Thread: Any Better Book Than PaiBoon's Non-Online Dictionary?

In point of fact, unfortunately, there is no Thai-Eng-Thai learners dictionary better than the one created by Paiboon Publishing.

As far as it goes, it is very helpful, and it has a good tone rules chart which is completely covered in two pages. Having used this dictionary a few times, there is very little wrong with it, as far as it goes. The dictionary has been expanded once in its years of service, and yet the dictionary is seriously still deficient in the number of entries and also the choice of vocabulary, as well as its not including any usage examples for each of the Thai words it defines.

I don't know whether a 3rd more complete Paiboon iteration is in the works, but I sort of doubt it, or we might have heard about it by now.

The price of approximately 450 Baht is definitely worth the money if you do any reading or speaking of Thai and are a learner of the language. However, if you are searching for some simple often used words, such as empathy or esoteric, then you might as well forget about it.

There is a second more renowned learner's Thai-English dictionary available if you do some searching, the Mary Haas dictionary which was published in the 1950s and 1960s, and which is still available if you can find some place to sell it to you. I have never seen a hard copy, but you can find a pdf download easy enough on the internet.

This is the present situation with learners Thai-English-Thai, romanized, hard copy dictionaries, which show the Thai script as well as the romanized spelling. There really is not dictionary that covers many of the words that most students of Thai need to learn, or come across during their studies and readings.

This is why I am wondering how difficult it would be to compile a hardcopy dictionary as an opensource project?

Does anyone have any experience doing this? There are plenty of internet based aids available and it might not be so difficult to fairly easily put together a pdf, high resolution, printable book which could be printed at a specialized print shop at low cost.

Well, anyone here have any experience with doing such an opensource project?

And if not, then is there another hard copy dictionary which is better than Paiboon and which I have not yet seen?

Originally Posted by toddaniels

There are a plethora of Thai-English=English Thai dictionaries out there. Se-Ed makes a couple of them so does So Sethaputra. In fact go to ANY Thai bookstore and look at the stacks of English Thai Thai English dictionaries they've got on their shelves.

Certainly Benjawan Becker is the most well know author in the niche "teach Thai to foreigners" market (mostly because she publishes and distributes her material). People who work thru her books about learning Thai certainly refer to them. Her "karaoke thai" (representing thai using a combination of english letter and other characters) is easily the most widely used karaoke version of thai out there. Possibly because Benjawan's books are the most widely sold.

Her iphone, android, p/c, mac version of the paper dictionary is very good, comes with lifetime updates, but it's got a hefty price point too.

I honestly doubt Benjawan's the "bench mark" for any foreigner past the "high-beginner" level in Thai. There's just too much other material available out there once you can half assed read Thai.

Please realize I'm NOT downing Benjawan Poomsan Becker because she's made millions hawking books to foreigners learning Thai, and they are good books, I'm trying to say there is also a LOT of other stuff out there.

English-Thai dictionaries fall short because looking up an English word to get the Thai equivelant doesn't necessarily mean that is the correct Thai word to use in context. It's far better looking up a Thai word and seeing what it is in English. Again, as I said, once you can read some Thai. Almost NO paper dictionaries use karaoke thai, or if they do, they're crap. Which is why I'd say as soon as you can read thai a little bit, trash the karaoke stuff.

There's a good i-phone app which thai-language dot com has with their entire on-line dictionary available, and you can choose from a bunch of "karaoke Thai" versions to display in addition to the Thai if you need to.

Good Luck..

I am not sure what you mean by Kareoke Thai,

But having the Romanized section can speed up the look-up, and can also help to verify tones, which is most important. The learner may think he has correctly applied the tone rules and knows the tone, but, may not. And the romanized section serves as a good check to verify what the tone is.

I would be satisfied with an expansion of the Poomsan dictionary, or and expansion of the Mary Haas dictionary, either one.

These are learners dictionaries.

And I am wondering if there is another dictionary which has the romanized section that also has a much expanded number of entries, that is not missing so many commonly used words.

คุณสามารถมีเพศสัมพันธ์ฉันหนัก..?

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

คุณสามารถมีเพศสัมพันธ์ฉันหนัก..?

