Lonely Planet Thai Phrasebook

This is a very compact book, easily carried in a shirt pocket. Which makes it all the more impressive considering the amount of information that is contains. My only real complaint of the book is that though it is organized into sections like "checking into a hotel" or "ordering food" it can sometimes be difficult to find the phrase you are looking for at the time you need it. However, after having made a few trips to Thailand now, I now realize how good this book is. What I would recommend is that you read through the book before you travel and highlight key phrases you think you might use. Normally, for a phrasebook that might be painful to try to read through it, but this book has a lot of interesting information on Thai culture, customs, food, history, etc. that it isn't simply a list of phrases or a dictionary. And if you are like me and a little slow to pick up languages, you will find the book even more useful after a few trips to Thailand.

My husband and I found this small book to be a huge help as we attempted communication in the marketplaces of Thailand. I prefer to use books like this as a reference, pointing to the Thai phrase next to the English phrase I want to communicate. Conversely, my husband actually studied the book from the beginning. He was able to learn to pronounce and understand many useful phrases in addition to numbers (which came in very handy while bargaining). We enjoyed this book so much that I am already ordering the Mandarin version for our trip to China in 2005.

I have just started using it and it has a lot of very useful day-to-day phrases. I don't like the size of the Thai script. It is very difficult to read and one nearly needs a magnifying glass to be sure. I have learnt to read and write Thai by learning it through German transliteration (which is much more accurate than English because German has many more sounds which are closer to Thai) and would like to use the phrasebook without Cummings' phonetics. Enlarge the Thai script and the tone marks, clear up the mistakes and it will remain the best phrasebook currently available.

I recently bought a lot of phrasebooks and dictionaries in connection with a trip to Thailand that I've just returned from. Out of all of them, this was the book I routinely carried in my pants pocket.Pluses:o Thai-to-English dictionary as well as English-Thaio I personally find the representation of aspirated consonants with h, eg "ph", "th" etc to be more attractive and logical than the alternatives like "d(t)" etc. The only problem is people who don't read the introduction and pronounce ph as f, etc.o Generally good choices of vocabulary and phraseso Useful sections on important cultural featuresMinuses:o No accompanying cd/cassette (but even when these are available they tend to be poorly integrated)o Many words used in the phrases are unaccountably missing from the dictionary sectionso Many errors and typos, especially in the toneso Useful sidebars are presented in a disorganized manner which makes them impossible to refer to. For instance, a section on "traditional music" is shoehorned into the "family" section, and is so long that for weeks I did not realize that the family section continued after it! Also, such sidebars are not included in the TOC.

Of all Thai phrasebooks, this one is definitely the best and the most comprehensive. It has an extensive grammar section and gives valuable cultural insights. It also has a section that introduces some of the native languages (the "Hill Tribes"). The romanticization is easy to read and aids with pronounciation.