The Oxford Russian Dictionary [Hardcover]

Boris Unbegaun (Author), Paul Falla (Author), Marcus Wheeler (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198601530 | ISBN-13: 978-0198601531 | Publication Date: April 23, 1998 | Edition: Revised

The first truly comprehensive, English-Russian/Russian-English to be published in either Russia or the West, The Oxford Russian Dictionary has become the standard reference work for students of Russian as well as for Russian speakers living in the United States. For the revised edition, the editors have added many up-to-date and improved translations to provide even more accurate and idiomatic coverage of contemporary Russian and English.
As in the original, the revised edition offers a comprehensive look at both languages, with over 180,000 words and phrases and 290,000 translations, including such new words as "mobile phone," "genetic fingerprinting," and "biodegradable." The dictionary provides exceptional coverage of regional Russian, British, and American dialects as well as of modern idioms and colloquial usage, with numerous illustrative examples. It also includes all common abbreviations and acronyms, such as DTP, ROM, AIDS, and others; helpful advice on difficult points of grammar; and pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet for every English headword, an indispensable aid for Russian speakers.
Unsurpassed in convenience and in comprehensive, reliable coverage, the new edition of The Oxford Russian Dictionary remains the most authoritative reference on the market.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`a wonderful tool' L.K.Miller, Choice, February 2001

`a wonderful tool' L.K.Miller, Choice --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English, Russian

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1358 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Revised edition (April 23, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198601530
• ISBN-13: 978-0198601531
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.7 x 2.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,754,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT Reference !!!!, May 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Oxford Russian Dictionary (Hardcover)

I had used three other Russian/English dictionarys but this has it all. It even has some 4 letter words you might find offensive. My wife is Russian and our communication has improved because of this fantastic dictionary. The meanings of words have been well researched and are translated exactly. I would recommend this reference for anyone learning Russian or for the Russian needing an English word equivilant.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helping you decide if this is the best for you., June 13, 2005

By 

Alex (Cyprus) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oxford Russian Dictionary (Hardcover)

I would like to clarify some points mentioned below by other reviewers. First of all it is true that the Russian pronunciation is not given, but neither is it given in any other English-Russian dictionary that I know of, or, for that matter, in any Russian dictionary. This is because in Russian each sound is pronounced like it is written. So basically you have to learn the Russian alphabet. So this is not for real beginners. One can't blame the dictionary for this because it was created as an aid, not a teaching course. Still there are some grammatical rules you'll have to learn if you want to pronounce the Russian words correctly, not too difficult rules in my opinion. Basically it all comes down to the accent (very simple stuff). I will resist giving you examples and instead I will give you the websites where you can learn for yourself. If one wants to learn Russian from scratch (or almost from scratch) I recommend that he visits these two websites. They are free and they should be useful if the person wants to know if he really wants to pursue learning Russian before spending money on books, it will help him decide whether he is sure that he is serious about this.

To recite the Russian alphabet: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/7635/alphabet.html

Russian grammar and to learn how the letters of the Russian alphabet are pronounced in context:
http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/index.html

After studying the above websites I would recommend, for the beginner, to buy books like "Russian Course, The New Penguin : A Complete Course for Beginners", or "Russian Stories (Russkie Rasskazy): A Dual-Language Book" if he is more advanced.

Like with any language the real difficulty is memorizing and learning the actual words, not the grammar.
But a person can spend his entire life as a native English-speaker and still find some words that are outside of frequent usage that he doesn't know how to pronounce; this will never happen with languages like Russian or Greek. Thus the grammar is a bit more difficult to learn in those languages but it serves you for life.

I agree that this dictionary is insufficient if you're reading heavy literature. But if you know enough Russian to read Dostoyevsky then you should know enough Russian to be able to visit an online Russian bookstore (like http://www.ozon.ru/ or http://www.bolero.ru/index.html or http://www.kniga.com/books/default.asp?) and find a good multi-volume Russian dictionary for yourself.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best russian english dictionary, May 20, 2006

By 

Reed Kotler (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Oxford Russian Dictionary (Hardcover)

I have many Russian English dictionaries, including some you can only get in Russia and some written entirely in Russian and this is by far the most complete and helpful dictionary I have. I use it almost exclusively.

I must confess though that I don't use the English-> Russian part very often. I'm usually translating from Russian. I usally learn new words from movies and books and am not looking up so many words just from English. In correspondence I use it and it always has what I need.

You can look up some of the most clever dialogue in films with this dictionary.

Of course, a dictionary is not a grammar book and there are stylistic things about Russian that create ennumerable combinations of useage that a dictionary cannot address.

There are some complaints I have but they are not addressed by any other dictionaries I have seen. For example, the ppp is troublesome because it's hard get the stress right and they try to put all the most common ones in there but they miss them sometimes but so do all the other dictionaries. In that case you have to guess from grammar rules or consult the real dictionaries for such that are written totally in Russian.

The only places it fails me are in situations where you need to go to a Russian dictionary that is written entirely in Russian. There are a few classics used there. It would not be possible in general to create such a dictionary for English speakers because the assumptions about language familiarity and grammar could not be met by any but fairly advanced users and in that case, why not just use the actual dictionary Russian speakers use?

If you want to buy one dictionary, get this one. Don't get the concise version though, spend the money and get the full version. It's worth it!