Customer Reviews

Berlitz Thai Phrase Book

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A month ago before I left for Thailand I bought the Berlitz Thai Phrase Book and CD. It's terrible, anyone who buys it is wasting their money for several reasons:

1} The CD phrases don't match with the book phrases.

2} The phonetic spelling is so bad that all you get is blank stares if you try to pronounce anything by reading it from the book. Thai is a tonal language, correct pronunciation is extremely important.

3} Gender specific words are not distinguished in sentences. Many Thai sentences have gender specific beginnings and endings. But this book uses just one gender in each sentence, usually the male one, so someone with no knowledge of Thai can easily be using the wrong words.

4} Important phrases are not included, while it has stupid ones like "Is there a cheap restaurant nearby?" (there are cheap restaurants everywhere in Thailand, a meal typically only costs one or two dollars).

5} It lacks useful information on how to speak Thai.

6} It's full of mistakes.

I've bought the Lonely Planet Thai Phrasebook since I've been in Thailand. It is very well done except for the small dictionary at the end of the book. I'm currently taking a daily 6 week long Thai language course. The only thing the Berlitz book might be good for is fire starter, or maybe toilet paper in an emergency. I won't sell it to a used bookstore and have some poor sucker buy it.

Unfortunately this book won't help you speak the language, even the simplest sentences, because the pronunciation guide is written in a very unclear and frustrating manner.

Unlike some other Berlitz guides that I used in the past this one is good for one thing only - to show the necessary phrase in Thai script to the native and hope the script is not as mangled as their "transcription".

The main reasons for confusion are:

1. Wrong intonation marks (and believe me, that is important)

2. Very strange choice of transcription signs for vowels. It bears no resemblance to actual Thai sounds. I think that IPA (International Phonetic Association) signs would be better with proper explanation.

3. Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes...

I cannot judge the correctness of the Thai script translations in the book, but the Thais themselves often laughed while reading the phrases I had shown them and I suspect the native script passages have even more mistakes than this horrible transcription...

Thailand is a place with lots of tourists, no doubt, and many people speak English (and other languages too: French, Japanese, etc.); moreover, when shopping in streets, they'll show you the prices using a calculator, so you shouldn't care for buying a book like this one.

However, when I was dinning in a popular restaurant in a small town, the waitress didn't understand English, so this book helped me to know what to order (English translation of the menu is not enough, sometimes), and so on, even to ask for the bill.

You don't have to do any effort about the pronunciation, just show the phrase written in Thai to the other person.

It has also useful information for tourists, related to each of the topics the book is divided into (meals, transportation, etc.).

I missed it very much when I forgot it in the hotel and I had no way to tell to the taxi driver how to reach the place I wanted to. I had to wait 10 minutes to get a taxi with an English speaking driver.

I am new to Thailand, new to Thai. My first introduction was the above book, and when it told me that "garuna" was used for please I believed it. Unfortunately, as is the case with any language, there are local variations. Living in Bangkok has afforded me the chance to practice the 90% of this book that is right on target and be thrown off by the rest. I'll start out with the good. I have referred to this book, especially the handy and essential "basic expressions" section, countless times. It is very well organized, with color coded sections for shopping, eating, reference, etc. The phrasebook section is very complete and has numerous "real life" phrases that I've put to use over and over again. The book not only gives the appropriate words but includes many cultural explanations, descriptions of Thai food, for instance. There are handy boxes with sayings a Thai person might need to respond with; you can show them the book and they point. The words are written in English, Thai, and Thai- English, aka the English alphabet with Thai pronunciation. This is good because almost no beginner can read Thai, but often times a foreinger's pronunciation will be so bad that the Thai have to look in the book to see what you're trying to say. Which brings me to the bads. As I mentioned earlier, there are several common deviations between spoken Thai and what's printed in the book. Words as basic as yes and please differ from what I was first told; if you're planning on going there, ask what's used in the area you visit. You'll probably have to have Thai people pronounce the words and phrases for you quite a bit at first; the key in the book isn't very clear despite the long explanation. Trying to read doesn't help as the printed alphabet in the book is missing a letter. Finally, the book focuses more on phrases than on words. When you are trying to figure out what a single verb is, for instance, or even construct your own sentence, it's difficult. The book is a good beginning, but if you are serious about learning Thai, you may be better off with James Higbie's Learning Thai from English book, put out by the Bangkok Post. (It teaches grammar and has a fuller dictionary.) Nonetheless, this book is a small enough size to carry anywhere and is more manageable, especially for the short term visitors. I would highly reccommend it. As long as one is aware of it's short-comings, one would benefit from it greatly while visiting or living in Thailand. I know from experience-- it's saved my life more than once.