1 comments about Milet Bilingual Visual Dictionary: English-Gujarati.

1. I was hoping the pronunciation would be in english phonetics so that I could label everything in the house, the car, and the office... but it is written in Gujarati script. BEAUTIFUL BOOK! It will be great for me in about a year. :)

2 comments about Diccionario español/inglés - inglés/español: Oxford Starter Spanish.

1. This book is appropriately named. You're not going to come here as your *complete* source for English-Spanish translation needs, but it is a fantastic introductory reference source. In fact, it is so immaculately designed and presented that you can actually read it straight through as if it were a novel. Spanish actually seems easy to learn, just as the book cover claims.

   I bought this book in combination with 'Buscalo' (see my review elsewhere on these pages). Together they make a very effective package towards breaking out of the trap of beginner's Spanish.




2. This dictionary is a wonderful learning tool for beginners in Spanish who are looking to broaden their vocabulary and learn correct grammar usage of words or verbs. This book does not present a diverse selection of vocabulary or expressions as it remains true to its title "Starter Spanish Dictionary" thus not intimidating the student with difficult terminology. The book focuses on everyday vocabulary and how it would be used in a phrase that which all beginners need in order to build their confidence while learning a very useful and exciting language. This dictionary is presented in a user friendly format and can be read like a book. This is a great purchase for beginners who wish to strengthen their basic vocabulary in Spanish.

4 comments about Colloquial Gujarati: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series (Book Only)).

1. A good basic book for beginners. The first few lessons use romanized transcriptions after which the book relies on the Gujarati script. Note that the book is available with or without accompanying cassette tapes. The first printing was marred by a number of typos which could be confusing to complete beginners; I hear they were corrected in later printings.



2. This book is organized the way American high school French and Spanish books are organized, so it will be familiar to anyone who was raised here. In each concise chapter, you learn to conjugate a verb or two (and nothing is backwards--it all makes sense--I, You, He/she, etc...), you learn some key words about a topic, you get a grammar lesson, and you read a phoenetic conversation between two people on the topic while listening to it on the tape. The topics are important: weather, food, rooms of a house, and so on. The book is really geared to quickly get you over your initial fear of speaking and to make it as simple as possible without diluting the material. It is good for absolute beginners as well as people who have been around Gujarati speakers for some time. I've tried other books that were no help. This one is different because it is "colloquial." It teaches you practical things you need to know, and it's fun and easy--even for novices like me. At the end you learn about writing in Gujarati. There's a lot more too--but the main thing is that it's fun, and in five or ten minutes you can learn a few phrases that will take you a long way. Then you're hooked, and you want to come back the next day to learn more.



3. I read this book 6 months ago, ready to write a review, which I never really got around to until now. I was planning a review of great detail, with many direct references to the book, but instead this shortened rundown is what I give you.
   
   One merit of this book is that it is at least a book, of Gujarati. There is only a small amount of teaching material on this language, and this is some of it. It may serve as a standard introduction or refresher to Gujarati, but it is riddled with problems. It is really quite bad.
   
   First, the dialogues and their translation don't match. This isn't just in a few little places - this is systematic, consistent; it happens over and over and over and it absolutely boggles the mind. Really, what is this? Unbridled idiocy or sadism? How is one to learn? And it's not as if I'm complaining about how the translations aren't word for word. I assure you, I know that when translating one must keep in mind contextual equivalency in addition to literal equivalency. But here it's not even a matter of that. The English passages can be so sloppily off the mark. A chapter or section may introduce a grammatical feature, and when that feature is put to use in the corresponding passage, to be noticed and learned, it'll turn out totally mistranslated (progressive past as simple past for instance). But mostly it's these non-grammatical, small wrongs that are oh so numerous, that run throughout the book. Inexplicable things like "Oh, today so and so is also with you!" becoming "Oh, so and so is also with you!"... why oh why, did you find it necessary to omit the `today'? This continuous occurrence gets to be very infuriating.
   
   Also, there is so much missing in content and depth. Here are at least two absolutely fundamental things I remember noticing that lacked any explanation: the hoi/ho/hoie forms of hovu, and reverse verbs like khabar hovi, laagvu, and gamvu. These are two things of a great many. I compel knowledged speakers to go to the `Tense' portion of the `Reference' section and laugh at its patheticness.
   
