Foreign Language and Classics' Dictionaries

I have just managed to purchase the LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon Liddell and Scott - the unabridged volume - for an incredibly low price of USD $65 from OUP (USA).

I already had the Intermediate volume but always had hoped for owning the full version. On the good value budget side I recommend (and own) the Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary by James Morwood. the sister volume on grammar is also great.

My hope remains that I will do likewise with a Ltin dictionary although I am happy with two I own - a Latin- English original Cassell's in thumbed hardback and my CT Lewis' Elementary Latin Dictionary.

For a light budget, I think the Collins' Concise Latin Dictionary as good value too.

Now that you've had a few months to peruse it, are you glad you invested in the full L & S? Potentially, it's as exciting to look through as the full OED, though mercifully restricted to a single volume. However, as my knowledge of Greek is not equivalent to my understanding of English, I always feel somewhat inadequate when I put it down.

Have you got the Oxford Latin Dictionary yet? When I first studied Latin, years ago at school, Lewis and Short was the ultimate authority and I believe it still has some merits.

Yes, I am very happy with it. I also have the 'Intermediate' but nothing can really stand in for the original. I have to wear some reading glasses when I use these bigger dictionaries as there is so much in each page. And I might add, my Greek is waning by the month, so I am hoping this investment will be somewhat of an incentive.

The Latin Oxford, I am yet to get hold of at a reasonable price. I have a 50's hard-cover Cassels which is very handy alongside my bigger CT Lewis Elementary Latin Dictionary - which is modestly named of course.

Well done, LesMis, and congratulations. I'm also hoping that one day I will be able to pursue studies in Greek soon. My six-year-old niece already loves everything about the Ancient Greeks and could recite the Greek alphabet since she was four, so she is like waiting for me to teach her something else, to which I can only gaze down in shame.

My one and only suggestion is to throw scorn upon the trendy idea that learning by rote (esp. vocabulary) is a thing of the past. It is an absolute foundation for your studies.

My MA Lecturer was of the new school that considered vocabulary to be something that will build as you progress. Well it doesn't (not with me anyway). My grammar I think is quite good in Attic Greek but that will hardly get you anywhere when you are looking blind at a piece of text.

Having a pot full of vocabulary will on the other hand give you the gist of what is going on, so to sum up, make learning vocabulary a priority.

>5 LesMiserables:

I agree. There's no short cut to vocabulary unless you can spend a few months conversing with ancient Greeks.

Whether or not one is reading a foreign language, I expect it would only do good to have something like a Latin dictionary in the home, just for hell of it.

>2 boldface: Sometime back now I managed to get the Oxford Latin 2v from FS. 👍🏻