What is it about this forum, that you have so many with such a love for vulgarity?

Bunch of bricklayers.

"SpamInCan" Dunno how you missed what I meant by "karaoke Thai";

"karaoke thai" (representing thai using a combination of english letters and other characters)

It looks like this;
สวัสดี - Real Central Thai
sà wàt dii - Karaoke Thai (Benjawan's version)
สะ-หฺวัด-ดี - Phonemic Thai; pronunciation syllable by syllable in Thai; how Thai dictionaries show pronunciation and how almost every Thai learned to pronounce words in school. (You might notice that this version represents the correct tone of Thai words without relying on "karaoke Thai". As soon as you can make the leap to reading that type of pronunciation, the better off you'll be as it's the standard way it's shown in Thai dictionaries)..

If I was a betting man, I'd bet dollars to durian the three way paper dictionary of Benjawan's is unlikely to be updated any time soon. However the three way dictionary app which she's got out is updated pretty regularly. It works exactly the same way as her paper dictionary; has far more entries than the paper version and every entry has a spoken sound file too! You can hardly find a better beginner resource than that app..

TOTALLY OFF TOPIC
FWIW: that tripe which Rural Surin often posts is just that; almost total gibberish. No Thai I've ever met would construct sentences the way that poser, err poster does.

Heck, not even the hill-billy's in Surin (who's native language isn't even Central Thai but Isaan, Cambodia & Thai jumbled together) speak like that. Even Rural Surin's member picture has the Isaan word แตก instead of กิน, in a feeble attempt at a double entendre.

I've noticed all too often their attempts to show the grasp of Thai they possess is tenuous at best and tedious at the worst.. I wish they'd add useful stuff to posts, however that seems to be asking way too much from them..

FYI; that Surin accent is so hard to understand when they're speaking Central Thai, that any Thai worth their salt would know within seconds if another Thai hails from Surin Province. It's as identifiable as that พูดเหน่อ (hillbilly accent) from Suphanburi.

BACK ON TOPIC:
"SpamInCan" good luck in your endeavor to acquire the thai language. Just an aside; did you ever find a live in Thai teacher yet?

Originally Posted by toddaniels

"SpamInCan" Dunno how you missed what I meant by "karaoke Thai";

"karaoke thai" (representing thai using a combination of english letters and other characters)

It looks like this;
สวัสดี - Real Central Thai
sà wàt dii - Karaoke Thai (Benjawan's version)
สะ-หฺวัด-ดี - Phonemic Thai; pronunciation syllable by syllable in Thai; how Thai dictionaries show pronunciation and how almost every Thai learned to pronounce words in school. (You might notice that this version represents the correct tone of Thai words without relying on "karaoke Thai". As soon as you can make the leap to reading that type of pronunciation, the better off you'll be as it's the standard way it's shown in Thai dictionaries)..

If I was a betting man, I'd bet dollars to durian the three way paper dictionary of Benjawan's is unlikely to be updated any time soon. However the three way dictionary app which she's got out is updated pretty regularly. It works exactly the same way as her paper dictionary; has far more entries than the paper version and every entry has a spoken sound file too! You can hardly find a better beginner resource than that app..

TOTALLY OFF TOPIC
FWIW: that tripe which Rural Surin often posts is just that; almost total gibberish. No Thai I've ever met would construct sentences the way that poser, err poster does.

Heck, not even the hill-billy's in Surin (who's native language isn't even Central Thai but Isaan, Cambodia & Thai jumbled together) speak like that. Even Rural Surin's member picture has the Isaan word แตก instead of กิน, in a feeble attempt at a double entendre.

I've noticed all too often their attempts to show the grasp of Thai they possess is tenuous at best and tedious at the worst.. I wish they'd add useful stuff to posts, however that seems to be asking way too much from them..

FYI; that Surin accent is so hard to understand when they're speaking Central Thai, that any Thai worth their salt would know within seconds if another Thai hails from Surin Province. It's as identifiable as that พูดเหน่อ (hillbilly accent) from Suphanburi.

BACK ON TOPIC:
"SpamInCan" good luck in your endeavor to acquire the thai language. Just an aside; did you ever find a live in Thai teacher yet?