   And then, much of what IS there is explained so poorly and rushedly. Relative pronouns and the passive voice are two examples. Other times a thing will be explained much too late. I remember the emphatic ja being used for at least 50 pages before there being any discussion about it.
   
   For script, this book has a system of romanization-only in the beginning, and Gujarati-script-only after that, which is ridiculous. It should have been beginning: Rom+Guj, afterwords: Guj-only. Also, the romanization is non-standard.
   
   If there is anything that somehow stand outs about this book, I would say that it's the "tidbit" information: colloquialisms, pre/suffixes (esp.), etc. Otherwise, get Teach Yourself Gujarati by Rachel Dwyer instead. With Gujarati being as obscure as it is, unsurprisingly the book seems to have been discontinued. Now you can get it as a free PDF on her website. It's not perfect either, but it's deadly close and is the best there is. Perhaps I should write my own book, lol.



4. I second the below reviewer. I would give this book fewer stars if it weren't for the fact that there is a dearth of books on Gujarati for native English speakers out there. In the light of that, this book is not completely useless.
   
   My biggest problem with this book is that the glossary in the back is far from complete. (To put it more emphatically, if more colloquially: it SUCKS.) Not every word that appears in the English->Gujarati section appears in the Gujarati->English section, and vice versa. Furthermore, not every vocabulary word introduced in the individual lessons is included in the glossary either. This becomes a problem, as the vocabulary lists at the start of each chapter do not generally give the gender of nouns, and if these words are not in the glossary, then nowhere in the book will you find the gender of that noun. In Gujarati, you need to know the gender in order to conjugate adjectives and past tense verbs, so this can be a problem. Secondly, in at least one case, perhaps more, the vocabulary list has given a definition for a certain conjugation of a verb as used in the dialog for that chapter, rather than the root or infinitive of the verb. Of course, the same verb doesn't appear in the glossary in any conjugation.
   
   My second largest problem is that, though Dave mentions in the Introduction that there are 4 main dialects of Gujarati, he neglects to mention which one the book is written in, let alone a brief description of the differences between them. (I think part of this is meant to be taken care of by using speakers of various styles of pronunciation on the tapes. However, without an explanation that that is the case, and in cases where one doesn't have easy access to cassette players, this is of limited utility.)
   OK, fine, it's common practice for a language book to be written in one dialect of a language, usually the most common. However, Gujarati as written in the book is different from what my in-laws speak. I realize that not everyone will have this problem, but my M-I-L said she doesn't know anyone who talks the way the book is written. Sure, this is a minor question of pronunciation, generally, but it took me a few days of being surrounded by fluent speakers to realize this, and in the meantime I sounded like a fool. One small tip-off in the text would have helped.
   
   A third annoying thing- that dialect tip-off, among other things, may yet be in there. Rather important pieces of information are kind of buried in odd places, and as I'm still shaky on the script, I haven't been able to read through the whole book yet.
   
   There are several more things I'm annoyed with- the tapes not matching the book, the sloppy English translations of the dialogs, the errors in the answer key to the grammar exercises, the bizarre matching exercise where, in matching 2 columns of words, some of the "matches" are synonyms, some are antonyms, some are classes of things- all within the same exercise! And of course, using grammatical forms in one chapter that don't get explained for 2 more chapters, and giving out vocabulary of questionable application. Do I really need to know how to point out the location of a vegetable garden before I am able to describe the what sort of weather we're having? (This latter complaint is one I have for all the books in the Colloquial... series that I've come across so far. The others are Japanese and a 50-yr-old edition of Czech.)
   
   To summarize: if you have the choice of something else, get it.

1 comments about Universal English-Gujarati Dictionary.

1. I teach ESL and I bought this dictionary for my 2 students, and they seem quite pleased. I don't speak the language, so I can't review its quality. :)

No comments about Learn Tamil in a Month.

1 comments about Gujarati Dictionary and Phrasebook: English-Gujarati / Gujarati-English (Hippocrene Dictionary & Phrasebooks).

