Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary

Looked up the word float; not there. Plane, not there. Crane, not there. Spear, not there. Comprise, not there. Sly, not there. Prominent, not there. I got this dictionary yesterday, looked up the above words and zip. Nothing. Keeping it only because I have nothing else. Buyer beware. Ostensibly, impossible to learn Hindi using this book.

My only complaint about this dictionary is that it's not more extensive. My Oxford English-to-Hindi dictionary was clearly designed for Hindi speakers learning English, not the other way around. Not so the Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary. Where multiple translations apply, this dictionary gives not only the translations, but a plentiful supply of usage examples. In the front there is a clear, comprehensive section of the Devanagari script -- including an exhaustive list of consonant conjuncts and a concise grammar reference. The ambitious student could gain an elementary understanding of the language using this book alone -- though I don't recommend it.

If I ran the world and could improve this book in any way I wanted, I would only expand it to include more words. The material that IS there is excellent, I just wish there were more of it. That's the only reason I hold back from giving 5 stars.

Whether you're teaching yourself or getting formal instruction, this is one reference you should NOT be without. And the price should be within any budget.

I began learning Hindi a semester and a half ago, this is a good dictionary for me at my stage right now. it offers a single word translations as well as phrase translations. I recommend it to people learning Hindi.

very good indeed but a pity it does not exist with more entries specially in english. Romanized characters for beginners and well choosen words.

I am a third year Hindi Student at UW-Madison and I must say I was skeptical of such a small dictionary, but the one is pretty good. It has sentence examples for most of the verbs and it points out when the structure in Hindi is different from the structure in English so you learn a good bit about usage while using the dictionary as well. It is a small dictionary, but the selection of words is very good.