Concise English-Tagalog Dictionary (Tuttle Language Library)

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing in some respects, useful in others...
Review: Mr. Panganiban is (was?) a respected Philippine linguist. So I am a bit disappointed that this dictionary is only one-way. But the content is useful. However some words have multiple meanings and it doesn't say how they should be used.

However, I did like the section with the affix charts and their meanings.. That was very useful.

I also feel that the dictionary should have been updated more.

Rating:
Summary: Dated, but useful
Review: This dictionary is specifically intended for beginning students, it contains a limited vocabulary(I guess about 7000-8000) English entries, each entry is given from 1 to 4-5 Tagalog equivalents, different meanings of English entry words are shown by synonyms, eg. english_entry - (english_synonym1) tagalog_meaning1, (english_synonym2) tagalog_meaning2, (english_synonym3) tagalog_meaning3 etc. Accent place and glottal stops - an important feature of Tagalog - is clearly shown. The list of affixes appears to be very useful.

In short introduction the author relates the troubled circumstances of the WWII in whgich this short dictionary was born.

Of course the dictionary is dated, however since it deals only with the very basics of the language which change but very little with the time, it can be quite useful for the contemporary student.