Italian-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary

We work with Italians and it is very helpful and fun. I set the book out and everyone at work used it. Several people even made offers to buy it from me.

I can't say this is a pocket-size book, it's actually quite large and very heavy, so probably not ideal for travel. BUT, it's got so many pictures of items you will be using during your trip, I love to recommend this book to both my students as well as travelers. It's got beautifully colored pages and virtually any item you'll ever need to reference in Italian, from food, to vehicles, animals, household items, plants, etc. It's excellent for all those in general who want to expand their Italian vocabulary, as well as for pre-trip preparation. AN IMPORTANT NOTE: As much as there are over 6,000 words and phrases, there is no writing on how they are pronounced! So, you will need to learn some basic language skills to be able to use this book to the fullest.

I thought this dictionary was a cool concept. I noticed maybe one or two errors while I surveyed this book at a local bookstore, but apart from that, I liked it alot. Great photographs and good layout. I wish that it had been more extensive like the Oxford version or even an online version. Definitely a good tool for learning Italian -- no better way of knowing than by seeing! Keith [...]

Dorling Kindersley makers of the popular Eyewitness Travel Guides have created an interesitng little volume that works as both a visual dictionary and vocabulary builder. Using full color photographs and diagrams, the book's 360 pages offer fairly comprehensive groupings of nouns with appropriate verbs and some idiomatic phrases for the different categories of People (body parts, expressions, family) Appearance (clothing and grooming), Health (ailments, exercise), Home (house, workshop, decorating, gardening), Services (emergency, banking, telephone etc.), Shopping(markets, florist, pharmacy, etc.), Food (fruits, vegetables, dairy, etc.), Eating Out(restaurant, breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.) Study (school, science, math etc.), Work (office, computer, farm, etc.), Transportation (roads, cars, trains, buses, planes etc.), Sports (Soccor, basketball, hockey etc.), Leisure (arts, music, games, outdoor activities, camping, etc.), Environment (Space, the earth, landscape, plants, animals, etc.), and reference( time, numbers, weights and measures,maps, useful phrases etc.). The book also includes a full index of Italian to English and English to Italian words cross-referenced with the page number where they appear in the book. My only complaint about the book is its failure to be Italian specific. As I also have the French English Bilingual Visual Dictionary published by the same company, I can say with some regret that the format and the pictures are identical in both books. In the Food section, for example, there is no section that introduces specifically Italian cheeses, concentrates on depicting Italian desserts or gives some rudimentary introduction to the Italian amero or digestivo. I would have liked to see specific Italian brand names depicted so that when I do go to the market or the coffee bar in Italy, I would already have an idea of what the packaging or product looks like as well as the correct word because I was using the book as a primer prior to my venture. In addition, in the building section, I would like to have seen Italian specific buildings i.e. Il Colosseo along with the generic buildings of the church, the mosque etc. Although not absolutely necessary, I would like to see the edges of the pages color-coded or indexed like a dictionary with fingertabs which would enable the user to better find the appropriate section with less skimming through the entire book. As I think this is a great reference for the traveler, I would have loved to have brought it along on a recent trip to Italy. More importantly, as a student of Italian, I fully appreciate the visual cataloguing which jumpstarts any essay writing or conversational skills building in Italian on any of the detailed subjects. Recommended as a concise, attractively formatted book in the style of other easy to read Eyewitness publications.