3 comments about Improving Your Thai Pronunciation.

1. I was delighted when I first bought this book and CD in Thailand. It is not just for beginners but for us old timers too! It is a handy reference tool to all those difficult to pronounce vowels and tones. The tongue twisters are a bonus. The chapters include:

   Guide to Pronunciation
   The Five Tones, The Vowels, The Consonants
   Clusters, Confusing Words, Poly-Syllabic Words
   Thai Intonation
   Tongue Twisters
   Thaiglish

   The series of books written by Benjawan are well worth the investment.




2. First here is what you get:
   
   One CD and one small booklet.
   the course covers:
   
   1. Guide to pronunciation
   2. The 5 tones, the vowels, and the consonants
   3. Clusters, confusing words, poly-syllabic words
   4. Thai intonation
   5. Tongue twisters
   6. Thaiglish
   
   This is a mixture of new material and material available in other programs by Poomsan Becker. It was a great idea and a very tough task to go after. It falls short of my expectations. First the material seems a little skimpy and at times goes too fast. There could have been more exercises. Also sometimes it is hard to follow along with the reading material. You have the English, the Thai phonetic and then the written Thai. It is very easy to lose your place and then the audio beats you to the punch.
   
   I have mixed feelings about recommending this product or telling people to stay away. It may help but it is no miracle worker by far.



3. It offers just that which the Poonsawan-Becker courses, like all other Thai courses, omit; attention to tone and pronounciation, and only that.
   
   Apart from the question: shouldn't it be in 'Thai for Beginners' one other remark: much more space is available on any cd to add more practicing material.
   
   Resuming: Although unique and necessary in it's approach, it lacks in variety and number of exercises.
   Nevertheless, my advise to anyone interested in learning to understand Thais speaking and understanding Thai language in general: Buy and use it. Even Bangkok languageschools never focus so much and so efficienly on this.
   
   Michael

5 comments about Thai: Learn to Speak and Understand Thai with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon and Schuster' Pimslur Language Programs: Comprehensive).

1. My significant other is from Thailand, and over the course of some shopping excursions into Thai CD/Movie/Book stores I picked up a cheap (~$20) two-CD Thai language introductory course. Over the next few months I tried to press it into the service of educating me and the sum total of what I got out of it, aside from a smattering of arbitrarily-presented and disconnected nouns, was "Where is the beer," "Where is the toilet," and "I love you." Three cheers for The Three Most Important Phrases In Any Language, but it quickly became evident that a better course was going to be needed if I wanted any kind of usable facility with the language.
   
   I sprung for the Pimsleur Thai comprehensive course - somewhere around $170 from one of Amazon's affiliate sellers (above) - and was instantly and intensely relieved at the logical soundness of its presentation. The people who created this course are not people interested in throwing together a hash of arbitrary words and phrases, they are people who *know how to teach* - something of a lost art these days.
   
   After my experience with that horrid first course - and memories of the Spanish and German classes I had in high school, which is to say: hazy - I had started looking specifically for *method* in language teaching as a necessity. A well-thought-out language course ought to match as closely as possible the epistemology we use intuitively when we're learning our native language at ages 0-6.
   
   The language student should be expending his entire mental effort in learning the building blocks of language - nouns, verbs, objects, adjectives and adverbs - while concurrently learning the rudiments of sentence structure and syntax. He should not have to waste an instant struggling against the course itself - in the best-case a language course should be utterly transparent to the user. On that score the Pimsleur Thai course is nothing short of flawless. Learning a new language inescapably requires effort and dedication, but with Pimsleur's course none of that effort is expended in wrestling with shoddy teaching methodology. You *will* see results from this course, and there is an intense sense of both accomplishment and wonder in every new level of understanding you will gain.
   
   The level of complexity advances at a consistent pace; the repetition of new terms and the period of time alotted for providing responses are perfectly designed; variations on phrases and sentences are logically and thoroughly presented. This course's strength is that it is laid out in such a way as to cultivate and reinforce the student's ability to *understand* the language, rather than merely catalog an extensive collection of canned phrases by rote memorization. You will learn basic grammar without a whole lot of head-scratching and learn to alter and apply it to varying situations. That learning, in turn, is reinforced by carefully-placed repetitions of previously-learned material, overlapped seamlessly into subsequent lessons and expanded upon.
   
