Pocket Thai Dictionary: Thai-English English-Thai

Actually, I'm a little envious, because I've been planning on writing one like this. I'm an American scholar of the Thai language, and am pretty obsessed by it Here's a review of this book, and its sister phrase book, which I posted on thai-language.com: Last October I found a Thai-English Dictionary and a phrase book hot off the press that is just the kind I would do myself, you can't do better. They are each by Michael Golding and Benjawan Jai-ua, and published by Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd. One is simply entitled "Pocket Thai Dictionary," and the other is "Thai Phrase Book." The GREAT thing about these is they truly explain the pronunciation, give you a perfect and consistent phonetic transcription of words, and--wonder of wonders--enable you to look up Thai words by accurate phonetic spelling, something I had never before seen in a commercial product, though I've been preparing one of my own for years(!) If you take the time to read and understand the 8-10 pp where they describe sounds, tones, and transcription system, you can get a great deal out of these books. If you're at all inclined to learning about languages, you'll want to keep these books on your shelves after you get back, too. There is soooo much junk out there, it was greatly refreshing to see these mini-masterpieces of the tourist trade.