...would have to be Raymond Faulkner's A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian - it's really an essential text. It contains well over 5000 words from memory and shows hieroglyph, transliterated meaning and English meaning in that order.

And of course if you buy that then David Shennum's book English-Egyptian Index of Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian is a must have too. All dictionaries, with the exception of Shennum's, provide Egyptian-English and work from the transliterated 'alphabet' which is very different to what we are accustomed to. Without an understanding of how that works, none of the dictionaries are easy to use, even the word listings at the rear of books such as Gardiner's grammar.

Access the 'alphabet' of uniliteral signs here: Uniliteral signs: sign, symbol, transliteration and sound. An explanation of what transliteration is and how it functions can be found here: Transliteration, uniliteral signs and the kitchen sink.

Collectively, these three books will provide you with the tools needed to effectively learn Middle Egyptian.

Other useful tools, Isis, are the 5 Gardiner fonts: The Gardiner font sets with keyboard sheets and the transliteration font from the CCER (Centre for Computer-aided Egyptological Research) and companion keyboard sheet.

Good luck! *s*