Customer Reviews

Essential Thai Phrase Book (Essential Phrasebook Series)

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I bought both the Periplus Thai Dictionary and the Phrase book and was very disappointed in each. They are very basic and use some transliteration that is inaccurate. There are no 'bp' or 'dt' sounds given. These sounds are lumped together as 'p' and 't' respectively, which is simplistic and misleading. Also the books' transliteration aviods the 'eu' sounds, (written as 'ue') wish is also simplistic, inaccurate, and leads to mispronuciation of many, many, Thai words. I wish I'd spent a little more money and bought better books.

I bought the phrase book and the dictionary as a set, and was similarly impressed by each. I think they should be bought together, as they complement each other very well. Anyway, here's what I wrote at the other site . . . I'm working hard to forgive Amazon for misspelling my name, but what the heck, this review needs to get out:
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.