Customer Reviews

Romanov's Russian / English Dictionary

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

 

 

I work for the US Peace Corps and speak fluent Russian. Many other volunteers have other dictionaries which don't compare. My Russian friends have been floored at some of the words which are included. I am reading Bulgakov in the original Russian and rarely have trouble finding a word. Because of the intelligent system used,(which you must spend time learning in order to get good use of the dictionary) much more information is in there than meets the eye even in the first year of use. It includes excellent stress pattern systems (rarely wrong) and great grammar references. A must for a student.

I bought Romanov's Dictionary because of many possitive comments has been posted in amazon.com about this Dicitonary, there's no avialable in bookstore in my area , I had to make special order. After I openned it and found disappointment, it has the blurry typeface and fonts that makes all the Cyrillic letters very hard to distinguish. For the same price I would recommend Collins Gem Russian Dictionary; ISBN: 0007143044 instead.

This is a great all-around pocket dictionary for Russian and English. With its 35,000 entries, I found it adequate for most of my daily needs in Russian, although I occasionally needed something a little more specialized when reading heavy literature texts. Full pronunciation information is given for the English entries; Russian entries are marked for stress only. Additional features include a reference chart of the Russian alphabet, a short article on Russian pronunciation, lists of Russian, American, and British abbreviations, and a quick reference list of numbers, weights, and measures.

Most paperback pocketbook sized foreign language dictionaries contain only root words and words that the author feels are "common", which means about half of the words one is looking for.

In contrast, Romanov's Russian English English Russian Dictionary is highly comprehensive, AND, for persons with even a simple understanding of Russian grammar, the grammar appendix is good enough to serve as a stand alone text for conjugation and declision.

A must have for the serious student, and an excellent buy for the curious beginner or tourist.

This is the 2d dictionary I bought for friends who study Russian. It's very compact and useful. The item received as described and package was secured. We are very satisfied. Thanks.

This book has been around since I began studying Russian in college 23 years ago and it is as good today as it was the first time I picked it up. I have since collected numerous Russian-language dictionaries from both here and abroad, yet for usefulness and convenience, this little dictionary cannot be beat.

I have not bought or seen the book, but only stumbled upon the item on the website. What drew my attention to it was the author's name as given in the ad: "Pomahova".

The imbecile who wrote this looked at the dust cover, where the name "Romanova" is printed in Cyrillic characters that fortuitously resemble Latin characters: "POMAHOBA", and pretended that they were already Latin letters, thus "Pomahoba".

The mind simply boggles. Keep up the good work, Amazon. And for lunch today, go out to a good neighborhood PECTOPAH to celebrate.

An inexpensive dictionary alternative, Romanov's Dictionary has proved to be extremely unreliable in my experience. For newcomers to the Russian language, the blurry typeface make all the new Cyrillic letters hard to distinguish. Also, I personally have been informed by my native speaking Russian professor, many of the words I have sought in Romanov's have been incorrect.

It's a dictionary that uses low-quality paper and inexpensive ink and fills all the space it possibly can so you can get the most for your money. It contains translations from Russian to English and from English to Russian. It contains some basic conjugation information, and alphabet pronunciation information. It also contains print symbols and what they represent in English and Russian, as well as US and World place names in English and Russian.

The print is small, and the newsprint does make the text a bit less crisp than most books, but even less than robust vision shouldn't impede deciphering the letters in Russian or English.

I 'd be lying if I said you can read this without knowing the Russian alphabet very well. You must become familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet before you read this book, or you may have some difficulty reading and pronouncing the words. They certainly could have spared some extra paper on Cyrillic pronunciations, as while Russian is mainly phonetic, where to stress pronunciation is important - especially when there is an "o" in the word.

It advertised itself as a useful dictionary anyone can afford back in the 70s when it was first printed. And for no more than $5, you get a good deal. Unfortunately, it is not much of a competitor when there are better dictionaries at similar prices on the Internet.

3/5 for utility compared to cost, and missing/inferior features.

I agree with A Reader who complains about the blurry text. Here the publishers put tiny ( 6 point ?) type on newsprint paper. Sure, it saves money for the publisher, but the product is very hard to read. For example, the print is so bad that four Russian characters, the Russian for "N" (looks like English "H"), long "E" (looks like backwards English "N") and "K" and Russian letter for "L", are all virtually indistinquishable from each other! Why no quality control in the printing operation? Why no pride of workmanship? If you're going to use cheap paper you need bigger print to keep it legible! Everyone knows that!

Also, like so many other Russian-English dictionaries, there is no pronounciation for the Russian words, just for the English words. Here's a book published in America, obstensibly for English speaking people, and yet they waste space giving the pronounciation for simple, everyday English words. What's with that? I can already get that from just about ANY straight English-English dictionary....wny can't I find a dictionary with pronounciations for the Russian words??

And please don't waste your breath saying that "Russian is perfectly phonetic" or some other balderdash! There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet, compared to only 26 in English so, logically, there are some Russian letters which have no exact English equivalent. Duh! And so the only way to learn from a book how those sounds are pronounced is to read what those letters sound like when combined within words.

Furthermore, there's no such thing as a "perfectly" phonetic language. _Every_ language has words with "irregular" or non-phonetic pronounciation. In fact, Russian has PLENTY of words that are not phonetic because the consonants are "swallowed" or run together or where a "D" sound is pronounced more like a "T" sound, Or where it is impossible to determine the level of stress on a particular vowel. Ecetera!

Finally, an expert in the language wouldn't need or want a dictionary, ok? Dictionaries, by their very nature, are REFERENCES!! They are for people who need to look up certain information!! If the book reference doesn't provide the potential book buyer with the necessary information he/she seeks (like how to pronounce a certain word), then the book is inadequate, at least for him/her, and he/she shouldn't waste their money buying it. Got it?

And don't say putting in Russian pronounciation would take up too much space, either. If the publishers wanted to save space they could take out the pronunciation for the English words and then they'd have plenty of room to give pronounciation for the Russian words instead.

In summary, instead of being a cheap dictionary, the bad print, cheap paper and lack of Russian phonetics makes it more like expensive bird cage liner material.