The Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary

Rating:
Summary: Excellent English-Hebrew reference work.
Review: It has what is probably the most important feature of a foreign-language dictionary: it explains the different contexts of a word, idiomatic usages, and expressions containing the headwords, not just the quick one word definitions many pocket dictionaries offer. A dictionary that simply tells you that three words equate to one English word without telling you where which word should be used is useless, and the Oxford dictionary avoids that trap. It's a must-have for students of Hebrew. I wish the Hebrew-English side was available, though.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Coverage
Review: The Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary contains "Comprehensive coverage from slang and colloquialisms to technical and scientific terminology." This mammoth of a book contains over 1000 pages. However I was slightly disappointed by this English-Hebrew dictionary. Besides the fact that it is only English-Hebrew & not Hebrew-English this can be a hard to follow enigma. The words are so numerous the reader can spend hours searching for the correct word. Most every word has sub phrases e.g. at random I chose the word collaborate & below it I found "work together" & "work for the enemy." I also noticed as I was flipping through this book that it contains many curse words. Not only does this book contain a plethora of words but it contains associated phrases. Besides containing words that I never thought I'd hear & probably lay in the deep ravine of my mind this book doesn't contain much of anything. There is a short 3-page pronunciation guide & a 4-pages introduction. Overall if you're looking for an English-Hebrew dictionary that will contain almost any word you can think of then this is the dictionary for you. I believe this dictionary is for the advanced scholar & not for the average student. However in its field there is no better English-Hebrew dictionary, just beware that is for the advanced scholars.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Coverage
Review: The Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary contains "Comprehensive coverage from slang and colloquialisms to technical and scientific terminology." This mammoth of a book contains over 1000 pages. However I was slightly disappointed by this English-Hebrew dictionary. Besides the fact that it is only English-Hebrew & not Hebrew-English this can be a hard to follow enigma. The words are so numerous the reader can spend hours searching for the correct word. Most every word has sub phrases e.g. at random I chose the word collaborate & below it I found "work together" & "work for the enemy." I also noticed as I was flipping through this book that it contains many curse words. Not only does this book contain a plethora of words but it contains associated phrases. Besides containing words that I never thought I'd hear & probably lay in the deep ravine of my mind this book doesn't contain much of anything. There is a short 3-page pronunciation guide & a 4-pages introduction. Overall if you're looking for an English-Hebrew dictionary that will contain almost any word you can think of then this is the dictionary for you. I believe this dictionary is for the advanced scholar & not for the average student. However in its field there is no better English-Hebrew dictionary, just beware that is for the advanced scholars.

Rating:
Summary: A phenomenal dictionary, perhaps not for beginners
Review: This is a phenomenal dictionary. Some things that make it so great:

1) Huge numbers of usage examples, at a wide range of levels of
formality. The examples give information that's lacking in most dictionaries, such as which preposition(s) to use with a given verb. They also contain a wealth of idiomatic constructions. I'm amazed at how much time I've spent just browsing through the examples in this book.

2) Excellent differentiation between multiple meanings of a word. If there are multiple Hebrew words that correspond to a given English word, they are very clearly differentiated, often with examples that further clarify when to use which (see above).

3) The vocabulary covered is VERY comprehensive and covers all ranges of style, from literary to colloquial (including, I was happy to discover, many obscenities).

This dictionary also is not necessarily for beginners. Some reasons that it's not necessarily for beginners:

1) It's English-to-Hebrew only; if you're looking for a very first dictionary, you might do better with a bilingual one.

2) It doesn't list the gender of nouns, nor does it list irregular plurals. (Gender and plurals can generally be figured out, if you know the rules, but it's nice to have them made explicit.)

Since this dictionary is published by Oxford, the English is overwhelmingly British. This is most obvious in the fact that many British idiomatic expressions are included, while American ones seem less well-represented...

Rating:
Summary: A phenomenal dictionary, perhaps not for beginners
Review: This is a phenomenal dictionary. Some things that make it so great:

1) Huge numbers of usage examples, at a wide range of levels of
formality. The examples give information that's lacking in most dictionaries, such as which preposition(s) to use with a given verb. They also contain a wealth of idiomatic constructions. I'm amazed at how much time I've spent just browsing through the examples in this book.

2) Excellent differentiation between multiple meanings of a word. If there are multiple Hebrew words that correspond to a given English word, they are very clearly differentiated, often with examples that further clarify when to use which (see above).

3) The vocabulary covered is VERY comprehensive and covers all ranges of style, from literary to colloquial (including, I was happy to discover, many obscenities).

This dictionary also is not necessarily for beginners. Some reasons that it's not necessarily for beginners:

1) It's English-to-Hebrew only; if you're looking for a very first dictionary, you might do better with a bilingual one.

2) It doesn't list the gender of nouns, nor does it list irregular plurals. (Gender and plurals can generally be figured out, if you know the rules, but it's nice to have them made explicit.)

Since this dictionary is published by Oxford, the English is overwhelmingly British. This is most obvious in the fact that many British idiomatic expressions are included, while American ones seem less well-represented...

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference book!
Review: This is a very comprehensive Engish-Hebrew dictionary which includes many slang and colloquial expressions. Many example sentences are provided. My main criticism of this book is that it does not provide the plural form of Hebrew nouns, and does not provide the masculine, feminine and plural forms of adjectives, but only gives the masculine form.

A note on the slang used in this book: there are loads of current and slang expressions in the book, which is great. As I am American, I noticed that quite a bit of the English slang is British -- not American slang, which is not necessarily a criticism but a comment. There were quite a few British slang expressions that I did not understand, but only understood from reading the Hebrew translation. Overall I think this is a wonderful reference tool, and I look forward to the release of the companion volume (Hebrew-English).