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Book Review of Berlitz East European Phrase Book

Berlitz East European Phrase Book
reviewed on


Well, if you're going to put 12 languages in a small book designed to fit in a shirt pocket, you're not going to get much. And that's what you get here: not much. The 3 stars I give here are "E for effort" (12 languages!), but for practical usefulness, that would drop to about 1.5. And part of that is due to the chronic shortcoming of Berlitz (and most) phrasebooks: everything is organized in categories. Unfortunately, there are several billion categories in this world, and Berlitz pays homage to less than 20. My advice, if you plan to travel to 12 countries with different languages, invest a few dollars in digital phrasebooks for each one. You can do a vast amount more communicating and you don't have to worry about wear and tear on your shirt pockets.