Random House Latin-American Spanish Dictionary (Hardcover)

by David L. Gold (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
With over 20 national dialects of Spanish and more than 300 million native speakers, there exists a real need for a truly comprehensive Latin-American Spanish dictionary. Random House meets that need with this comprehensive bilingual dictionary, designed for speakers and students of Latin-American Spanish more than 600,000 entries cover words and meanings unique to countries in South and Central America and the West Indies. 656 pp. Targeted ads & publicity. 15,000 print.

Language Notes
Text: English, Spanish

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 626 pages
• Publisher: Random House Reference (January 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067945294X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679452942
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,308,877 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Incomplete, September 26, 2000

By	G. Fortmann (Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Random House Latin-American Spanish Dictionary (Hardcover)

I don't think there is really any reason to buy this dictionary. As a "regular" English-Spanish dictionary it is very incomplete, it is simply a list of words (in Spanish for the first half and (naturally) English in the second) with some counterparts in the other language; no indication of use, no indication on whether the word is a verb, noun, adjective, adverb... and for some words additional meanings are simply neglected. I bought it because I thought it was a dictionary of "Latin-American Spanish" and because as such I hoped it would contain words particular to each country in Latin America. Maybe this was hoping for too much, but it doesn't even contain some very common words used throughout all of Spanish speaking Latin-American countries. The author should have done more research.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's a start, December 28, 2001

By	Aaron Heilbrun (Phoenix, Arizona) - See all my reviews

When I first learned of this dictionary, I was very enthusiastic. Finally, I thought. Well, not quite, gringo. See, the problem is that most dictionaries are not written for the vast majority of English and Spanish speakers. They utilize British English and Spanish from Spain. This is immensely frustrating as anyone can tell you when they looked up a word only to find their Mexican or Chilean or Venezuelan friends looking at them quizzically because they'd never heard of it. We need a dictionary that employs American English and Latin American Spanish. Why is that so hard? There are more than a quarter billion Americans and several hundred million Latinos. WAY more than Spain and England together.

Regarding this dictionary, it is acceptable for beginners and intermediate users, but advanced speakers will find that it simply does not have enough words or idiomatic expressions. If you want a quick reference to look up words, it's fine. But if you are looking for a REFERENCE as in an exhaustive list of all expressions regarding poner (for example), then keep shopping. What kills me is it that if Random House took this dictionary, expanded and deepened it, it would rock the house. But as it stands now, it's limited in what it can do for most bilingual speakers.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great idea, could be better executed, June 9, 2002

By	"larrytheanvil" (Mount Vernon, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diccionario español/inglés - inglés/español: Random House Latin-American Spanish (Paperback)

Never failed me, not once, on two recent trips to Mexico and the D.R., but from it's size it is clear that is lacking many entries. Also, each entry could use a few more usage examples, especially for those countries whose Spanish is most widely varied from Castellano.