Oxford Russian Minidictionary (Dictionary)

Having lost my Random House pocket Russian dictionary, a steadfast companion for many years, and then soon after the Russian printing of the Collins Gem Russian Dictionary I bought to replace it, I've now started using the OXFORD RUSSIAN MINI DICTIONARY. The dictionary portion is adequate for my needs ("40,0000 words and phrases, 60,000 translations"), but my needs are simple and I'm mainly concerned with colloquial use of the language. There are, of course, bound to be topics that the dictionary doesn't cover for you, especially any sort of formal literary registers, but that's why it's important to invest in a large home dictionary instead of relying solely on a pocket mini dictionary. I am pleased by its coverage of irregular masculine noun plurals in -a and in its clear listing of both perfective and imperfective infinitives.

In addition the to English-Russian and Russian-English dictionary, this contains a number of supplementary materials. These include spelling rules and brief coverage of declension of Russian nouns and adjectives and conjugation. There is also a list of irregular English verbs, though this dictionary is not widely sold in the Russian Federation and I imagine only a small minority of people using it are Russians learning English. In the middle of the dictionary, between the English-Russian and Russian-English portions, there is a small listing with phrases useful in tourism. I'm not sure much of this is going to be useful, since if you speak Russian well enough to have brought a dictionary along, you probably have sufficient command of the grammar to express yourself, even if through some amount of circumlocution.

These supplementary materials contribute slightly to the downside I see with the dictionary, for while it is very lightweight, it is much thicker than it ought to be. It will fit only into larger pockets, and takes up an annoying large amount of space in a backpack if you are using it in travels in Russia. I'm really missing my Random House dictionary, which was a couple of centimetres taller than either the Oxford or the Collins Gem, but much slimmer. On the other hand, one should commend the publishing house for its typesetting, which wastes little space on the page, as opposed to the disastrous Oxford series of pocket grammars.

With 100,000 entries and translations, a phrase finder section, an appendix with spelling rules, declension of adjectives and nouns and conjugation of verbs, this little dictionary is handy yet comprehensive. It is just what I wanted!

I have used many russian dictionaries in the past. I am hooked on this one. It has a substantial vocabulary listing - I can always find the word I am looking for. It is small so I can easily carry it everyday. And the cover is durable.

I used this dictionary for 2 years of highschool Russian and it was irreplacable. It is relatively up-to-date so you will find technical terms in it and the appendixes in the back are great. Most of the other people in my class liked it too. Its very small size (about the size of an index card) made it handy to carry around but sometimes the small type was slightly hard to read.

What is more important then learn the language? If you agree with that -buy the book! It's execellent!.....Keep it next to the computer! Have few of them....