Hippocrene Standard Dictionary Arabic-English English-Arabic (Hippocrene Dictionaries Series) (Paperback)

~ John Wortabet (Author), Harvey Porter (Author)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Features an excellent selection of modern words and expressions, clear and comprehensive, designed to enable students to read the average Arabic newspaper or book.

About the Author

John Wortabet and Harvey Porter

Product Details

• Paperback: 900 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books; Bilingual edition (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781803837
• ISBN-13: 978-0781803830
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #168,867 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars If you already know Arabic, this may be of value., March 25, 1999

By A Customer

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As a dictionary this may be useful to someone who already knows Arabic, but it will be difficult for a beginning or intermediate student of Arabic. Abreviations for parts of speech are given for English but not for Arabic. Going from English to Arabic, the exact sense of a word is not given so you can't really be certain what you might be saying. Pick an English word and you get two or three Arabic words. Look those up and (if you can find them) you get somewhat different English words. You won't find a single 'naughty bit' either.

Moreover, it is UK English (you can find a biscuit but you'll get no cookies here) which results in some curious word choices. For example, some English definitions for Arabic words are: "calumniator, feccundation, state of orphanage, eructation, reproach for benefit, jet d'eau, to drill child, aided conqueror, patch scrap, silk stuff, to spell award, etc." You may need another dictionary just to understand these definitions.

It is definitely not for a beginner and the intermediate student will need a fairly good grasp of Arabic.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars OK, March 23, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Slovenia) - See all my reviews

The dictionary includes a wide selection of words a student is likely to use.The arabic-english part folows the standard arabic word order using the origin base of words, which is not given explicitly. Also the gender of nouns is not given and there is no guide or grammar in the beginning. I recommend it since it is the only bi-directional dictionary.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Out of date and poorly organized, August 28, 2003

By	Rob Napier (Raleigh, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This is one of the worst English-Arabic dictionaries I've worked with. It's terribly out of date and lacking many common words. Moreover, it's organized by root, not alphabetically, which isn't terrible if you're familiar with Arabic word patterns, but since it does not bold the root verb entries or otherwise call out where each root section starts, it is incredibly difficult to look up words, even if you know what you are looking for.