Customer Reviews

Thai-English Dictionary

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

 

 

But it is essential for the serious student to have both McFarland and Haas. One is not enough, even when backed up by the large Thai-Thai dictionaries. It is also worth remembering that these two excellent dictionaries are now quite old - don't expect modern technical vocabulary.

It's next to Thai-English Student's Dictionary by Mary R Haas the second best dictionary and I recomend all who are really serious to learn Thai to buy it (if you already have bought M. R. Haas'). It has more explaination than Haas' and many words that Haas' don't have. I strongly disliked the very complicated method to do transcription of Thai and to show the tones of the words by McFarland.

Despite not having been updated since 1944, this is still by far the best Thai-English dictionary in print in terms of the number and depth of the entries.

I also like the fact that McFarland correctly discerns six tones in spoken Thai. Although the Thai education system uses a teaching method that claims spoken Thai has five tones, and that's the system everyone learns from, in actual daily life the Thais use six. If nothing else, McFarland is worth owning for any Thai language learner who wants to become acquainted with this idea.