Colloquial Thai: The Complete Course for Beginners 1e PB

I was grossly disappointed in this book, because it might explain the language for pronunciation, but there is almost no written Thai in it. Other reviews said it doesn't teach you to read or write it, and that's because it relies almost entirely on the Romanization of Thai words, using nearly none of the Thai letters. If you have no interest in reading or writing the language, then it might be okay for you. I wish I hadn't wasted my money on it. Having already taught myself the alphabet and begun learning beginning phrases with the proper Thai spellings, I thought this would add to my learning, but it's worthless for actually learning the language the best way. Bear this in mind if you plan on buying the book.

This is a book for learning conversational Thai. This book will NOT teach you how to read and write in Thai, not adequately at least. I have worked both with this book, Teach Yourself Thai (Teach Yourself Complete Courses) and Thai for Beginners. TY Thai and Paiboon are the best books to use if you want to learn to read and write Thai, this Colloquial book simply won't do. The benefits of this Colloquial book is that it builds up a large vocabulary, has many different types of exercises and focuses on developing communication skills, rather than reading and writing. So if you want to communicate in Thai, say for a holiday/business trip, or if you simply want to have a very solid foundation in how to communicate in Thai - this is a very good book to use. In addition to having significantly more exercises than both Teach Yourself Thai and Beginner's Thai, the excercises in this book are also more effective than in the other two. As mentioned by previous reviewers, the tone marks are only shown in the vocabulary listings and not in the dialogues. To me this was a good thing because you are then forced to memorize the tones for each word - after all, the romanized script is just a tool: something to be forgotten once you learn how to read & write the proper Thai script. I am not giving this Colloquial book 5/5 because, as already mentioned, there are typo's in this book that are very, very irritating to a beginner...there are supposed words that don't even exist in my Thai-English dictionary, so if a word looks too weird, it's probably a typo.

I am part Thai and so am very committed to learning the language. I have tried several courses and taken lessons, but this book & the accompanying cds have been the greatest resource I have found. It integrates writing along with speaking and grammar so that you learn how to correctly pronounce the words, as well as write them. For those that complain of it not containing tonal information or of it spelling the words differently than others - EVERY thai book and dictionary will spell the words differently. What makes this book fantastic is that it gives you the thai letters which is the key to pronouncing the word correctly. If you can pronounce the letter in thai (which they teach you in the beginning) then you can use that thai letter as your key to pronouncing the words as you go through the course. I got very confused trying to sort through the different spellings in other resources, but I finally am getting the hang of pronouncing everything now that I know the thai letters and can relate them to the romanized spellings.

I recently joined a company that has allowed me the luxury to travel and work in Thailand from time to time. I have observed that there are several errors throughout the book, but generally it is very well written by its British and Thai authors. The book has an easy layout, and each chapter builds upon the next. I would strongly advise that the CD, (or the cassette), is purchased with the book, because it's impossible to duplicate the tones of Thai language from the text alone. As an ex-schoolteacher I appreciated what the authors were trying to acheive with this language course; learning the language in a systematic 'learning-by-doing' method. However, it's definitely not the type of book to carry around with you as a tourist in Thailand, so I would suggest the excellent Lonely Planet's Thai phrasebook for that. (ISBN 0-86442-658-5) Nick D. Benson, Boulder, CO, 12/2000

As a long-term resident of Thailand I found this book to be the best intoduction to Thai for other expats and for business travel in Thailand. The conversation exercises are practical and easy to apply in everyday speech. I particuarly like the way new words are presented: some are quite challenging for a new speaker but really essential to quickly coming to grasp with real Thai. Ironically, some of the words and phrases normally associated with language books (for example, shopping and tourist related activities) are not dealt with until much later in the book. Exercises in Thai script are a bit sketchy and, for a proper understanding, students will need a more advanced book on writing/reading Thai. Cassette tapes clear.