“[The book] stands out for its excellent organization, systematic approach, detailed grammatical information and a variety of usage examples.”—Anatoly Liberman, University of Minnesota
Praise for the first edition:
“Sophia Lubensky’s long-awaited Random House Russian-English Dictionary of Idioms is a work of exquisite scholarship that . . . represents a quantum leap in the mediation between colloquial Russian and colloquial English, and sets new standards of comprehension and precision. It is destined to become an essential prop for translators from Russian to English, and is unlikely to be surpassed in this generation.”—Prof. Michael Scammell, Columbia University, biographer of Aleksandr Solzheni-tsyn and Arthur Koestler
“Your book is a first-rate piece of work and I don’t hand out such compliments lightly. Just collecting all those idioms, I’m sure, was no small job. And the English translations are excellent—wonderfully idiomatic and usually catching the meaning exactly. Do I have any criticism to make of it at all? No, I have none. It is an outstanding achievement.”—Kenneth Katzner, author of English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary
“I LOVE YOUR DICTIONARY OF RUSSIAN IDIOMS. There, I’ve said it. I couldn’t live without it.” —Michael R. Katz, Middlebury College
“All who seek or need to understand the intricate world of Russian idioms, as at some stage all students, speakers, and readers of Russian must, since they form an integral part of the language, will be more than indebted to Professor Sophia Lubensky, who with her editorial team and publishers has produced a reference resource of rare finesse.”—Adrian Room, International Journal of Lexicography, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 1998
“Russian idiom dictionaries are like cable television channels: lots of choices but nothing you want to look at. Sophia Lubensky’s dictionary changes all that. . . . This comprehensive volume not only fills a long-standing lexicographic void but also serves as a model of how such a dictionary should be structured. . . . In scope, Lubensky’s effort dwarfs all previous attempts.”—Richard M. Robin, Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 2, Summer 1996
“It has occurred to me many times that we don’t thank fellow scholars enough for all they do for us, and at last I have been spurred into action. I want to thank you most sincerely for the splendid tool you have provided me and many others with your dictionary of Russian idioms. I use it constantly and sometimes enjoy just thumbing through it. It really is an amazing piece of work, and I can’t imagine how you managed to do it, to collect all the items and the quotations to illustrate them, and especially to figure out appropriate English equivalents—it seems it would take an army of researchers to assemble all that. And the translations are so good! Really, we are much in your debt, and I wanted you to know that your work is appreciated and admired.”—Hugh McLean, University of California, Berkeley
“An absolutely stunning piece of work. For what it sets out to do, it is easily the best reference book on translation that I have ever seen. The reasons are quite simple. First, whether I expect to find a phrase in the index or don’t expect to, I almost invariably find it. I can barely remember a case when I looked for an entry and failed to find it. The index is impeccably done. Second, the various options for rendering a specific idiom are almost always right on the mark, or at least one of
them is. And if not, they certainly give a clear enough idea so that I can use my own preferred phrase. Third, and somewhat intimidating, this book has astonished me with how many idiomatic Russian expressions I was not familiar with.”—Steven Shabad, ATA-certified translator
“Before another day goes by, I must tell you that every translator on the staff of The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press greatly admires your Dictionary of Idioms and makes daily use of it. There is a personal copy on almost every desk as well as a ‘public’ one on the reference table. I can think of no other single reference work that solves as many problems for us as yours does. It’s almost as good as having a very literate native informant with a native grasp of English at your elbow with nothing else to do all day long but help you translate Russian idioms. I’ve wanted to communicate this to you for over a year, and finally hit on the idea of finding your e-mail through the University internet directory.” — Timothy D. Sergay, University at Albany
“This dictionary of Russian idioms and set expressions, compiled over the course of twelve years of research, is the most comprehensive, scholarly, and important Russian language reference book on the market today. . . . This dictionary serves as both a valuable reference book and a valuable teaching tool because of the way it has been designed and presented.”— Jonathan Z. Ludwig, Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 44, No. 4, Winter 2000
“I can’t tell you how many times your dictionary has rescued me in my work. It’s obvious how much thought, scholarship, and hard work has gone into its making. So, in three words—spasibo bol’shoe Vam!”—Elliott B. Urdang, MD, MA (in Russian)
“The compilation and publication of this dictionary is an enormous achievement of the author and an outstanding event in Russian-English lexicography. It fills a glaring gap in the otherwise fairly explored ground of Russian-English translation dictionaries. . . . Strictly speaking, Sophia Lubensky’s dictionary is not the first of its kind, but it is definitely first in its class. . . . An unquestionable merit and achievement of S. Lubensky’s dictionary is a very thorough and innovative approach to the content and structure of each dictionary entry. This dictionary displays the distinct subtlety and profundity of S. Lubensky’s understanding of complex language processes and phenomena like homonymy, polysemy, lexical variants versus synonyms and so on.”—Nonna Danchenko, New Zealand Slavonic Journal, Vol. 32, 1998
“Sophia Lubensky deserves full praise for the academic side of this mammoth and highly professional lexicographic work.”—Paul Cubberley, University of Melbourne, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1995