We always refer to this as the romanization of languages, such as Chinese, Thai, Japanese, and others. I get the shivers, especially in Thailand, when I think of anything remotely related to Karaoke.

"We" as in who? Are you using the royal "we" meaning you and all the other personalities hiding behind your eyes?

Almost every Thai school in this frickin' country refers to it as "karaoke Thai". Truth be told it's actually called phonemic transcription, not transliteration or romanization. Here's how that works (if you're interested); thai-language.com - Understanding our Phonemic Transcription System

There is NO way to represent all the Thai sounds using only the roman alphabetic system. That's probably why Benjawan Becker (and many others) came up with those squirrelly characters for the Thai vowels like ʉʉ and developed the super-script symbols which show intonation (FWIW; called diacritics).

Come on man, either get on board, or jump ship. . . .

Originally Posted by toddaniels

"We" as in who? Are you using the royal "we" meaning you and all the other personalities hiding behind your eyes?

Almost every Thai school in this frickin' country refers to it as "karaoke Thai". Truth be told it's actually called phonemic transcription, not transliteration or romanization. Here's how that works (if you're interested); thai-language.com - Understanding our Phonemic Transcription System

There is NO way to represent all the Thai sounds using only the roman alphabetic system. That's probably why Benjawan Becker (and many others) came up with those squirrelly characters for the Thai vowels like ʉʉ and developed the super-script symbols which show intonation (FWIW; called diacritics).

Come on man, either get on board, or jump ship. . . .

FRIKIN HOGWASH!

And you know what I wrote is FRIKIN HOGWASH how again?

How many Thai language schools have you been too again?

And here I was tryin' to help you posting the "karaoke Thai" version of the Thai I'd write.

Oh wait, aren't you the brainiac who wants to find a live in "long-haired talking dictionary"?

Remember; "even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while".

If I know anything about anything here it's Thai language schools, especially in Bangkok. Then again, seeing as they all use each others material, it's pretty much the same no matter where you are here.

I will say you're quite the prolific poster, been a member a month and 349 posts so far..

Keep up the great work, when I grow up I wanna be just like you!

Originally Posted by toddaniels

And you know what I wrote is FRIKIN HOGWASH how again?

How many Thai language schools have you been too again?

And here I was tryin' to help you posting the "karaoke Thai" version of the Thai I'd write.

Oh wait, aren't you the brainiac who wants to find a live in "long-haired talking dictionary"?

Remember; "even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while".

If I know anything about anything here it's Thai language schools, especially in Bangkok. Then again, seeing as they all use each others material, it's pretty much the same no matter where you are here.

I will say you're quite the prolific poster, been a member a month and 349 posts so far..

Keep up the great work, when I grow up I wanna be just like you!

Sounds like that song....

Originally Posted by toddaniels

And you know what I wrote is FRIKIN HOGWASH how again?

How many Thai language schools have you been too again?

And here I was tryin' to help you posting the "karaoke Thai" version of the Thai I'd write.

Oh wait, aren't you the brainiac who wants to find a live in "long-haired talking dictionary"?

Remember; "even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while".

If I know anything about anything here it's Thai language schools, especially in Bangkok. Then again, seeing as they all use each others material, it's pretty much the same no matter where you are here.

I will say you're quite the prolific poster, been a member a month and 349 posts so far..

Keep up the great work, when I grow up I wanna be just like you!

355 post in much less than a month,
But who is counting?

Anyway, you really should attend some universities in Either the UK, America, Canada, China, ANYWHERE, and then you will note that romanization is the term used, like it or not.

Man, you just won't give it a rest will you? Tomato-tomato, romanized thai-karaoke thai... Stop sweating the small stuff or you'll have a stork, err a stroke..

The title of this thread (started by you) is "Any Better Book Than Paiboon's Non-Online Dictionary?" I tried to point out that there are a plethora (err, sorry I'll try to use smaller words when talking to people with tiny brains) there are a LOT of dictionaries out there. However to the best of my limited knowledge none of them are as good or use thai represented in engrish to show you pronunciation, intonation, etc as Benjawan's.

I did mention that her three way dictionary app for iPhone, Android, p/c and mac while pricey is far superior to her paper dictionary, mostly because every single word has an accompanying sound file.

