Thread: Best Book(s) for learning Thai

I dunno why we seem at odds over differences in personal experiences about learning the language.

Because

Originally Posted by What you said

Reading thai isn't gonna help your thai pronunciation a bit,

does not mean the same as

Originally Posted by What you should have said

I didn't find that reading helped my pronunciation a bit

Originally Posted by peterlang

I learned writing and reading in thai from learnthaionline.com. It took me 2 weeks and I already could read newspapers (without understanding it haha). Cost quite a lot of money but if you are interested I can share my account which I already paid. Just send me a PM.

No offence but I could do the same last year after I bought Benjawan's Thai for beginners (bought it somewhere in BKK), took me 1 week. Now I try to read signs along the road, easy stuff like khao man gai is doable for me.

Being able to "read" these words helps me to pronounce them, of course someone will correct me but usually I'm pretty close to the correct pronunciation. I have a lot of difficulties with the 5 tones, after 1 year I can finally hear the difference between them but it seems impossible to pronounce them, it's very discouraging to me.

I have yet to find a good way (for me) to learn Thai.

Originally Posted by toddaniels

You should see her house in Berkley CA, (or Chiang Mai)!!

I doubt there's a Thai living or dead who's done more to promote the learning of the Thai language for English speakers than Benjawan Poomsan Becker! She also runs a super successful "translation" business helping Laotian, Thai and other non-native English speakers navigate the US court system too!

The "three way" dictionary ap (available for IPhone, Mac, Android and Windows) she's got out, has almost become the "go to" version of any Thai-English, English-Thai dictionary. Over 150, 000 entries all with spoken sound files and a choice of "karaoke Thai" too! The price point is a little steep at 1000baht but really, it's well worth it..

My hats off to someone who saw a "niche market" and capitalized on it the way she has.

1000 Baht is chickenfeed if the dictionary is seriously good. My concern is that I need something that I can carry with me which is a hard copy, as well as needing an electronic copy.

How can I get both? I do not know, and I do not have Iphone, Mac Android. I do have a Windows PC, and then a Linux PC of course.

I would like to use this electronic version before I buy it to see if it works.


ALSO, THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION DOES N O T have 150,000 entries, or it would be less than chickenfeed if it did. It has 42,000 entries, and it does NOT have empathy if it is the same as the hardcopy. I would like to get a list of the entries because I don't like to buy something and then be unpleasantly surprised.