   The only downside to this course - which, being that I'm only a third of the way through it I can only infer from the comments of others - is that there are as yet no followup, advanced courses. Hopefully Pimsleur will step up to the plate on that in the near future, but I'm thinking that the diligent student will be able to take the rudiments he learns here and gain an advanced, working ability at Thai with some supplementary vocabulary and grammar from books and other courses, and of course with discussion groups and direct immersion in Thai communities, either here or abroad.
   
   I'm amazed at how easily and rapidly I've progressed after my frustration with a lesser course. Presumably Pimsleur's other language courses are this good? 'Can't wait to find out. Based on my own experience I think Pimsleur should get an award for this course. Bravo!



2. Thai is a very difficult language for westerners to learn. And being a tonal language, you have to hear it spoken correctly in order to learn it. You definitely need all 30 lessons that are in the comprehensive program. They will give you a basic understanding of how the language works. It would be nice if pimsleur would come out with further lessons, but until they do you can use this program as a stepping stone into more advanced thai programs.
   
   Note: Some of the reviews here are mistaken when they say this course only has the first 10 lessons. This is the comprehensive program that has the entire 30 lessions in it.



3. This is the third language I have studied using the Pimsleur method. It is a proven method which will work if you stick with it and is worth every penny. Each course works the same way and teaches similar vocabulary. They are completely audio, making them perfect for commuters. They are very repetitive, but that is why they work. Years after completing the Spanish and German courses, I still remember quite a bit despite a total lack of practice.
   
   After completing the beginning Pimsleur course (30 lessons) of a given language, you can introduce yourself, get directions, make purchases, tell time, order food, and converse a tiny bit. The intermediate courses allow you to converse much more. I wish they would come out with an intermediate Thai course to follow on with this course.
   
   Thai is a very difficult language compared to Spanish and German. When I studied Pimsleur Spanish, one or at most 2 listenings was all I needed to move on to the next lesson. German took me 2 or 3. Thai took me up to 4 listenings. It is a tonal language and has some sounds which don't even exist in English, so don't feel inadequate if it takes you a while to master each lesson.



4. The Pimsleur method is definitely easy compared with more formal learning methods. I studied Indonesian at night school for 2 years and it took me till the end of the first year to feel confident in using it in real life. Just listening and responding to the Pimsleur CD's while I drive has given me a good working knowledge of the language in a reasonably short time. Ofcourse, the real test will be when I inflict my language skills on the Thai people,but after just a few weeks I am already feeling fairly confident.



5. Pimsleur is an average method. It works for some people, but not for others. Learning a language by only listening to it is not the appropriate method. Any method must include reading and the problem with Pimsleur is that it does not even have a booklet in most languages. 200 USD for just a few CDs? Come on! You can download the MP3 versions of this anywhere online either through one of the Bittorrent or the file sharing (emule) sites. Why spend 200 bucks????

3 comments about A.U.A. Language Center Thai Course: Reading and Writing--Mostly Reading.

1. This is a great workbook besides the fact that I cannot find the reference book that goes hand and hand with it. If you want to learn Thai script and the alphabet this book is good, but like I said the referene book is a big part of it.



2. I have tried other books in my mission learning to read thai, but this is far the best one. The workbook is nowhere to be found on the web, but I don't feel it's a problem. I like the phonetic system used in all AUA thai books.



3. It may still be possible to obtain the workbook from AUA in Thailand. I recently (2008) contacted them about another book in this series and was told they still had it available for sale, so they probably have the workbook too. AUA email address obtainable from their website.

3 comments about Thai Reference Grammar.

1. A new book on the grammar of spoken Thai has been released, and it must be the best book on Thai I've seen. Thai Reference Grammar, by James Higbie and Snea Thinsan, is a reference book rather than something you're likely to polish off in one sitting. The authors analysed examples of spoken and colloquial Thai, then came up with their own examples to illustrate how sentences are built. It comes to more than 400 pages, and must represent thousands of hours of work.

   The authors consulted Thai speakers interested in passing on the language, to find out what makes it tick. The transliteration system is good: it gives you the length of vowels as they exist in spoken Thai.

   This can be different from their value in written Thai, and in fact the authors change the Thai spelling of some words, given in their examples, to show the way the words are pronounced (kao, for he, has a high tone in spoken Thai but rising tone in written Thai) in cases where this differs from the written version!

   The book does not confine itself to spoken Thai, however; for any given word ('so', for example, in the sense of consequently or therefore) it will give you the six or seven Thai words in use, and show you how they are deployed; and will tell you which are in every-day use and which you're likely to encounter mainly in writing ie the formal ones you can avoid.

