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Title: Thai for Beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker ISBN: 1-887521-00-3 Publisher: Paiboon Publishing Pub. Date: 01 April, 1995 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.32 (25 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A good book indeed
Comment: I'm studying this book now. This book and the tape set are valuable tools for anyone trying to learn Thai. The book is well organized, and the tapes teach you the tonal pronounciation. I don't believe anyone can learn Thai by reading any book as the tonal nature of the language requires you to listen to the spoken words. Happy learning and happy trvaling to the Land of Smiles.
Rating: 5
Summary: The first book in a GREAT series!
Comment: This book starts out at the beginning and goes through the language rather quickly building your vocabulary and getting simple phrases down. It's not really designed to just learn a few phrases that you might use on a short vacation. It's for people that are serious about learning Thai. I don't mean to say that it's a difficult book. It's not. The phrases you learn are short and simple but well thought out so you can learn to make other sentences by substituting words. There's no sense in learning at the beginning long and almost useless sentences that you don't know how to change under different circumstances.
I've spent so much money on Thai books and tapes and have been really discouraged. I started building web page that took the best parts of different books because I knew there was a better, more efficient way to learn Thai. But I found everything I wanted in this series of books. Also, there are several words like gaw and hai that are tricky to translate and it spends time explaining all their different uses.
The last part of the book has the alphabet and is taught the way Thai children learn, "Gaw gai, kaw kai, kaw kuart". I've been trying to learn it for so long but never found it on a tape. Speaking of the tape, or tapes - there are three - they do what is expected, read the vocabulary and phrases from the book. But they are great to have to drill the sounds and different tones into your head.
Lastly, the book uses good transliteration and has Thai script, which can be quite helpful to Thai people, and it clears up confusion if you're not sure exactly what sound they're making on the tape. This is besides the obvious reason, to learn how to read Thai. Oh, they focus on that too.
I don't know what else to say. It really is a must. The best.
Rating: 5
Summary: teaches script AND conversation
Comment: This is a really sweet series of books for learning Thai and is about 2 cuts above any other Thai self-study course I've seen in 3 years of living in Thailand. A bonus is that it is also one of the most affordable.
A previous reviewer stated that the book does not teach the pronunciation of Thai script. That is incorrect. The Thai script sections are broken out separately at the end of each chapter, with pronunciation keys and vocabularly taken from the speaking drills. Learning Thai script (as opposed to merely speaking Thai) is not a quick process, and this is an issue with the language itself, not the course. I give the book five stars (6 if I could) for systematically and coherently teaching spoken Thai, while additionally offering one of the best primers on basic written Thai as a bonus for those who want to spend the extra time.
Finally, about the tapes being only 2 1/2 hours-- there are about 1000 vocab words (listed at the front of each chapter) and phrases in the book, almost all of which are spot on useful. If you learn them by heart, which doesn't take more than an hour a day over about 5 weeks, you will be carrying on in Thai at a basic but quite functional level that you can dramatically build on once you get to Thailand. Imagine that, actually speaking Thai, not just throwing in a random phrase or word here and there on your next vacation. It's quite possible, with this book.
I didn't find the tapes too fast, for the most part, and I hated language tapes in college for that reason. Anyway, there's always the rewind button for those odd moments. It is true that you will need the book with you, at least initially, for the conversation drills, since the English isn't repeated on the tape. I'd say that's a minor quibble, at best, but worth noting for those who plan to listen in their car. The English translation for the vocab IS repeated at the start of each chapter, however. If you can follow that, the conversation that follows isn't a stretch.
I've read a lot of language texts, and the Becker series (Thai for Beginners; Thai for Intermediate Learners; Thai for Advanced Readers) is one of the best for any language. It would be nice if Amazon offered the audio CD version of the cassettes, something which is a little more convenient in this day and age and certainly available in Thailand.
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Title: Thai-English English-Thai Dictionary for Non-Thai Speakers, Revised Edition by Benjawan Poomsan Becker ISBN: 1887521143 Publisher: Paiboon Publishing Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Improving Your Thai Pronunciation by Benjawan Poomsan Becker ISBN: 1887521267 Publisher: Paiboon Publishing Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Thai for Intermediate Learners by Benjamin Poomsan Becker, Benjawan Poomsan Becker ISBN: 1887521011 Publisher: Paiboon Publishing Pub. Date: 15 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Thai for Lovers by Nit Ajee, Jack Ajee, Nit ISBN: 1887521046 Publisher: Paiboon Publishing Pub. Date: 21 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Lonely Planet Thai Phrasebook (4th Ed) by Joe Cummings ISBN: 0864426585 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: November, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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