the best around
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Over the years I have used several Swedish-English dictionaries and the Routledge is by far and away the best there is (unless you want to spend four times the amount). It is the only dictionary I've found that covers gender and plural for nouns (although they use nine plural classifications rather than the more general five it does have the advantage of reducing the number of irregular plurals). It also categorises adjectives..a great help to beginners.
It does give the international phonetic pronunciation for those Swedish words that may give the student cause for doubt although I would agree that a perfect dictionary would give all pronunciation. Generally speaking Swedish does not have the inconsistency of pronunciation that exists in English so the phonetics are not so critical for Swedish.
I have yet to find a Swedish Dictionary that copes with all English idioms in the way that the Collins Robert does for French-English but until a Swedish equivalent of the Collins comes along this gets five stars from me. It has been a great help in lifting the level of accuracy in my Swedish
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Not for a beginner
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Having had a very good experience with the Routledge Dutch dictionary,I had high hopes for the corresponding Swedish dictionary. Though it is undoubtedly very comprehensive it has major drawbacks for someonewho is starting to learn the language. It should be noted that it is basically a Swedish publication which has been patched up to make an English version. The most immediately disappointing feature is that
phonetic pronunciations are, for the most part, omitted (or partial) for the Swedish words though they are given for all the English words! Noun endings are not given explicitly but are indicated via rules and codes and why is there a section on English grammar written in Swedish but not a corresponding section on Swedish grammar written in English?
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Would give more stars if possible
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I have now been studying swedish over here in sweden for 2 months and can safely say that from all the dictionaries that people have in class, this is by far the best one. No only does it do both sweidh to english ans visa versa (you would be amazed by how many dont do this) it gives you all the information you need on each word, like if it is a 'en' or a 'ett' word, what type of plural etc it would take, what kind of verb ending each verb has, as well as pointing out when it is an irregular verb, PLUS it gives handy little sentences that the word/verbs are used in, some that you would never be able to put together yourself.
Seriously i cannot recommend this book enough.
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