A one sided dictionary that is too concise, October 1, 2000

Let me start off by saying that I used this dictionary for three years as a university student studying Arabic. It was the only English to Arabic dictionary that I could find. It was helpful, but there were many things that I did not like. Let me tell you of my experience using this book.

THE GOOD: 1) It is small and lightweight. This was invaluable for walking around campus, especially when it was only one of the ten books that I had to carry around! 2) It is a hardback book. This was quite nice because when it was one of many books that were constantly being loaded and unloaded from my backpack (not to mention the frequent usage) it was the only one that lasted for three years and still ended up in good shape.

THE BAD: 1) It is too concise. I have the 1982 edition (which I purchased in 1996), and the beginning of the book contains absolutely no information about entries, abbreviations or anything else. The concise nature of this dictionary also makes the Arabic script rather small, cramped and hard to read. 2) It is only English to Arabic. This means that you have to buy another dictionary if you need to have Arabic to English translations. 3) Sometimes there are multiple Arabic words for one English entry. No help is offered about which one would apply to a given situation. I found myself using the first word only, and then asking native speakers or my teacher if that was the right word. 4) There are no appendices. No tables, no charts, no help.

I had to have this dictionary. It proved useful at times, yet it also proved very frustrating. Hopefully Oxford takes (or has taken) the time to update and improve this dictionary. Until then - good luck.

Adequate, but there are better available, August 30, 2001

This is not the only English-Arabic dictionary you want to own. Its choice of translations is limited, as might be expected of a concise dictionary; the words that most commonly or accurately translate major meanings of English words are frequently omitted, which should not be expected of any dictionary. The absence of an Arabic-English portion of the dictionary is hardly a flaw, and I am surprised that a student of Arabic would cite it as such; the underlying organization of Arabic-English translation is much better left to the root-based system of Hans Wehr. (If you study Arabic and don't own a Hans Wehr, you're not serious about what you're doing.) I recommend two alternative dictionaries. Al-Munged is large, heavy, thorough, and well illustrated and organized. Al-Mawrid is just as respected, if not more so, and probably an equally good investment. I spent an hour in a Cairo bookstore looking up a list of about 20 test words in both dictionaries; this hardly comprehensive survey favored Al-Munged, but not overwhelmingly. Al-Mawrid also makes a small paperback concise dictionary that I find much more useful than the Oxford Concise, and it's smaller to boot.

This dictionary was required material for my first Arabic course. However, I often found natives saying "we never use this" when I would ask them about translations found in the dictionary. Very rarely, if ever, are the translations within it correct.

As such, it has found its place in my home as a home-made picture frame. If you need an English-Arabic dictionary, you can't go wrong with Al-Mawrid. I'd stay away from the Oxford at all costs. It is so concise it has left out accuracy altogether.

The Best Out There, November 1, 2004

This is the only english to arabic dictionary you'll find that gives you thorough examples of usage. There is simply no substitute for the Oxford English to Arabic for Arabic students of any level. The british colloquialisms can be very funny to the American reader. (...)Apart from the quirks it is extremely handy.

decent (...), April 12, 2004

as arabic dictionaries go, this is not bad. (compared to the standards of english-european language dictionaries, it's terrible. unfortunately no english-arabic or arabic-english dictionaries measure up to these standards.) the presence of plurals/imperfect verbs/etc. in the arabic is very nice as it saves having to look them up in your hans wehr, but at the same time it takes away space, and this dictionary, despite its bulkiness, is not nearly complete enough. you will get frustrated trying to find translations of abstract nouns and verbs, phrasal verbs, etc, as many of them are simply missing, or translations for only some senses are present. what's worse, there are no glosses to separate out the senses, and even worse than this, the translations given are often not correct in terms of providing the most-used term first, despite the title's claim of covering "current usage".

(...)

NOT the best dictionary for students new to Arabic, December 23, 2003

I purchased this book based on the mostly glowing reviews from other reviewers and I am very disappointed. The Arabic fonts used are SO small that, at times, it is actually quite difficult to make out the letters. Definitely, NOT a book for people who are new to the language.