Title: Worthless for musicians: no IPA, and very little other pronunciation help
Product review: I bought this dictionary to use when working on vocal music in Italian. I've used other Cassell's dictionaries before, so I assumed this would be just as good. Unfortunately the Italian portion of the dictionary gives very little information about pronunciation. The author's lame excuse for this is that Italian is "almost phonetic" -- which is true, but the "almost" part of that statement is very important. For singers, it is very important to know what vowel to sing. In Italian, the letters E and O may be pronounced either open (as in the English words "get" and "cotton") or closed (roughly as in "gate" or "coat"). This is not a trivial difference; what's more, there are no 100% effective "rules" to tell you which version of the vowel to use in any given case. You have to.... that's right, consult a dictionary. Unfortunately this one is no help.
Would you say this review depicts the product in a flattering or unflattering light?
