Malagasy-English, English-Malagasy: Dictionary and Phrasebook

by Janie Rasoloson

Book Overview

An Austronesian language with over 14 million speakers, Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar and is also spoken on the island of Mayotte (Comoro Islands). Designed for the traveler, this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 078180843X
• ISBN13: 9780781808439
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books
• Length: 171 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

A must have for Madagascar travelers

This book is excellent for what it is. It is not an all encompassing dictionary to make you proficient in the language. However, it is a great little book to give you the basics. I used it extensively. The only problem I had was the pronunciation section was hard to follow.

More than phrasebook in guides books but not much.

I would prefer more of the phrasebook but when you do not have what you like, you have to like what you have. There is a short introduction to the Malgasy language and then dictionary kicks in.

Malagasy Dictionary

Being a relative unknown language this book has done a good job in many respects. There are difficulties with the language in that it is more of a spoken language rather than written. It is also difficult if not impossible to learn the sounds of the Malagasy language as the Malagasy elide (omit) many syllables in their speech, therefore making it necessary to actually hear the Malagasy speak. Also, there are 22 regions in Madagascar and sometimes it is hard even for the Malagasy to understand each other. The biggest problem I have with this dictionary is the ability to cross-reference words from one language to the other. The same words do not appear in both languages (Malagasy and English). Also, there are some words which are not able to be translated from Malagasy but are important in their sentence structure and are not explained in the book. This may be a harsh critism since the book is not intended to be a grammar book! Therefore I gave the book a 4 for it's intended purpose.

Useful

This dictionary was quite useful to me on a recent trip to Madagascar. It has wonderful sections divided into subject matter such as: "Meeting & Greetings", "Eating/Meals", "Camping", "Typical Travel Interactions". and other such helpful categories. As this seems to be the only Malagasy dictionary available in the U.S., it definately served its purpose well!