Customer Reviews

Oxford Learner's Dictionary

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This dictionary is a students dream in learning the greek language. It contains the most accurate vocabulary of modern greek and it also includes words not found in other greek dictionaries. It has both the modern spoken greek and dialect and slang words used in Greece today. Being of Greek decent myself, this lexicon is by far the best dictionary of its kind, hands down. It's accuracy in definitions of the greek text is on the money and woiuld help any student of greek excel in conversational as well as grammatical context. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to master the Greek language.

Because of the phenomenon of diglossia in Modern Greek, there is probably no dictionary that will be entirely satisfactory for all uses. I bought the Oxford Greek-English Learner's Dictionary to supplement other dictionaries I have in a project to translate some material published by a monastery on Mount Athos. The Learner's Dictionary is nicely priced at only $19.95 and is a huge help with Modern Greek idioms, but it favors the demotic over the katharevousa form of the language to such an extent that it is less useful than some older dictionaries for use in reading older or more conservative texts, because it omits quite a few words or forms of words that are still in general use. If you are going to buy only one Modern Greek-English dictionary for general use, this will probably do the job, but if you buy more than one and balance the Learner's Dictionary with a more conservative dictionary (or dictionaries), you will probably do even better.

Please note that this book is clearly titled as being a Greek-English dictionary, which means that you'll only find Greek words translated into English. This allows more Greek words to be listed. If you want a dictionary that works both ways, then you'll need to obtain a Greek-English/English-Greek dictionary, also referred to sometimes as English-Greek-English. There are also English-Greek dictionaries, which only translate English words into Greek...Well, you get the idea.

This particular resource is exactly what it says it is, and it's one of the best. I'm actually purchasing a second copy for a friend.

I am reading thru Kazantzakis's Freedom or Death (Captain Michalis in Greek) and my small Oxford lexicon by Pring lacks a number of words in Kazantzakis's novel. So I bought Stavropoulos's Oxford Greek English Learner's Dictionary to help me out. I am finding that Stavropoulos's dictionary contains many of Kazantzakis's words that are not in Pring's lexicon, but, unfortunately, Stavropoulos also does not include a number of other words Kazantzakis uses in this novel. This is somewhat disappointing since Kazantzakis is a well-known Greek author and one would anticipate that his words would be in a Modern Greek lexicon.

This said, I have found Stavropoulos's lexicon invaluable in most occasions in which I am reading Modern Greek. Although I wish he was more up to date w/ Kazantzakis, I recommend this lexicon for those who need good explanations of Modern Greek word usage.

Finally, Stavropoulos includes parsing and declension tables at the end of his lexicon, and these are very useful for determining the various forms of Greek nouns and verbs. In fact, each entry in his lexicon includes a number that refers to the relevant parsing/declension table. This is a great help for readers of Modern Greek.

Monumental arbeit!I congratulate Oxford and Mr.Stavropoulus for their work.Almost every Greek word has sample sentences explaining the meaning and the context that I find helpful to build up and boost the language ability.I also extend my gratitude to Amazon.com for timely arrival and the latest edition of the dictionary.

If you could pick out the appropriate lexical item out of an out-of-context list offered next to a dictionary entry you wouldn't be learning the language, you'd be speaking it! Stavropoulos was well aware of that...

Stavropoulos' dictionaries are the best available for modern demotic Greek, and the product of a truly intimate knowledge of both Greek and English. It is a great shame, therefore, that Oxford University Press has produced the English-Greek volume in a significantly smaller size than its Greek-English companion, which is far more comfortable to use. The result is that the English-Greek edition, hard-bound and at about 900 pages thick, is bulky and awkward to handle, and simply does not stand on the bookshelf as a companion to the Greek-English edition. I sincerely hope, however, that OUP do not seek to rectify the situation by making the Greek-English as uncomfortably small in size as its English-Greek companion.

It may well be a good book -- but it wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted a book that would work both ways (looking up English to Greek primarily, and also going from Greek to English). This is Greek to English ONLY. So if you don't know much Greek... this book is essentially useless to you.