Lonely Planet Eastern Europe Phrasebook & Dictionary Paperback – February 15, 2013

The book was in pristine condition.

The guide covers a good bit of the language and culture information for the area we traveled. It is small enough that my wife could keep it handy in her shoulder bag. However, one trades size and portability for print size more friendly to the eyes. So, for the money it was a worthwhile purchase.

Incredibly helpful! I married into a family whose language I knew nothing about and this guide book was a life saver!

Excellent! Thanks !

Small size makes it easy to travel with and the phrases include the most commonly needed travel phrases.Great little book!

If you're buying this because it has Russian or (possibly) Polish, don't bother. There are better single-language phrasebooks out there. But for some of the less "trendy" languages, such as Albanian, Macedonian, Slovak, and Slovene, it can be difficult to find an in-print phrase book at all let alone one that is actually GOOD. This one is... okay. Each language has more or less the same phrases within, the exception being the "menu decoder". This is a list of ethnic dishes that you might find when you go out to eat somewhere. Each menu is specific to the country that speaks the language in question. Other than that, there are some essential phrases that will help you get to your hotel and not get completely ripped off by the taxi driver ("please turn on/use the meter"). The unique table of contents format should help you to find what you need quickly.It is, however, missing some very basic vocabulary that tourists will need to know. The dictionaries have "fish" in them but not chicken, beef, or pork. Instead of these, you get the helpfully generic "meat". For some languages, you can make an educated guess based on the menu decoder - but that's not a guarantee. At least it also includes phrases about being allergic to dairy, gluten, MSG, nuts, and seafood for those who need that information conveyed.If you're only going to be in a country for a few days, you can probably get by with this and the patience of locals. If you're going to be staying longer, use this book to find the nearest bookstore (pages 30, 70, 110, 150, 189, 230, 270, 310, 350, 390, and 429) to your hotel and buy a phrase book locally.Also, the print in this book is about on par with the font size of care label instructions on clothing. If you have trouble reading those, this might not be the book for you. Being nearsighted, I have no issues with the font size. But I know it might be a problem for some people.

On the map of Russia Samara is not at the Samara Bend. Otherwise no complaints. The introductions to each section have plenty of fun information. Obviously they skipped over some of Eastern Europe to include more of Southern Europe.

Great