Random House Webster's Pocket Portuguese Dictionary [Large Print]

By: Random House

Book Overview

Random House Webster's Pocket Portuguese Dictionary features over 38,000 entries in a compact, pocketsize edition. Unlike most previous Portuguese-English, English-Portuguese dictionaries, this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Large Print: Yes
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679400605
• ISBN13: 9780679400608
• Release Date: March 1991
• Publisher: Random House Reference
• Length: 420 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 3.1" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Good Enough Portuguese-English Dictionary

I bought this dictionary to help me in my Portuguese short course before I travel as well as to use on the trip. So far it has had an entry for everything I looked for but, obviously, there was no practical way to see if it has all the words I will ever need. I wish it had been published on thinner paper so that the entire book would fit better in a pocket. I have a German-English and a Spanish-English that are smaller and thinner. There is no reasonable way to know if they contain the vocabulary this one does. However, this is small enough and will be OK if I carry it in my camera bag or have cargo pants with fatter pockets. Overall I recommend the book.

Great book for modest needs

This bilingual dictionary's two greatest virtues are its compact yet readable format and its affordable price. As a bonus, there are brief lists of common words and phrases at the front and back. And, to make it useful in the field, this readily fits many pockets. Best, its plastic slipcover will protect it when your pocket turns sweaty, as it so often will in the countries where Portuguese predominates. This meets my limited needs, as someone who comes across the occasional Portuguese word in passing. Many high school language students will also find that it has all the vocabulary they need. This isn't a scholar's reference, though. Translated definitions tend towards the terse, so they won't cover all usages of a term. It offers plenty if you don't need much, and that's good enough for me right now. //wiredweird

Excellent Pocket Dictionary

I compared this pocket dictionary with the much larger Larousse Portuguese-English, English-Portuguese Dictionary and found that the small pocket Random House often offers much better translations. For example, Larousse translates "naftalina" as "naphthaline" (not very helpful!), while the Random House gives "moth balls." Larousse says that "namoro" is "relationship" (leading the reader to think that it could be any relationship), while Random House translates it as "going steady" (much clearer!). Meter o nariz in Larousse is "to stick one's nose in" (which it what it literally means), but Random House gives "to meddle" (much more concise and to the point). For narigudo Larousse tells us "with a large nose," but Random House gives us an adjective we can put in a sentence: big-nosed. For narcotráfico, Larousse gives "drug traffic" while Random House gives "drug smuggling" (I find the latter easier to understand). All in all, a bargain at $6.95, and small enough to carry in your vest pocket. Congratulations to the author, Bobby J. Chamberlain, at the University of Pittsburgh.

Outstanding

I'm a freelance Portuguese-to-English translator and consider myself quite proficient in Brazilian Portuguese. On that basis, I can only offer praise for this dictionary. It's wonderfully comprehensive, as good as dictionaries that are physically much bulkier. It's delightful to find, in a work this size, words such as "chafurdar" (to wallow in the mud). I used this dictionary on a recent trip while reading Bernardo Carvalho's 1998 novel "Teatro" and found that it had a definition for every obscure word I didn't know. Highly recommended.