Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Baltic States Phrasebooks (Lonely Planet Phrasebook: India)

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Actually, I love all "Lonely Planet" phasebooks and travel guides. You can't go wrong with them. These are the road warriors in our collection. They are worn, used and helpful! I want to own stock in Lonely Planet!

So you ask, "isn't there a later edition available?" Don't let that stop you. They are using a winning format and when it comes to speaking at least Lithuanian, little has changed (Lithuanian is a really, really, really old language!)

The book is concise and compact (3.5 x 5 x 1/2). It easily fits in any pocket. That is a major selling point. It is the perfect size to take along.

It has an abreviated pronunciation guide compared the single language versions and no dictionary. That comes form having to divide the space between three languages, so it can't go as in depth. Still,all the essentials are here. If you are planning a few days in each place, you'll be fine.

By the way, when you go to the Baltics, look for a copy of the "In Your Pocket Series" available at the airport or in the major hotels. It will be a great help to you. You can also find it online through a simple web search.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone spending more than a week in the Baltics! Last year, I spent a semester in Lithuania, and this book made the transition much easier! From going to the pharmacy to buy flu medication, to trying to find out where the outdoor market was, to telling a doctor that I had hurt my knee -- this book was constantly by my side and helped me be very independent while in a foriegn country. I was also able to learn a lot of phrases that I wouldn't have in my Lithuanian class. My only complaint is that sometimes the phonetic guide was a bit confusing, but this rarely interfered with my communication (if it does, you can just show the phrase to the person you are trying to speak with).

Lonely Planet's BALTIC PHRASEBOOK covers the languages of the so-called Baltic republics, Estonian, Latvia, and Lithuanian.

In terms of phrases, all three chapters cover the same ground. General matters like asking directions and shopping are included, as are more specialised things like visiting the doctor. The menu decoders are very helpful. Oddly enough, when a phrase contains a different word-form depending on what gender is spoken of, the order is "feminine/masculine" instead of the "masculine/feminine" of most phrasebooks and dictionaries.

In their coverage of grammar, however, each chapter differs. That on Lithuanian includes a discussion of noun morphology, although it only shows four out of the language's seven cases. This may enable the traveller with some prior experience with inflected languages, such as Latin or Russian, to construct sentences not found in the book. However, the chapter on Latvian doesn't give any information like that.

The book contains some general tourist information and maps for the Baltic republics, which makes it larger than it might be and somewhat redundant, as many travellers will already have a specialized guidebook for the region.

This phrasebook may not be an essential purchase for someone spending only a few days in the region. Most young people in these three countries speak admirable English, and older shopkeepers can be addressed in Russian without problems (the guidebook line that shopkeepers here take offense at being addressed in Russian seems to be a myth).

This book made me plan my 2-weeks summer-vacation in Estonia.