   The authors seem to know exactly what trips up or holds back a learner. You'll find an entire chapter here devoted to the order of events (before, after, in three days time), another to tenses, another one again to the use of 'gor', and yet another to end-sentence particles.

   This book is a serious and comprehensive study of Thai. I know of none better, and have read plenty. It is accessible, though will take you a while to get through: I spent three hours with it today, and covered less than half a chapter!




2. If you are looking for a book on Thai grammar you will not do better than this one. It is clear and to the point. It lists many examples for each subject that it presents. I have been trying unsuccessfully to get Thai people to explain to me what I have found clearly laid out in this book.
   
   I was both happy and disappointed when I discovered this book. Happy that my confusion is now over. Disappointed that Peace Corps did not distribute this to its volunteers in training.
   
   These are the chapter listings of what this book has to offer:
   
   1. Fundamentals; basic word order, to be, addressing people etc
   2. Referring to things; it, possessive, number of things etc
   3. Referring to people; Numbers, who, myself/yourself, etc
   4. Questions; covers most questions
   5. Expanded Sentences; I think that, Did you know, etc
   6. Tenses; present, future, past
   7. Using Verbs; long chapter dedicated to many verb uses
   8. Using "Hai" / Requests; let/allow, cause, for me etc.
   9. Conjunctions; And, also, because, but, except, if, etc
   10. Using Gaw; various ways of using this word
   11. Quantifiers; very, all, each, enough, some, etc
   12. Comparisons; similar, different, equal, like, even, etc
   13. Prepositions; about, around, between, by, far, etc
   14. Particles and Interjections; Ka/krup, la, na, tee, sa, etc
   15. Time Phrases; times of day, past and future time phrases,
   16. Order Of events; Before, after, then, as soon as, etc
   17. How Long?; period of time, spending time, etc
   18. Frequency; Times/occasions, sometimes, usually, etc
   
   I gave just a sampling of each chapter but there is a whole lot more than what I have listed. My only problem with this book is that it could list some of the instructions in Thai. That limits the book to being a self study book instead of a book a Thai instructor would be able to use to help teach with. That being said it is a truly wonderful tool. If you are planning on studying Thai seriously then you need to get this book.
   
   PC Volunteers: This book is available in Bangkok for half the price listed here. You won't need it right away so you can cut down on your allowed baggage weight limit by getting it here.



3. This is a fabulous book. It explains so many aspects of Thai grammar in a very clear and understandable way. It also gives specific examples that are extremely helpful. This book is probably not for someone who is just beginning to learn Thai, but if you already have a basic foundation in the language and want to improve your skills, this book is a must.

3 comments about Thai for Advanced Readers.

1. This is a very tough course. I finished "Thai For Beginners" and "Thai For Intermediate Learners" and I still had trouble with this course.
   The book has vocabulary and stories / essays which uses the vocabulary. The Cd's, though, only have the stories / essays on them. That makes it difficult to insure you are pronouncing the words correctly. If you make it to this book, you should know how to read Thai. That will help you with decipher what tone the vocabulary should be and how to sound out the words. But, being a non-native speaker, I'm sure I'm still not saying the words like a native Thai speaker would.
   This book makes a large jump from "Thai for Intermediate Learners." I think Mrs. Benjawan Poomsan Becker should write another book to bridge the gap.
   This is a good course for anyone who wants to learn more about Thailand, Thai people and their customs... And for those who would like to improve their Thai reading skills.



2. Worked through most of this book some time ago, and it is a great book. It is fun to read, and gives a good insight to Thai culture and history also. I believe some people might find a thai vocabulary in the back of the book useful.



3. *Thai for Advanced Readers* is a fairly good reader for lower-level intermediate students. It's got to be kept in mind that, for less frequently studied languages, "advanced" is used to describe non-native speakers whose abilities would still be considered fairly primitive in the major Western languages. This book could be a good stepping stone, but to what? There's still a vast amount of knowledge necessary before a person who had worked thru Becker's books could read a newspaper or short stories, but there don't seem to be any real materials for instruction in those skills. I don't know of any book, yet, that merits this volume's title.

1 comments about Speak Like A Thai Volume 2 - Thai Slang and Idioms (Speak Like a Thai) (Speak Like a Thai).

1. some very useful phrases and words, and the bonus rude slang at the back is worth the purchase!... and the five stars...some choice naughty stuff...explicit, funny and colourful, very Thai.

No comments about Speak Like A Thai Volume 4 - Heart Words.

5 comments about Thai: An Essential Grammar (Routledge Grammars).

