Thread: best english-russian-russian dictionary around

hi everyone,

I'm looking for the best english-russian-english dictionary available.
many entries, lots of examples, phrases, expressions, irregular declensions and conjugations mentioned, up-to-date, focusing more on everyday and colloquial than literary russian. accents on words would be a plus.
and I'm leaning towards american english, not UK (but I can adapt).
I was originally looking for a french-russian-french dictionary but there 's nothing on the market but a very slender and totally outdated book that is useless, even lisleading to me now.

what do you think :
http://www.amazon.com/English-Russian-R ... 682&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Russian-Di ... 682&sr=8-2
one of these two or another one ?

and what about softwares ?

thanks in advance for answers, everyone.

Kratzner's for text.
ABBYY Lingvo X3 for software.
(I wouldn't even get a text, unless you like scrummaging through dictionaries.)

I have the Oxford pair and like them best (mine are not that color or design so am not sure that is the same, but the prices are about right ).

I second the Oxford Dictionary, even though I am German. It sure blows all the German-Russian dictionaries out of the water.

I use a number of online dictionaries as well, especially http://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/ for declension and conjugation tables. Primarily I use pons.eu, but there is no English-Russian or French-Russian version yet. But they frequently add more language pairs, for instance there already is French-Polish and Russian-Polish, so it might be worth watching. The German-Russian dictionary also has audio files, so if you look up a Russian word in it you can at least listen to its pronunciation.

Robin

The best dictionary I've seen, by a long way, is Penguin. It's generally very hard to get hold of, but it so happens there's one going on Amazon for 22 dollars. I just tried to get it shipped to the UK - nothing doing. If you're in America, then definitely recommended!

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the Oxford dictionary. I generally use http://www.amazon.com/Russian-English-C ... 0781805600, if only because it's a handier size. If I need English-Russian, I'll switch on Lingvo.

Katzner for Americanized English.
I keep one at home and one in the motel for the Russian kids; they love it.

The one i have is the Kratzner. It's really great because instead of just the word and definition for most it gives two or three extra phrases with that word. Plus it's made for American English, making it easier.

Originally Posted by possopo

hi everyone,

I'm looking for the best english-russian-english dictionary available.
many entries, lots of examples, phrases, expressions, irregular declensions and conjugations mentioned, up-to-date, focusing more on everyday and colloquial than literary russian. accents on words would be a plus.
and I'm leaning towards american english, not UK (but I can adapt).
I was originally looking for a french-russian-french dictionary but there 's nothing on the market but a very slender and totally outdated book that is useless, even lisleading to me now.

what do you think :
http://www.amazon.com/English-Russian-R ... 682&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Russian-Di ... 682&sr=8-2
one of these two or another one ?

and what about softwares ?

thanks in advance for answers, everyone.

Looks like the first (the red) one is better, - at least, this is the only dictionary that correctly translates the word "aurochs" as "тур", not as "зубр" (the way it is done in all other dictionaries (Mueller's, Oxford, etc.)).

Are the Oxford or Penguin dictionaries available in any form of electronic version?

I am going to stop buying books and start using e-reader and computer based readers as much as possible. Have WAY too many books collecting dust... plus environmental decision.

Originally Posted by PrincetonLion

Looks like the first (the red) one is better, - at least, this is the only dictionary that correctly translates the word "aurochs" as "тур", not as "зубр" (the way it is done in all other dictionaries (Mueller's, Oxford, etc.)).

Wikipedia (pseudo)-translation also returns "тур" for aurochs! Simply look up the anglo word of interest, then scroll down the left column of languages that also have an article on the word/topic of interest. Click on the language, and browser automatically goes to that article in language of choice. Of course this also works in reverse from ru => eng.

A benefit of this for me is all the new interest directions opened up going between eng <> ru. Also, links in articles.

I'm with Johanna. I'm boycotting hardcopy book purchases. After moving enough times, shifting books that are never read mitigates against having them.

The link Chaika included elsewhere http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/mor...?flags=kndnnnn is kind of nice too.

or http://lingvo.yandex.ru/en?os=transl....%20anslate=on

And after having spent so much time in libraries, I know that there is almost always a no-cost alternative, and often several.

Before there was IT, there were libraries.

I'm upping this thread because I have a new question related to it :
is there any english-russian dictionary available that has been written by russians ?

I'm pretty sure it would be a zillion times better (at least for foreigners trying to improve their russian).
the reason is pretty obvious and for a similar reason, there's a general rule in translation saying that the target language of a translator MUST always be his native tongue.

Kenneth Katzner probably is a very brilliant translator but alas and whatever the effort put into it, he can't be as good in russian as a russian native. a dictionary meant for students in russian and a dictionary meant for russian natives who want to speak english must be quite different and I'm definitely looking for the first.