Customer Reviews

Welsh/English-English/Welsh Dictionary (Hippocrene Standard Dictionary)

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Having worn my copy of this dictionary out I chose to buy in its place Y Geriadur Mawr. I soon regretted my choice, however, as the Geriadur does not have many of the more recently coined Welsh words. I recommend this dictionary highly to all Welsh learners

When I initially bought this dictionary I was very pleased in purchasing it; I was particularly delighted over the number of entries in the dictionary. After a while, I did notice some shortcomings in it. Despite its good number of entries, the dictionary does not explain the usage of multiple word entries and the difference between them. I recommend the use of Gareth King's Modern Welsh Dictionary (which has fewer entries, but functions also as a reference grammar), which is more suitable for beginners. It is a good dictionary, but it is simply that: a dictionary and nothing more. It seems to me to be more suited for more advanced students.

This dictionary is identical to _Y Geiriadur Cyfoes_, published in Wales in 1992. Its editor is H. Meurig Evans, M.A., not "M.A. Evans H. Meurig," as Amazon has it. check the author listing to see other editions, but don't click on the name as it's given on this Web page! As is evident from the sample pages, there are a lot of entries, but individual entries are very short. An early-stage learner should consider Gareth King's _Pocket Modern Welsh Dictionary_, which has a much shorter entry list but a great deal more information per entry. Price is comparable.

I found this dictionary at my local library a few months ago and I liked it so much, that I decided to actually go out and buy it because I got tired of making trips to the library to check it out again. Any serious language learner will tell you that a good dictionary is worth its weight in gold, and this one is a very good dictionary.

All dictionaries are for the most part the same, however, this one has a few advantages that I found to be very helful for me. The first thing that I noticed was that this dictionary came out in the early to mid 1990's so it has a very modern vocabulary. Not only is the vocabulary modern, but this dictionary has a very large number of entries that cover just about everything. However, for myself as a new learner of Welsh...the key feature I enjoy with this dictionary is that a person is not bombarded with multiple suggestions that leave the new learner questioning the correct word. Most entries have only one suggestion, or two suggestions if there are two or more commonly used words or dialect differences. Which was great for me because I didn't have the ability to ask a more fluent Welsh speaker which word should I choose...

There is a little grammar in this book, but you have to remember that this is a dictionary and not a grammar book. Also, like the review above said, there is not phonetic pronunciation given for each word, however, Welsh is a near phonetic language, so what you see is how it's said. If you are really a serious learner of Welsh, you will probably have covered basic pronunciation already :-)