English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary

The best Russian-English resource I have found outside of having an actual interpreter. The book is easy to navigate, does not dumb-down while providing adequate examples and phraseology to illustrate the usage of each term with a focus on high-use words. The Russian-English equivalent to the outstanding Kodansha Japanese-English Furigana dictionary.

Even though we say we speak english, typical "english" dictionaries use british definitions. If you're from America, you speak American english and this is the only book on the market that clearly uses American-to-Russian and vica-versa definitions for words as well as idioms and phrases. I lived in Russia for a few years and out of every book I studied out of, this was one of the most helpful ones.

This is a great - an indispensable - reference for anyone learning Russian and for advanced speakers too. Advanced speakers would have other reference books also, but I'm sure that this dictionary cannot be outgrown. The layout is excellent with declensions for adjectives, conjugation hints, and imperfective/perfective shown for verbs. A great help for serious students.

This is by far the best dictionary we have ever found. We have used at least a dozen different dictionaries. My wife teaches Russian langauage to American born children and a good dictionary is very important.

Ideal for translating everything from "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" to contemporary colloquial Russian.

Unlike other dictionaries, Katzner's identifies literary obsolete, colloquial, and even vulgar words thus sparing the student of potentially embarrassing moments. Knowing the difference between "kushats" and "zhrats" might make for a more pleasant dining experience or the Russian equivalent of "breast" and "bosom" a more accurate reading of Lermontov.

Katzner also lists separately the perfective verb in the Russian to English half, meaning if while reading a Russian text you stumble across an unfamiliar perfective verb you don't have to guess it's imperfective form to locate its meaning. Other dictionaries fail miserably on this point. He also identifies the required case of certain verbs.

As for binding issues, yes, your dictionary will eventually fall apart because you'll use it so much and in so many different places (classroom, cafe, office, home, etc..). I have plenty of other dictionaries all inferior and seldom used which remain in perfectly wonderful shape. :-)