommended this as a top-notch reference for both beginners and experienced speakers.

Most English words, from the common [eg."of"=multiple listings] to technical, medical/scientific and some needing an unabridged ENGLISH dictionary are included, generally justifying the 'Comprehensive' in the title. Colloquialisms and neologisms are noted. The biggest lack I find is when there is room for a notation which would help the user categorize an obscure word [with sci/med/mil etc.] and that is not done. Overall, this is an eminently worthwhile book for anyone intersted in Esperanto!

Be warned--- this dictionary is English-to-Esperanto only. If you are learning or using Esperanto in any way, you will need a dictionary with an Esperanto-to-English section as well. I recommend the one by J. C. Wells.

While this dictionary is very comprehensive, I still use my Wells dictionary much more and find it more reliable. Neither dictionary indicates whether an Esperanto word comes from the Fundamento or is official. The CEED does keep some of the more recent neologisms in a ghetto in the back of the book, however. (I'd rather see the neologisms in the dictionary proper, but marked, and perhaps with a more common Esperanto word given as an alternative.)

I believe that any English-speaking Esperantist who already possessed the Wells dictionary would get some good use out of this more complete, but one way only dictionary.