1. If I were forced to choose between this book and "Thai Reference Grammar" (Higbie and Thinsan), well: I wouldn't choose. They are both very well-written and well-thought-out books written by people with vast experience.
   
   For example, David Smyth was involved in the Linguaphone Thai Course, and then later wrote "Teach Yourself Thai." He is immensely qualified to write the present book, which explains, among other things, why the word "talaat" (= "market") has the second syllable pronounced with the LOW tone and not the FALLING tone!
   
   But I must have one petty criticism! (Mustn't I? :-) )
   
   This book does not explain how to look up words in a Thai dictionary, not COMPLETELY. The question is: which comes first in a Thai dictionary, PIAK ( = wet) or PRIAP (= compare)?? This book gets it all wrong. The right answer appears in, of all places, "Fundamentals of the Thai Language," that totally ancient book which nevertheless sits in the bookshelves of many farang living in Thailand.
   
   The answer is right there! Look in the back! :-)



2. I just came back from a stay in Thailand, where this book was an invaluable companion. The best parts of the book are the breadth of content, good layout and the very clear reading/writing section. After reading and practicing with this book, communicating with Thai people was much easier. I'd recommend using this with the Pimsleur program to improve pronunciation and confidence :)



3. This is more than just a grammar book. In addition to providing understanding of how to string Thai words into meaningful sentences, I get such a fine flavor of Thai culture as it is woven into the selected word/phrase usage etc. An essential guide for anyone who wants to advance beyond typical tourist phrase book Thai. I combined this book with a good Thai-English dictionary and a good English-Thai dictionary, and I now have what I need to effectively write and converse in Thai. This has been a godsend for me as a do-it-yourself Thai language learner. Bravo to David Smith. The only thing I'd change in the book is that I'd feature Thai script before the transliteration. That would help with the reading since I wouldn't first see the transliterations. But hey, it's a great book anyway.



4. Living in Thailand, I've found that speaking Thai is invaluable, even though many here can speak some degree of English. Since the logic behind Thai is so different than English, a good grammar book is a must if one wishes to seriously learn the language. This is by far the best grammar companion I have found.
   
   My only gripes are with the transliteration. There are some inconsistancies romanizing the Thai letter "Ro Reua (ร)", in some examples, they use an "r", and others, they use an "l", which could be confusing to some readers.
   
   Another gripe about the romanization is how they use "c" for "Jor Jan", which is a j/ch sound, and a funny "n" with a hook for the "ng" sound. Since a "c" never makes a "j" sound in English, and the "n with a hook" doesn't exist, it took me a while to get used to seeing them. I suppose that it's better to ignore the romanization all together and focus on the actual Thai alphabet, which is more important, which is what I did.
   
   Those gripes aside, I would recommend this title to anyone who wants to give learning Thai a serious go.



5. This book is a comprehensive guide to how sentences are formed in Thai. Perhaps it is not suitable for beginners, but after mastering the basics you will appreciate being able to go to a book like this to get help with understanding the structure of sentences you come across. For example, continuous tenses with 'yuu', constructions with 'hai', the use of 'wai' - it is all good stuff. I love it.

2 comments about Pocket Thai Dictionary: Thai-English English-Thai (Periplus Pocket Dictionaries).

1. Actually, I'm a little envious, because I've been planning on writing one like this. I'm an American scholar of the Thai language, and am pretty obsessed by it Here's a review of this book, and its sister phrase book, which I posted on thai-language.com:
   
   Last October I found a Thai-English Dictionary and a phrase book hot off the press that is just the kind I would do myself, you can't do better. They are each by Michael Golding and Benjawan Jai-ua, and published by Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd. One is simply entitled "Pocket Thai Dictionary," and the other is "Thai Phrase Book." The GREAT thing about these is they truly explain the pronunciation, give you a perfect and consistent phonetic transcription of words, and--wonder of wonders--enable you to look up Thai words by accurate phonetic spelling, something I had never before seen in a commercial product, though I've been preparing one of my own for years(!) If you take the time to read and understand the 8-10 pp where they describe sounds, tones, and transcription system, you can get a great deal out of these books. If you're at all inclined to learning about languages, you'll want to keep these books on your shelves after you get back, too. There is soooo much junk out there, it was greatly refreshing to see these mini-masterpieces of the tourist trade.



2. I purchased the Pocket Thai Dictionary and the Phrase Book by Periplus and was very disappointed in both of them. They are both very basic and are for very beginning students only. I wish I'd spent a little more money and purchased better, more comprehensive books.

No comments about Thai Phrasebook.