1. There is no pronunciation section in this book. I had to figure out the pronunciation by looking at the order of letters in the Gujarati-English section of the dictionary, which is arranged not according to the English alphabet, but according to the Gujarati alphabet, even though it is romanized. This romanization is quite strange. In some cases, h means aspiration, but in other cases it means a dental sound. U with grave accent is not a vowel, but a retroflex aspirated t. Capital O with circumflex accent is not a vowel, but a retroflex aspirated d.
   The grammar section is a little bit better than the romanization, but also inadequate. No mention is made of the oblique case, the nominative is treated as if it is the only case in the language. There is no section on pronouns. Several pronouns are finally mentioned in the section General Words and Phrases, but with no indication that Gujarati distinguishes between exclusive and inclusive 'we'. There is some inconsistency in the transcription, in the grammar section 'boy' is chhokro, in the dictionary it is chhokaro. And there are other examples. This inconsistency is not explained.
   At least the cultural section of the phrasebook seems good, quite detailed.

5 comments about Oggi in Italia: A First Course in Italian.

1. This is a truly attrocious text book. I've been forced to use it for the last 18 months and it's been almost no help. The layout is confusing, the information contradictory or irrelevant and the price is excessive. Avoid this book like the plague if you're serious about learning Italian.



2. I am in the second semester of an Italian course and find Oggi in Italia interesting to read and to work from. The pattern to the book is given at the beginning, and each of the lessons follows the pattern. Especially noteworthy in the book are the currency and relevancy of its references to people, places, TV shows, etc. If I were teaching a course in Italian, I would choose this book as a text. In my opinion, the companion workbook isn't really needed, since the textbook has many exercises in it. Also, it should be supplemented with audio tapes, either the companion set or other tapes aimed at the basic-intermediate levels.



3. I have been using this book as a part of a series of beginning to intermediate level Italian. While the book does an adequate job in some areas, it leaves a lot to be desired. For example, the glossary doesn't contain many of the words used in the book. There are exercise which use words that have not been learned and which are not in the dictionary. The vocabulary in each chapter is somewhat arranged by topic, but is incomplete and confusing. The book is designed to follow as a sort of episodic course, but it is a horrible reference book, and concepts like verb tenses are separated by pages and sometimes over several chapters.

   It is unfortunate that this seems to be the seminal textbook for Italian. It does the job, but surely there must be something better out there.




4. I completely agree with Erickson's review. I have just finished two semesters using this book. I can't say enough bad things about it. If you get suckered into a course that uses this book I recommend that you immediately go out and buy/use the following:
   1. Shaum's Italian Grammar
   2. 501 Italian Verbs
   3. Italian Verbs and Essentials of Grammar
   4. English Grammar for Students of Italian

   Anyone that gives this Oggi in Italia a good review must be on the payroll of the publisher/author.




5. This text is a soupy mixture of chunks of material. It follows the annoying trend in language books toward using words and grammatical concepts in exercises before they are introduced and explained. It also still has a number of typos even after several editions. More serious problems are the flat out grammatical usage errors that emerge in the later chapters. The whole subject of accent marks is poorly addressed nor are the verbs (-rre verbs), that contradict the statement that only three endings are possible, ever explained. I also object to the practise of frequently issuing new editions which are superficially modified to sell new books but do not correct or improve the text in any meaningful manner. Teachers please pass on using this textbook!

1 comments about Concise English-Gujarati Dictionary.

1. A great book! Really good for the absolute beginners. One of the best dictionaries available on the market. Really helps and serves its purpose. I would recommend it anyday!

2 comments about Learn Gujarati in a Month.

1. NAMASTE! I wish there were more like it! I attempting to learn Gujarati through books... this is not "ideal." However, this book has helped. I have purchased everything on Amazon I could find on the language and this book and the software are pretty much what gets used the most.
   -Joe



2. You could not learn Gujarati in a year with this book. It does not teach conversational Gujarati but instead teaches how to read Gujarati script. Even my girlfriend, a native Gujarati speaker, laughed at this book. Very disappointing.

5 comments about Oxford Fowler's Modern English Usage Dictionary.

1. This work is witty and nearly unassailable, but I can't say that the uninitiated will find it accessible or as wine drinkers may say approachable. If you take pride in careful usage and want to make your writing precise, you can't go wrong here. If you've ever wondered how the words residence and residency both made their way into the language, the answer awaits you within these pages.