I believe I also mentioned that the website Thai-language dot com, (which has one of the best free online Thai English dictionaries and a good site too) has a app for iPhones which incorporates their entire dictionary. The app and their site has the ability to select which type of romanized Thai you want to see be it;
t-l Enhanced (Thai Language's own karaoke system; saL watL deeM khrapH) Phonemic Thai (how thai is spelled in Thai dictionaries; สะ-หฺวัด-ดี-คฺรับ)
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet; sà wàt diː kʰráp)
Paiboon (Benjawan's method; sà wàt dii kráp)
RTGS (Royal Thai General System; sawat di khrap)
AUA (American University Alumni/Peace Corps; sàwàt dii khráp)
Bua Luang ("What You See Is What You Say"; sà′-wàt′-dee-kráp′)
ALA-LC (American Library Association-Library of Congress; sawat dī khrap)
ISO 11940 (An International transliteration standard; s̄wạs̄ dī khrạb).

Certainly with those choices you can find a version that you can understand and start using to make the leap into reading real Thai so you can eventually throw out the karaoke dictionary and start using a Thai-English one as soon as you can.

Never the less, I still applaud anyone who undertakes learning the Thai language, even people who are as cantankerous and fractious as the O/P who seems more interested in arguing about the correct vernacular (sorry for the big word) errr the correct words used to talk about Thai rather than learning the language.

Originally Posted by toddaniels

Man, you just won't give it a rest will you? Tomato-tomato, romanized thai-karaoke thai... Stop sweating the small stuff or you'll have a stork, err a stroke..

The title of this thread (started by you) is "Any Better Book Than Paiboon's Non-Online Dictionary?" I tried to point out that there are a plethora (err, sorry I'll try to use smaller words when talking to people with tiny brains) there are a LOT of dictionaries out there. However to the best of my limited knowledge none of them are as good or use thai represented in engrish to show you pronunciation, intonation, etc as Benjawan's.

I did mention that her three way dictionary app for iPhone, Android, p/c and mac while pricey is far superior to her paper dictionary, mostly because every single word has an accompanying sound file.

I believe I also mentioned that the website Thai-language dot com, (which has one of the best free online Thai English dictionaries and a good site too) has a app for iPhones which incorporates their entire dictionary. The app and their site has the ability to select which type of romanized Thai you want to see be it;
t-l Enhanced (Thai Language's own karaoke system; saL watL deeM khrapH) Phonemic Thai (how thai is spelled in Thai dictionaries; สะ-หฺวัด-ดี-คฺรับ)
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet; sà wàt diː kʰráp)
Paiboon (Benjawan's method; sà wàt dii kráp)
RTGS (Royal Thai General System; sawat di khrap)
AUA (American University Alumni/Peace Corps; sàwàt dii khráp)
Bua Luang ("What You See Is What You Say"; sà′-wàt′-dee-kráp′)
ALA-LC (American Library Association-Library of Congress; sawat dī khrap)
ISO 11940 (An International transliteration standard; s̄wạs̄ dī khrạb).

Certainly with those choices you can find a version that you can understand and start using to make the leap into reading real Thai so you can eventually throw out the karaoke dictionary and start using a Thai-English one as soon as you can.

Never the less, I still applaud anyone who undertakes learning the Thai language, even people who are as cantankerous and fractious as the O/P who seems more interested in arguing about the correct vernacular (sorry for the big word) errr the correct words used to talk about Thai rather than learning the language.

I do agree with you that this Paiboon dictionary is about the best that can be found, to date. and I have looked about everywhere I can think of.

This dictionary is also very good in its design, and the charts it provides. I like it, I like it.

My single most important complaint is that it does not have a comprehensive enough number of entries, or at least it has not selected the entries which must be included in any learners dictionary for high school and college students, of which there is a plethora today.

Since you did suggest this, I will try the electronic version of the dictionary. The price is not steep IF it delivers a much greater number of entries. Someone stated 100 thousand entries, but of course such a claim would be ludicrous.

Therefore, thank you for your input, and I really think that without it I would not have been tempted enough to actually purchase the electronic version from, probably, Amazon.

Best of luck with your Thai.
You're going to need it.