Oxford Pocket Irish Dictionary (Paperback)

by Breandan O Croinin (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review
`Excellent value and recommended' Sally Richardson and David Granville Irish Democrat Dec 2000/January 2001

`indispensable Irish dictionary' Writers News July 2000

Product Description
The Oxford Pocket Irish Dictionary is the essential reference for anyone writing, studying, or speaking Irish as it is used today. The comprehensive grammar section provides clear guidance, and there are easy-to-read verb tables for all regular and irregular verbs. Also, frequently used words that can be difficult to master are given a special layout and usage notes to help you use them correctly. With over 100,000 phrases and translations, as well as pronunciation of the three main regional systems--Ulster, Connacht, and Munster--shown at every entry, this is the ideal reference for student, traveller, and the general user.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198602545
• ISBN-13: 978-0198602545
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #739,582 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #15 in	Books > Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Celtic
  #19 in	Books > Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Irish
  #33 in	Books > Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Gaelic

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good Irish/English dictionary, March 20, 2002

By	Joe Murphy (Chicago, USA) - See all my reviews

As a learner of Irish I have purchased several Irish-English dictionaries. I was very pleased with my purchase of the Oxford Irish Pocket Irish Dictionary (which is a bit bigger than the Oxford Irish Minidictionary, and requires a fairly big pocket). This dictionary includes much more help for beginning learners of Irish going into a lot of detail about common multipurpose Irish words. It also includes entries for many irregular verbs in several tenses. These entries merely point you back to the main entry for the verb, but this is of great help when you don't recognize the main verb from the tense you are looking up. The complaint that it doesn't have pronunciation for the headwords is a fair one. I wrote the editors, and they told me that they had hoped to include it, but didn't get it into this edition. Pronunciation for Irish headwords can be found in two other Irish/English dictionaries: Foclóir Póca Gaeilge/Béarla and the larger version of it called Foclóir Scoile (which has larger print and more words than Foclóir Póca) both published by An Gúm the publishing arm of the Irish Government's Education Ministry. I would highly recommend this book to anyone serious about learning the Irish language in spite of the lack of pronunciation for headwords.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you're learning Gaelic, you'll need this., June 2, 2001

By	Callie "chroi" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

The Oxford Irsih pocket dictionary is one of the best sources for learning Gaelic. Not only does it provide a very wide range of Irish vocabulary, it explains pronounciation and grammer, such as past and present tense, plurals, verbs, nouns, and independents and dependents. It is a very good companion for learning Irish courses, and I found it to be especially helpful with the Michael O'Siadhaill Learning Irish Course. In fact, this dictionary provides more information and references than any on-line course I've every seen. It's probably one of the best Oxford has to offer because it has more helpful information about the Irish language than the Oxford Spanish dictionary has about the Spanish language, as I have also been learning Spanish. So anyone learning the Irish language will find it much easier with this minidictionary.

In response to these negative reviews, this dictionary does have pronounciation tips. It does not have as much information as pronouncing as language courses do, but remember that the purpose of learning language dictionaries is NOT to teach you the entire language, but to accompany the language course. Look in the beginning of the book and see the pronounciation guide, but also take a course, like the Michael O'Siadhiall Learning Irish Course.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful & Affordable, August 25, 2000

By	Amy Keene "filleirlandaise" (Springfield, MO United States) - See all my reviews

I have found it rather difficult to find a basic Irish Gaelic dictionary at a reasonable price, and I'm quite impressed with this one. The grammar section is quite nice, and the dictionary contains a great many words I didn't even know existed in Gaelic. It's very helpful for translating Irish poetry, which is the main reason I purchased it.