Customer Reviews

Dutch-English/English-Dutch Standard Dictionary (Hippocrene Standard Dictionary) (Dutch Edition)

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

 

 

Rijckaert, Arseen,Hippocrene Standard Dictionary: Dutch: New York, NY, Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1997 (Originally published as Nederlands-Engels/Engels-Nederlands Zakwoordenboek, Antwerpen, Standaard Uitgeverij (c) 1979, 1993.)

I give this dictionary a 1 rather than a 2. First, it is not up-to-date. The publication date by Hippocrene books is 1997, which would make you think it is reasonably contemporary. It turns out that this is a reprint of a Belgian publication, copyright 1979, 1993, the 1993 being obviously merely a copyright renewal. Effectively, nothing in this dictionary could be after the 1970s. This means that locutions that have come into use since that time, such as ''diss``, or ''loonytunes``, or ''internet``, do not appear in this book. Second, it is incomplete. Even expressions that became common in the 1950s, such as ''far out`` , or ''disco`` and ''discotheque`` , are not there. There is NOTHING about computers, not even the word ''computer``. Forget about ''byte`` or ''database``. ''Data`` appears in the Dutch-English section, but not in the English-Dutch section. The same is true of Dutch words. There are words that would have been considered vulgar when I was a young man, but that are now in such common use that they appear without comment in The Netherlands' most prestigious newspaper, NRC Handelsblad. These are words like ''oudehoeren`` as in the expression, ''Zij stonden te oudehoeren (They were standing around shooting the breeze)``, or ''belazerd``, as in ''Ben je belazerd? (What! Are you crazy?)``.

I quote Dr. Johnson: ''Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.`` He was talking about 18th Century watches, of course, not the quartz crystal wonders of today. By that standard, this dictionary is of the worst-is-better-than-none type, something like a cheap children's watch made by slave labor in China, that stops working a week after you buy it.

Very difficult to read the type, especially the Dutch section. Seems to be geared toward Dutch speakers wanting to translate into English. Pronunciation is only given for English words. Comprehensive and reasonably priced, but I'll be looking for a different dictionary.

This is a really great dictionary at a great price! Not sure why it's so much less expensive than the others, it's quite comprehensive and user-friendly!

When you're selecting a translation dictionary you want one that has a large vocabulary. This one seems to, but disappoints big time since it doesn't have many, many commonly-used verb- and noun-forms.