   This isn't the place to get started with learning to write though. For those whose primary endeavor is not writing Strunk and White's Elements of Style or The Practical Stylist by Sheridan Baker will offer much to you on the practice of writing. These titles will also offer you many tips on constructing a piece of writing that you won't find in Fowler.

   For those interested in a thorough treatment of usage and language you can't go wrong with Fowler though.




2. Before we presume to be artists or journalists or even readable purveyors of newsletters (or Internet blogs, for that matter) we must of necessity, if we are to be effective, be craftsmen.

   Such a sentiment would, I imagine, sit well with Henry Watson Fowler who, some eighty years ago in collaboration with his younger brother Frank, wrote this famous book of English language guidance and prescription (and proscription!). Central to his purpose was the belief that the right word at the right time in its proper place and context constituted the backbone and much of the muscle and sinew of forthright and effective writing. That belief along with Fowler's celebrated passion for good writing and his intolerance of ignorance and humbug, coupled with his sometimes incomparable expression, long ago won him the undying respect and admiration of careful writers of the English language the world over.

   And this has been something of a problem. Since Fowler last set pen to page some seventy-one years ago (he died in 1933), the English language has changed and grown enormously. What was correct and effective in 1926 (the year the 1st Ed. of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage was published), as well as what was ineffective, offensively brash or downright ugly has in some cases become acceptable and even felicitous. So, like it or not, Fowler had to be updated, and of course there was no shortage of lexicographers, linguists, grammarians, journalists and others looking to do the job. Furthermore, the "Great Divide" between American English and British English needed to be explained, recorded, and codified. Some of the people who have joined in this enterprise over the years have been H. L. Mencken, Jens Jespersen, Margaret Nicholson, Dwight MacDonald, Bergen and Cornelia Evans, and more recently, Bryan A. Garner and R.W. Burchfield (who edits the Third Edition of this book), and many others. I think all of them, if they looked over their shoulder would see upon the wall an especially sober portrait of Fowler passing silent judgment upon their protracted labors. Certainly on their desks would be this book.

   And of course there is Sir Ernest Gowers who revised and edited this celebrated Second Edition. He writes in the Preface that the most important changes he had to make were those of vocabulary itself. "Words unknown in Fowler's day--teenager for instance--are now among our hardest worked." He adds that "Vogue words get worn out and others take their place." He admits to having omitted "one or two" of Fowler's famous little essays as being "no longer relevant to our literary fashions." (Would that he had preserved such specimens in an appendix.) He also allows that "many" of Fowler's "articles" called "for some modernization," and therefore, "a few have been rewritten in whole or part, and several new ones added."

   So this is not your pristine Fowler's, yet so carefully did Gowers preserve and build upon that earlier edifice that most people have been quite pleased. In fact so nearly universal has been the admiration for this particular book that the so-called Third Edition of 1996, edited by the aforementioned Burchfield, has yet to receive universal acceptance and is indeed disparaged in some circles as not being true to the letter and spirit of Fowler.

   For me two things stand out in this much admired Second Edition: (1) the absolute delight one finds in the many pronouncements on language; and (2) the odd but satisfying mix of the old-fashioned prescriptive grammarian commingled with someone who disdains pedantry for its own sake, and condemns what is seen as unnecessarily purist. Perhaps more than anything what one loves about this book is Fowler's incisive dry wit. Here is Fowler/Gowers on two words easily confused (those are my quotation marks since Amazon does not support the italics used in the original):

   prescribe, proscribe. These words are often confused, especially by the use of "pro-" for "pre-." "Pro-" means to put outside the protection of the law, to denounce as dangerous; "pre-" means to lay down as a rule or direction to be followed. "If I look at the list of proscribed authors in our various universities, I notice with pleasure that since 1940 no year has passed without Jane Austen appearing in the syllabus of at least one." The speaker clearly did not mean, as one might infer from the word he used (or perhaps the printer substituted), that Jane Austen's works were on the Index.

   Also of interest here is Gowers' Preface which amounts to an understanding and appreciation of Fowler and his work.




