Customer Reviews

Finnish-English, English-Finnish Dictionary (Hippocrene Concise Dictionary)

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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although this book has a good number of Finnish words and is not unuseful if it's the only option you can find, it's greatest value for me is its entertainment value. Along with amusing misprints that will have you wondering what the word "lizarp" means in either language, the lack of specificity about word meanings in both sections causes the reader to constantly flip back and forth to try to construct an educated guess about which word he or she is looking for when under "knot" it gives only a list of five finnish nouns and one verb with no further explanation (other than the differentiation between commas and semicolons). This dictionary's egregiousness (and perhaps it's humorous uses as well) are most obvious when one tries to use it in communicating with native Finnish speakers, as I did in my first year class last year (this was the dictionary which they made available). With alarming frequency my teacher had no idea what I was trying to say and when I explained, she had to correct the dictionary on many occasions. So I wouldn't really recommend the purchase of this book unless you're looking for a few laughs and bad finnish.

This dictionary, though hand sized, contains a surprisingly large number of words plus gramatical forms (which are very helpful to those learning a language), tough it does not contain lessions in grammar per se. Its cross referencing is excellent.

Hippocrene has published a large number of cheap editions of bilingual dictionaries. They are cheap to produce but this one takes the cake. Sure, it has 6000 entries but at the same time it will completely frustrate the beginning language learner. Why? The editors have completely misunderstood the agglutinive nature of the language. Instead of listing a header with various combinations derived therefrom, they insist that all words are basically incapable of being linked together. Earlier versions of Finnish-English dictionaries by W. Soy in Finland are worth looking into.

By the way, I highly recommend "the little yellow dictionaries by gummerus" Finnish dictionary as it is excellent, contains many useful phrases as well as useful words and though it is enormous in content (60,000 entries compared to the Hippocrene Consise's 6000) it is no larger in physical size. It is meant more for Finns trying to use English, but I have found it more than servicable for English speakers trying to use finnish. Indispensable, in fact. (This was the dictionary provided by my class THIS year. A great improvement.)

If someone asks you for a cookie, you're going to think they want a boat hook...

If someone happens to give you this dictionary for free, your best bet is to use it for starting fires. Buy a Gummerus.

This dictionary is great as reference, especially when learning finnish.
No complaints except that the font is TINY.