Thai: Basic Course Volume 1 [Paperback]

Warren G. Yates (Author), Absorn Tryon (Author), James R. Frith (Preface)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0884327140 | ISBN-13: 978-0884327141 | Publication Date: January 1, 2001

This course teaches the national spoken language in the dialect of educated speakers of Bangkok and Central Thailand. When writing, the Thai use a rather complex system based on Sanskrit, but in this course a special phonetic transcription is used to help you read and write more easily. Foreign Service Institute Basic Thai Course Volume 1. 427-page text. There are 17 Cds containing 13 hours of audio also available from Cafe Lango. Recorded by native speakers with pauses for you to repeat.

Product Details

• Paperback: 428 pages
• Publisher: Audio-Forum (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0884327140
• ISBN-13: 978-0884327141
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,791,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Learning Thai through a third language, April 10, 2003

By 

Richard Stampfle "Richard S." (Nong Khai, Thailand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Thai: Basic Course Volume 1 (Paperback)

This book is an enormous disappointment at a very high cost. First of all it is done using a typewriter font that gives it a very low quality look. There is not even one Thai letter or character shown in the entire book, so Yates, et al force you to learn their own newly created language (very few Thais could possibly read or understand the words in this text book. So don't look for help from native speakers).
The cassette tape system of language learning is badly dated and has been replaced by CD in many new language learning systems. Luckily, I did not waste money on the tapes or other volumes of this course.
Any one who thinks they are learning Thai by using this system is sadly mistaken and wasting their time. Absolutely, no system of Romanizing Thai has ever been developed that captures the Thai pronunciation of consonants, vocalics, and tones -- this course comes no where near doing that. Until educators realize this fact, everyone will go off in his own direction and create a third language to learn Thai with.
I would recommend that learners opt for courses that incorporate learning to read the Thai letters and characters correctly starting in lesson one. This course does not even get to that step in Volume One.
I rate the course one star because it might look pretty on the book shelves of someone who has more interest in showing she wants to learn Thai, than for someone who is really interested in learning the Thai language.