Arabic-English Dictionary: The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

This dictionary is like a collection of unfinished notes. There is no description of how and why the data is organised. There is no vowel marking whatsoever, no initial hamza, and no dots under final ya. Not once. Some undocumented transcription system is supposed to compensate for all of the previously mentioned drawbacks, but every now and then the transliteration is completely lacking. Did I mention that alif roots are listed at the end of the alphabet under wa or ya for no apparent reason? At least most words are in the dictionary, if you take your time to search carefully. This does not prevent the authors to be in awe with their own work as they go on about how great it is in the preface. Also, expect definitions to be all bundled in disarray as there is no easy way to tell what the main meaning is. And despite all this, this is the best root based Arabic English dictionary ever published. I hope someday we will be able to buy a high quality dictionary instead.

This is a very reliable and accurate work that is a great tool for students, teachers, researchers and translators.
It is a wonderful tool to have.

This is the ONLY, I repeat ONLY Arabic-English Dictionary worthy of consideration by anyone studying Arabic at any level. This is my third copy over the past 30 years. It is the one issued to US military linguists. Unfortunately, For reverse lookup,(English to Arabic) there simply does not exist anything of comparable worth or usefulness. For those who have also studied Biblical Hebrew, the format of this dictionary mirrors very closely the root-system approach in the BROWN-DRIVER-BRIGGS-GESENIUS LEXICON.

This dictionary is arranged by way of roots of the arabic words rather than alphabetically as you would expect in an English dictionary. This is the way arabic language is meant to be learnt and hence this arrangement is beneficial to any serious student of arabic. It may take a little getting used to but once you get the hang of it you will be able to gain the full benefit of this approach. Recommended for anyone learning either modern standard arabic or classical arabic. There is no other comparable product to this. Lane's multi volume lexicon uses similar approach but it's language is antiquated, expensive and heck of a lot bulkier than the Hans Wehr dictionary.

I wanted to throw in my two cents-- this is an excellent work, for sure, and I can not critique the finer points of the dictionary as I am by no means an Arabic scholar but that also puts me more on a level with most Arabic students and English speakers who will be buying this book as a resource to learn Arabic. The book is easy to use if you're looking up Arabic words for their English translation, but it completely lacks the very useful index that you can find in a dictionary like Larousse' Dictionnaire Arabe-Francais. I would recommend Larousse over Hans-Wehr for any French speaker simply because that index means you can find arabic roots that relate to the French word you're trying to translate into Arabic. Most of my serious study sessions use both of these dictionaries, so I find Hans Wehr a great resource, but by no means is it "definitive"Larousse As Sabil Al Wasit : Arabe/français, français/arabe