Customer Reviews

Esperanto-English, English-Esperanto Dictionary and Phrasebook (Dictionary & Phrasebook)

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

 

 

FWIW, the book is divided up like this: 2-page Alphabet and Pronunciation guide -- 11-page Overview of Esperanto Grammar -- 47-page Esperanto-English dictionary -- 47-page English-Esperanto dictionary -- 107-page Phrasebook -- 5 pages of other sources of information, including pertinent WWW addresses. The dictionaries are quite useable, if not extensive. Where the book really shines is the Phrasebook, where Conroy sets out lists of words and short phrases, grouped by category. This is a great source of sample sentences and natural ways to say common things. A handful of the categories are: Weather, People and Places, Sayings and Proverbs, Days, Months and Holidays, Abbreviations, and The Internet. It's nice having words grouped together like this, and I haven't seen it in other Esperanto dictionaries.

Let's be clear, you won't really learn esperanto using only this book. It is too limited as to it's scope. However as a simple phrasebook and dictionary for the occasional esperanto user, it does quite well. It's a great little book to carry around (unless you have room to carry a full dictionary or a complete language workbook) in your purse or briefcase.

As a small travel book for travelers who "may" use esperanto in their tavels, this does the job quite nicely.

The phrasebook is decent. It's got some decent sections, that would work well as a vocabulary builder.

But, for a dictionary it's not good at all. The words are poorly chosen, and the definitions are limited. I'd recommend it for a beginner, but a serious student will want a more complete dictionary.

As a teacher of Esperanto, I found this book to be more the work of the author's imaginatin rather than an accurate portayal of how Esperanto is used. I can spot people who speak Esperanto after learning this book and they generally need some remediation, and as far as authoritativeness, this book has little credibility. To get a better picture you have to go out and use Esperanto in chat rooms and at meetings.

This is a convenient little book for the individual who may occasionally use Esperanto but doesn't want to learn it in depth. The grammatical overview seems to be quite good, though the section on affixes could use some examples. I can also recommend the phrasebook section. The dictionary, however, should not be used without having at hand a more authoritative dictionary against which to check it. I particularly enjoyed the author's comment about the need to determine the transitivity or intransitivity of Esperanto verbs (p. 7), coupled with the fact that the dictionary does not provide this information either implicitly or explicitly; see e.g. "komenci" on p. 36 or its equivalent "to begin" on p. 66.

For who is learning Esperanto and is already reading another book, this is a good complement, to be kept at your hands when you have some doubts, or you need to learn more way of saying.

As others have said, this book really isn't a useful dictionary. However, as a phrase book, and quick language reference, it's great. If you plan on buying this, I highly recommend getting an actual translation dictionary to go with it. Still, the sample telephone answering machine recording is on my voice mail....

Tiel alioj diris, cxi tio libro ne-estas vere vortaro utila. Ankoraux, tiel fraz-libro, kaj tiel referenco rapida lingva, gxi estas belega. Se vi planus acxeti cxi tion, mi rekomendegas ankaux acxeti vortaron efektivan tradukan. Ankoraux, la provajxa telefona mesagxo estas uzata je mia vocx-posxto.

I bought this several years ago from a bookstore which ordered it for me. Had I known that the dictionary is sparse in content I would have passed it by. If you are looking for an excellent Esperanto-English dictionary search for Concise Esperanto Dictionary.

The phrase book portion of the book is hardly worth reading. There are a few gems but nothing that one couldn't learn elsewhere.

Esperanto is a fun language to learn and this book does it no justice.

Do you want good dictionaries? I started out with John Wells and Butler and was pleased with both. Butler is a gem, a classic, as is his grammar. Benson's English-Esperanto for Americans is a breakthrough of sorts and is appropriate to the locutions of English speakers, but still needs a little work to make a really good second edition. Errors have crept in here and there, and the Esperanto translation given is not always the most popular or the most elegant. You may want to contact the Esperanto League for North America... Bonshancon!

This is more of a phrase book than a dictionary. If there were a country where Esperanto is an official language, it would be very useful for tourists. We learn how to meet and greet people, how to order food and drink in restaurants, discuss the weather, etc.

As there isn't such a country, I'm not sure who the book is aimed at. It's certainly not for people who want to read Esperanto literature.

Maybe it's for members of Esperanto societies who meet and talk in Esperanto? If so, it's a small book, not expensive and worth buying. But it's not for a wide audience.