English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary

This is a very good product. Before ordering it I had several doubts - but they all vanished once I laid my hands on this must-have Russian Language resource.

The writing is clear, the translation is as specific as it gets. Irregular declensions and conjugations are given as well. What a product!

BTW - don't think that this is a pocket dictionary - it is rather large and would function better on the shelf.

I recommend this book without hesitation.

This is the kind of dictionary a serious student of Russian (or any other foreign language) should get. If you're only going to be studying it for a few years or learning the language for a short trip abroad, you're better suited getting one of the smaller dictionaries with less words, not a mammoth volume of over a thousand pages with tens of thousands of words contained within. This dictionary has everything--current and up-to-date terminology, words in all sorts of fields (e.g., engineering, computers, science), obsolete words one might still run across in older books or poems, slang, idioms, words that don't have an equivalent in English (how awesome is it for a language to only need one word to say something like "to drag one's heels in the mud" or "to pinch from time to time"?), even the names of the pre-Revolutionary letters, such as the yat, which was replaced by the letter now representing the ye sound (E in Roman letters). It also has great appendices on the names of different types of geographical areas (cities, islands, continents, historic regions, former Soviet republics, lakes, rivers, parts of cities, etc.) and famous surnames. It also gives a chart of normal declensions in the beginning, plus the normal conjugations of the most common types of verbs. Unlike some other dictionaries, it doesn't do your homework for you by conjugating a huge sample of verbs, both regular and irregular, in every single tense there is, or declining a similarly huge pool of nouns as well. That's for you to learn, not up a dictionary to give you easy and immediately-available answers to. And since this is clearly designed for someone who is serious about learning the Russian language, it also doesn't have a section on the Cryllic alphabet. It's assumed that you already know it quite well if you're purchasing this dictionary in lieu of something designed for a more casual student.

This is the dictionary the US military issued to its Russian language-studying soldiers at DLI in Monterey. It has excellent coverage of most basic and general vocabularies, and goes into depth on many other subjects (including military jargon). It is far easier to use than the Oxford Dictionary, as it lists each verb (glogol) with the prefix and/or suffix as an individual entry. Words are extremely easy to find here--unlike in many dictionaries of this type. Of course, there are some very specific Russian-English dictionaries out there that specialize in specific categories of the language. (Such as dictionaries of slang, or of obscenities) If you're a a generalist OR specialist who doesn't have a copy of this book, it is recommended. My copy is dog-eared and I did have to tape the cover (the paperback), due to frequent use.
Many of my Russian friends have used it to find the "right" word in English, and it has proven to be an exceptional resource in both directions. A must have for any student of Russian.

This is a marvelous dictionary!!!! I teach Russian to High School graduates and I have investigated many different dictionaries to find the best. Kenneth Katzner's dictionary is head and shoulders above any other dictionary I have seen. The entries are not as vast as, say, the Oxford Russian-English, but it is very user-friendly and the author does a very good job of making exceptions and irregularities very clear. He also makes particular effort to differentiate between homonyms (something that other dictionaries frequently lack). The binding is a little fragile and requires some TLC (especially at first. I recommend storing the dictionary open on a table when not in use to train the binding to stay open. Never push hard to keep it open to the page you need; it can break).

Another review complains that this dictionary lacks a pronunciation guide. He clearly has not understood that Russian pronunciation is absolutely consistent almost without exception. The alphabet is phonetic and there are no pronunciation dilemmas as in English, e.g. though, through, rough. The student is much better off learning the rules and not relying on any extraneous pronunciation guide.

This is not a good translator's dictionary because it is incomplete. But for the student, even into the fifth or sixth year, this dictionary is not only a reference, but an outstanding learning tool. I recommend it to any student of Russian. You won't find better!

This dictionary is very comprehensive but it has no guide whatsoever to pronunciation. It utilizes the IPA after each English entry without any explanation of the IPA symbols and their sounds. There is nothing at all on the Russian side. This may be a great dictionary for those who already speak Russian but it is unhelpful for those of us just starting out. I was very disappointed with it and am now back to using my Collins Gem Russian dictionary which has little vocab but a pronunciation guide at least.