Product Description

Containing over 35,000 entries, this comprehensive dictionary is designed to aid speakers of English and Swahili alike in navigating the growing global vocabulary of business, travel, tourism, politics, telecommunications, computers, and the internet. It features up-to-date entries in handy reference form, and includes useful appendices listing English irregular verbs and their translations, Swahili noun classes, and useful phrases and vocabulary.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32795 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 596 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780781804806
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Nicholas Awde is an author and linguist specializing in the Caucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He has authored and/or edited more than 25 titles, including a Swahili-English/English-Swahili Dictionary and Phrasebook, also published by Hippocrene.

Customer Reviews

Practical indeed, and very handy!
This Swahili-English / English-Swahili pocket dictionary is very handy. Its 596 pages cover over 35,000 entries in both languages. The English words have the phonetic transcriptions, whereas the Swahili nouns have their plurals shown in brackets.
As it is written in the foreword, this practical dictionary proves to be "an aid in navigating the growing global vocabulary of politics, telecommunications, computers, the Internet, tourism, business and travel."
At the end of the book there are some useful pages on English irregular verbs (infinitive Swahili verbs are given in brackets), Swahili noun classes, useful phrases and vocabulary, cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers, weighs and measures, time, days of the week, months, star signs.

A must-have for the traveling physician or medical student
This small dictionary and phrase book fits easily into your lab coat pocket and will prove to be infinately helpful for physicians and students traveling among Swahili speaking populations. There is a small but comprehensive medical section in the back that outlines body parts and useful questions like, "are you having diarrhea".

Not so very good
Yes, this dictionary has lots of words (as another reviewer states), but that doesn't make it great. It does not tell you the most important thing about Swahili nouns - what class they are in. This means that for the learner, the dictionary is pretty useless if you're trying to construct a decent sentence!
Unfortunately it's pretty much the only big dictionary available so you probably have to buy it, but don't expect too much from it.