Customer Reviews

The Concise Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Let me start off by saying that I used this dictionary for three years as a university student studying Arabic. It was the only English to Arabic dictionary that I could find. It was helpful, but there were many things that I did not like. Let me tell you of my experience using this book.

THE GOOD: 1) It is small and lightweight. This was invaluable for walking around campus, especially when it was only one of the ten books that I had to carry around! 2) It is a hardback book. This was quite nice because when it was one of many books that were constantly being loaded and unloaded from my backpack (not to mention the frequent usage) it was the only one that lasted for three years and still ended up in good shape.

THE BAD: 1) It is too concise. I have the 1982 edition (which I purchased in 1996), and the beginning of the book contains absolutely no information about entries, abbreviations or anything else. The concise nature of this dictionary also makes the Arabic script rather small, cramped and hard to read. 2) It is only English to Arabic. This means that you have to buy another dictionary if you need to have Arabic to English translations. 3) Sometimes there are multiple Arabic words for one English entry. No help is offered about which one would apply to a given situation. I found myself using the first word only, and then asking native speakers or my teacher if that was the right word. 4) There are no appendices. No tables, no charts, no help.

I had to have this dictionary. It proved useful at times, yet it also proved very frustrating. Hopefully Oxford takes (or has taken) the time to update and improve this dictionary. Until then - good luck.

This is most likely the best English to Arabic dictionary on the market for native ENGLISH speakers. Most E-A dictionaries are made for native Arabic speakers, and assume you know what the Arabic that your reading is. This is more English-speaker friendly. Only downside of the book is that it is only in hardback, which makes it difficult to pull out of your pocket and flip through quickly. Highly recommend over most E-A dictionaries, unless you are a native ARABIC speaker.

i'm very sorry i bought this book. It may be concise, and it may be cheaper, but one shouldn't sacrifice spelling for saving a few dollars! The concise edition drops the dots off many of the letters, thus either misspelling the word or creating letters that don't exist. i borrowed the full-sized edition and found it to be fine. Don't waste your money and your sanity on this version!

I ordered this dictionary twice, and both times it came with severe printing defects (dots missing on many Arabic letters, making everything unreadable). I finally returned it and am contemplating what other dictionary to buy. Content-wise, it also didn't look so impressive, there were a lot of words you would think it should have that weren't in there.

This is a terrible dictionary. Many of the words are spelled incorrectly and many of the definitions, while technically correct, are absolutely nonsensical.

I purchased this book based on the mostly glowing reviews from other reviewers and I am very disappointed. The Arabic fonts used are SO small that, at times, it is actually quite difficult to make out the letters. Definitely, NOT a book for people who are new to the language.

This is a good starting point. It is widely available and affordable. It is obviously based on British-English. So, it will probably take some getting used to by those not accustomed to British phrases and spelling. You must have some idea as to which word in Arabic you are aiming for prior to deciding amongst the given choices. A few words were found to be incorrect. Since this book is limited in word volume you will certainly end up having to search for some words via a second source at some time. I do beleive that this is the way to go for beginners and those looking for a bargain.

Good dictionary. I had an Egyptian friend look it over and she said it was excellent. The type is very small.

as arabic dictionaries go, this is not bad. (compared to the standards of english-european language dictionaries, it's terrible. unfortunately no english-arabic or arabic-english dictionaries measure up to these standards.) the presence of plurals/imperfect verbs/etc. in the arabic is very nice as it saves having to look them up in your hans wehr, but at the same time it takes away space, and this dictionary, despite its bulkiness, is not nearly complete enough. you will get frustrated trying to find translations of abstract nouns and verbs, phrasal verbs, etc, as many of them are simply missing, or translations for only some senses are present. what's worse, there are no glosses to separate out the senses, and even worse than this, the translations given are often not correct in terms of providing the most-used term first, despite the title's claim of covering "current usage".

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I have made it encumbant upon myself to learn arabic and I have read many dictionaries on the market. Thereby I can say that this is simply the best, because not only does it give the past and present verb forms, but it also gives the plural of nouns! One can never hope to learn arabic without this book, thats just a fact.