Customer Reviews

The Oxford Starter Russian Dictionary (Oxford Starter Dictionaries)

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

 

 

This is an outstanding resource with a unique format for improved user friendliness as compared to conventional dictionaries. The word content is free from esoteric and technical entries, but still relatively comprehensive. It is an essential reference for the beginner. The more advanced readers will also find it a convenient ready-reference tool as well, allowing the large bookshelf type dictionary to be reserved for occasional use. Although the dictionary is larger than pocket size, the ease of use and selected word content also makes this a very good selection for use as a travel dictionary.

Word entries have a larger font size and are blue, while the dictionary text is black and a smaller font, and spacing between entries is generous. These features make it much easier and faster to find a particular entry. For the beginner, even the basic usage of a dictionary is not necessarily a trivial task when it comes to the Russian language! This dictionary can be used with confidence, because another unique feature is a set of exercises to ensure the reader is using the dictionary effectively and correctly.

The only shortcoming of this dictionary is the absence of phonetic interpretations of Russian words. A brief pronunciation guide is included with the description of the Cyrillic alphabet, and the stressed syllable for each word is also indicated. Entire pronunciations for each word entry would be a valuable addition, however, because of the complex rules governing the pronunciation of Russian words.

Overall, this is an excellent resource!

This is more than a dictionary. This book contains all of the answers to the common grammatical questions concerning usage, declension, aspect and conjugation for each Russian entry. The English section contains full pages for broader topics, like colours, names and how to express possesion. I highly recommend this dictionary for the first or second year student.

This dictionary has helped me get through the first few semester of Elementary Russian. It's not the usual scaled-down version of a larger dictionary because the editors kept in mind to include useful phrases that any beginning student of Russian would need to look up, and when you look up a word, it just doesn't give a list of ten possible translations, but it makes sure that you pick the one closest to your intended meaning.

I might recommend this dictionary to a British middle-school student who is just starting to learn Russian, with the caveat that the student will outgrow it within a few months. Students from any other English-speaking part of the world will be frustrated by the strong British focus. And adult users will simply find it a complete waste of time, as I did.

The introduction says that one design goal of this dictionary was to have it "refreshingly uncluttered". This apparently means "lots of white space on the page", which, combined with the small number of pages, means they had to severely limit the amount of content and leave out all but the words and meanings that the Oxford editors thought were most important. So they left out words like "introduction", "lack" "era", "irony", "transparent", "purple" (as well as "violet" and "lavender"). But they included things like "shoe shop", "badminton", "Welsh woman" and "tea towel" as separate listings.

For words with multiple meanings, we see additional problems. (No, "multiple" and "additional" aren't included in the dictionary.) For example, the English word "mum" is only translated as "mother". So a Russian user trying to translate the phrase "to keep mum" will be very confused. For the word "shade", they only include the meaning as in "in the shade", and leave out "shades of color" and "lamp shade".

In designing this dictionary, they tried to improve on traditional dictionary format, which is a laudable goal. (No, "improve", "format" and "laudable" aren't included in the dictionary.) But I find I disagree with almost all of their design decisions. First off, the word being defined is not only boldfaced, it is also a rather bright blue, which my eye finds very distracting. (No, "distracting" is not included in the dictionary.) They also separate the word and each of its definitions onto separate lines, but I find this causes my eyes to work harder to find the information it needs.

These observations come from trying to use this dictionary for one small project, and then perusing for a few minutes looking for a redeeming quality while I wrote this review. (No, "observation", "redeeming", and "review" aren't included in the dictionary, and "project" is only listed as a noun.) There are so many better Russian/English dictionaries out there, it's a shame to waste time and money with this one.