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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
listening, reading, writing, speaking, everything, August 19, 2000
Oh, c'mon, people! What's with all these bad reviews? This book teaches you how to speak, write, read, understand the Thai language. The Thai writing system is listed both in dictionary order in the back and in a more systematic tonal order on another page also in the back. There's also a handy summary of the tone rules on one page in the back. Copy it, laminate it, make a bookmark and dive in. This book maps the Thai language inside and out. Grammar explanations are there in abundance. The cassette tape is excellent, too (but there's one big boo-boo at the very beginning where the English guy says something like,"Here's how to ask someone what their name is:" and the Thai woman says,"Hello, how are you?" But that's such an obvious mistake anyone can catch it). The book teaches you how to read and write in little sections in each chapter. But from chapter one to the end the author gives you Thai script as well as a romanized transcription for all the dialogues. So you can start writing from the very beginning if you want to. Just skip to the writing sections of later chapters. Who said it's forbidden to read ahead? Just like, photocopy all the writing sections and put them all together in a little writing chapter pamphlet thingy. Take it, shake it, make it your own! This book has everything you need. It has cultural and historical points, too ; like, why is Bangkok called Bangkok? And why is the Thai word for Bangkok not "Bangkok"? (the Thai word for Bangkok is "GrOOng-tayp" which means "city of angels"... Los Angeles?) Thai people are super friendly and most people will speak Thai with you if you try even just a little bit. Get the book and go to Thailand. Now.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very Effective!, July 10, 2002
I am about to be transferred to Thailand and will be taking formal and intensive Thai instruction next month. I wanted to get a head start on the language and after reading the..reviews purchased the Smith book with the two cassette tapes. After three weeks of study I find myself (to my surprisE) learning to read and speak Thai. First let me mention some things I do NOT like (but remember I am a pure beginner). The transliteration is confusing and frankly often does not match what I hear on the tapes. Second, there are disconnects between the tapes and what the book says I am supposed to be hearing. Third, the tape's intro to tones is not sufficient. Now what I like about the Smith book. I am learning to actually read Thai! It is a complicated alphabet (no matter what David Smith says) but I am progressing. The text progresses easily from one step to the next. Contrary to some reviews I like the practical application in the dialogues e.g shopping, menu ordering. etc. But most of all I like the easy and maybe even chatty way the book guides you into the language. I must admit I certainly enjoy studying this language with this book. And Smith is correct that 20 minutes a day is more effective than one 2 hours session weekly. Yep, a new edition of the tapes is needed but it is the best 20 bucks I spent in a long time!
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very good place to start, December 3, 2000
By A Customer
I have looked at this book pretty extensively, and I must say that the author has to be familiar with the Linguaphone Thai Course, which has always been my favorite for self-study outside of Thailand. In particular, the Thai alphabet is taught according to the Linguaphone scheme, which is a very clever one. A previous reviewer didn't see the rationale, so I'll explain. The letters are introduced according to their consonant class. In Lesson One, we get an important subset of the low-class consonants, and then a chunk of mid-class consonants, and so on. The result is that the student automatically clumps them together as "the letters from Lesson One" and thus comes to identify consonant classes semi-automatically. As a bonus, the Lesson One consonants are the SPECIAL low-class consonants which are overridden in multi-syllable words. Now, this leaves you without the knowledge of the dictionary order, so you'll have to learn that as a separate task. But I think that the consonant classes turn out to be much more important than that dictionary order, because unless you're absolutely sure of the consonant class, you can't determine the tone(s) and therefore can't really pronounce what you're reading. I would also encourage all students of Thai to view the transliteration scheme (ANY transliteration scheme) as a mere bridge to get you to the Thai script. Burn the bridge as soon as you can (it may not be very soon!) If you find this book to be tantalizing but a little too short, I warmly encourage you to get yourself the Linguaphone Thai Course, which expands on this short book quite a bit.
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