Vietnamese-English/English-Vietnamese Dictionary: With a Supplement of New Words, English-Vietnamese (Hippocrene Standard Dictionary)

Rating:
Summary: Not terribly useful
Review: I am studying Vietnamese in college, and I have found that this book causes more confusion than it helps. It does not cleary define words, and it is inconsistent when translating from english to vietnamese and vietnamese to english. I would definitely not recommend this book. However, I did give it two stars (instead of one) because it did contain some obscure words I would not be able to find else where (like 'Jesus freak'). :)

Rating:
Summary: Barely acceptable
Review: This dictionary serves its purpose as a dictionary, giving Vietnamese equivalents for English words and English equivalents for Vietnamese words. If you expect any more than that, such as explanations on how to pronounce Vietnamese, grammatical explanations, or other resources that may helpful to the foreign learner of Vietnamese, you will have to look elsewhere. Things like sections on synonyms and antonyms in English would seem to make this dictionary more suited to the Vietnamese-speaking learner of English. The print quality isn't as horrible as it is in some Hippocrene dictionaries, but readability in some spots is iffy. This is especially a problem given the intricate array of accent marks that Vietnamese uses.

Rating:
Summary: probably the worst dictionary I have ever had to use
Review: This seems to be made up of many obsolete words. There was no intoduction to explain how the Vietnamese alphabet is used - that it is in a different order than in English. It explains to the Vietnamese user how the English is pronounced but does not do the same for the English speaker.