Book recommendations.

[decamerenne]

What dictionary would you consider to be absolutely necessary for a student of advanced French?

I am interested in teaching myself the basics of Hindi, Nepali, and Sanskrit. What books would you recommend?

And I think this is a long shot, but has anyone come across a good book for learning Chechen?

Comments

[sohnyrin]

Le petit Robert is a good dictionary and for hindi you could use "teach yourself hindi", it comes with a cd.. I'm currently leaning with it, it's not perfect but a good start for everyday hindi speaking. I haven't tried other books so maybe someone else could recomand you the best one.

[decamerenne]

I'm never sure about the Teach Yourself series - for some languages it's great (Turkish), but for others it's almost useless (Icelandic).

But it's always nice to hear something positive about a language in the series because of how inexpensive it is.

[bugtilaheh]

www.wordreference.com

http://www.avashy.com/hindiscripttutor.htm

[decamerenne]

I saw the 2nd in your comment to someone else who asked about Hindi. It's a great start, thank you.

[bugtilaheh]

I don't think that was me (I did bookmark the site because now I'm curious as well), but Hindi seems quiet popular these past few weeks! I wonder why?

[foudebassan]

Robert&Collins is the reference French/English/French dictionary, otherwise I second wordreference.

[qalanjo]

It is almost impossible to find anything for Chechen, but you're lucky since you aren't very far away from Georgia.. So if you go, browse bookstores/street vendors and you can find something there ; )

[muckefuck]

For Hindi, this recent entry should be helpful.

Chechen's a tough call. I think Hippocrene publishes a (mediocre) dictionary, but the only resources covering grammar I've seen in English are the works of Johanna Nichols, such as this online grammar.

[ubykhlives]

Yes, the Hippocrene dictionary is considered to be second-rate at best. I've read it, and it's not big, not comprehensive and not really very good. It's very like the Berlitz pocket dictionaries, not meant for intensive study, but aimed more at the tourist of Chechnya (!). From what I understand, Nicholas Awde rushed somewhat into publishing it.

I have a digital copy of a very good Chechen-Russian dictionary, but it's unidirectional, so not much good for someone who wants to properly learn Chechen. I can send that to whomever wants it, but I'd agree re: Nichols. Nichols and Vagapov is probably the best bet for a Chechen-English-Chechen dictionary. I haven't read it myself, and it's extremely expensive (about US$220), but Nichols is widely regarded as one of the top Chechen linguists writing in English at the moment.

[qalanjo]

I don't like any of Nicholas Awde's books ;(