Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Europe Phrasebook

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

 

 

This book has several advantages over other phrasebooks:
* Its got most of Europe (except Eastern) covered, including Irish!
* It is small - about the size of two decks of cards.
* It has the english phrase, the phrase in the translated language and then in blue how you actually pronounce the phrase. The pronunciations are spot on - the best thing about this book.
* It has phrases on absolutely everything - I even got to use my Greek phrase for "I would not like it extracted please" when I spoke to a greek student at the Oktoberfest who was studying dentistry. Everything's covered: getting on buses, going to the laundromat, getting directions, etc. About 20 pages on each language with everything that you will need to get by for a while.
* It's cheap and all in one book.
* A must have for anybody going to Europe who doesn't speak all their languages - I think that's everyone.

If you plan to travel all over Europe, this book may get you through and save the time and trouble of carrying a different phrasebook for each country. It is small, just slightly larger than the average palm and full of basic phrases.
It doesn't cover every language but DOES include Basque, Catalan, Welsh, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, Dutch, French, German and a wealth of others.
WHat I especially liked:
1. The tips on how to break the ice in each country and join in conversations
2.Menu decoders and suggestions for each country
3.Essential words to get you through transportation checkpoints and on your way
4. Some of the basic sports and festivals in each country.
5. Written FOR the traveler with a strong emphasis on the most essential situations when a phrasebook might be needed.

This book is a useful guidebook to many languages of Europe, however some of the omissions are a bit strange; It includes Catalan and Basque but not Eastern European, or Scandinavian languages. It's convenience lies in being able to look up the same phrases for different languages.
I suspect it covers a lot of material from other Lonely Planet Phrasebooks, such as the Spanish one, just not as comprehensively.

I love this book. It's taken me from Ireland to France, Belgium, England, Wales, the Neathelands and countries in-between. It's tiny and is filled with helpful phrases in an easy-to-read format. Also, it's very durable. I love all Lonely Planet books!

Helpful tip: I always cover my phrasebooks with a plain cover to avoid standing out as a tourist.

An excellent quick reference for all your travel language necessities in Europe. And it's a handy little size too.

After I ordered and received this book, I discovered that it was different from the one that was discussed in reviews that I had read. It turns out that the reviews that I got most of my information from were apparently for a different European phrasebook (or maybe another edition of this one), also by Lonely Planet (I think), which includes several languages not in this one. (For some reason, reviews are applied to both books at the Amazon site.) This book includes Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. It does NOT have Basque, Catalan, Dutch, Irish, Maltese, Welsh, or another language or two that I might have seen mentioned. It is pretty informative, but I believe the other book has more info in it. While I can't help feeling kind of disappointed, I still think this is a pretty neat, pretty handy little book. 15 languages is still impressive. I really appreciate the pronunciation guides. I just wish I had ordered a copy of the other book, like I thought I had. Oh well. Maybe I'll get one later; I'll just have to continue enjoying this one in the meantime. I should have taken a closer look at this book's cover and the product description before I ordered it, so I do have to place most of the blame for my disappointment on myself.

Good buy. Will use in on my upcoming European cruise. It would be a good guide for me and my family. I can blend in with the locals.

besides this, this phrasebook had things you don't really need (like how to say the seasons) and didn't have stuff that you really do need (is this the right train/bus/road/direction to __?) they have "do you speak english?" but that's stupid b/c if they do speak english you can ask in english and they'd understand. rather, they should have put sthg like "i (only) speak english." or "i don't speak french/italian/german/etc" but they didn't.
i went to french, italian and german-speaking countries and you don't need a phrasebook there. the people you come into contact with while touring are going to be mostly people in the tourist industry and they'll speak english. it seemed that almost everyone in the german-speaking areas knew english, since it's easy for them to learn.

it is great to see the smaller langauges of Europe in this guide!!

WE DO EXIST REMEMBER!!

Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Basque and Catalan take their positions as European languages of note!

All BRITISH and SPANISH people should know some words in THEIR lesser used languages! Otherwise they are not really British/Spanish!!!