3. It is somewhat amazing that this book, first published in 1926, is still in print. The language has changed quite a bit since then; thousands of words have been added, hundreds have gone obsolete, and hundreds more have had their meanings shaded; and of course many of Fowler's pronouncements are now merely echoes of battles long lost or won. Not only that, but two newer editions of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage have been published, the excellent second edition edited by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965 (now ironically out of print while the original finds yet another printing), and the not so entirely well-received (but underrated in my opinion) third edition, edited and revised by R.W. Burchfield in 1996.

   How to account for this phenomenon? Part of it is because Fowler's reputation only grew after his death as several generations of writers sang his praises and adhered to, or sometimes fussed about, his many dicta on usage questions both great and small. And as the years went by, and as the pages of his masterpiece gave way to wine stains and silverfish or the few remaining copies disappeared from libraries, he himself became a legend. Not everything he wrote is considered correct today, nor was it then. And sometimes the succinct yet magisterial little essays he wrote were followed by other little essays that were all but impenetrable, obtuse and somewhat overbearing. No matter. The good greatly outweighed the occasional misjudgment, and the education he afforded us remains.

   Another part of the story is that there is something very properly English and wonderfully nostalgic about the man himself. He was a bit of a character who lied about his age and joined the army when he was 56-years-old to fight the Germans in the Great War (only to faint on the parade grounds), a man who earlier gave up a teaching career because he did not feel it was his responsibility to prepare a student for the seminary. More than anything, though, the fact that this book is still in demand is a testament to the high regard and affection felt by the literate public toward Fowler himself.

   What Fowler knew and preached was that before we could presume to be literary artists or journalists or even authors of readable letters we must of necessity, if we are to be effective, be craftsmen. Central to his purpose was the belief that the right word in its proper place and context constituted the backbone and much of the muscle and sinew of forthright and effective writing. That belief along with Fowler's celebrated passion for the concise and the correct, and his intolerance of ignorance and humbug, coupled with his sometimes incomparable expression, long ago won him the undying respect and admiration of careful writers of the English language the world over.

   But this is something of a problem. Since Fowler last set pen to page some seventy-one years ago (he died in 1933), the English language has changed and grown enormously. What was correct and effective then, as well as what was ineffective, offensively brash or downright ugly has in some cases become acceptable and even felicitous. So, like it or not, Fowler had to be updated, and of course there was no shortage of lexicographers, linguists, grammarians, journalists and others looking to do the job. Furthermore, the "Great Divide" between American English and British English needed to be explained, recorded, and codified. Some of the people who have joined in this enterprise over the years have been H. L. Mencken, Jens Jespersen, Margaret Nicholson, Dwight MacDonald, Bergen and Cornelia Evans, and more recently, Bryan A. Garner and R.W. Burchfield, and many others. I think all of them, if they looked over their shoulder would see upon the wall an especially sober portrait of Fowler passing silent judgment upon their protracted labors. Certainly on their desks would be this book.

   So I recommend that you buy that very impressive book by Garner (Garner's Modern American Usage), especially if you are an American, or splurge for a copy of that underrated third edition edited by Burchfield, and that you consult them as well as this venerable authority. As you use the books you may compare and contrast and get a nice feel for where the language has been and where it is headed.




4. If you want to learn to write, start with 'The Elements of Style' - concise, clear, good advice, short and cheap. But if you want to learn about using English, from a wise opinionated teacher at once wry and passionate, start here.
   
   Other reviewers have said what needs to be said, but I'll summarise: it's out of date; it's written in an old-fashioned curmudgeonly prescriptive style; you can learn more about using English from this than from five other books of similar intent.
   
   Don't - please don't - even think of adhering dogmatically to Fowler's dictums. I think he'd turn over in his grave if you did. What you say and write is your responsibility; agree with him or disagree, but know why and everyone subject to your words will be better off.
   
   Oh, and the third edition is worth getting too, but is not readily comparable to this. It's a different style, and not as easy to use, I find. However, it's obviously far more current. In any event, since you can buy this edition for little more than postage, I'm aware of no better value deal on Amazon.



5. The content of this book is quite interesting, including all kinds of history of the usage of various words. However, it's very difficult to read, because the print is very blurry. It looks like it was photocopied from an older photocopy. They really need to redo the original.