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Best Thai Course for Beginners | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6234 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 17 of 29 13 November 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Wow! Interesting. Whereabouts in the US is the Church? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BrianDeAlabama Groupie United States Joined 4524 days ago 89 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 29 14 November 2012 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||
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[/QUOTE] Wow! Interesting. Whereabouts in the US is the Church?[/QUOTE]
3614 Drake Ave SW Huntsville, AL Telephone (256) 539-3729 I believe they have members from Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma and maybe a couple of other areas. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6234 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 29 18 November 2012 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||
I tried to a find a website for it...bummer, no such luck! Oh well. I received my Teach Yourself "Complete" Thai. ... Big sigh..... Sadly, I think the older version is much, much better. The new version is subject to the "dumbing down" of language courses that Dr. Arguelles has alluded to in his videos; less vocabulary, more "fluff", more "phrase- book" language. Why are publishers doing this?!?! At least the methodology is still there that teaches the writing system. I'll hopefully learn the writing system then switch over to "Everyday Thai for Beginners". Edited by liddytime on 18 November 2012 at 5:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BrianDeAlabama Groupie United States Joined 4524 days ago 89 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 29 18 November 2012 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here they are on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/AllNationsHuntsville I'm currently working a full time job and a full time nursing student so my language studying/cramming sessions are very anemic the past couple of years but in less than a year and a half I should be back on it. I swear I was able to build most of my Spanish vocabulary in the first 6 months. Probably 80% of my current vocab which is around 2,000 words or so. If you ever anticipate a visit to north Alabama, hit me up. Its not often to meet fellow language lovers. My father-in-law has been fluent in English, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese and French. I don't know how often he uses his French or Vietnamese but the Lao, Thai & English he is solid. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4671 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 21 of 29 20 November 2012 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||
I haven’t seen the new edition of TYT, but you may even find the old one seems to lack content somewhat. It’s built around a set of dialogs in situations that are mainly touristic, and the few reading passages won’t teach you to read newspapers, they mainly reinforce what’s taught in the dialogs. I still think this approach, which gives you familiarity with the writing and phonology, along with a lot of handy phrases if you’re planning to travel to Thailand, is a good fit for this language. It’s definitely worth supplementing TYT with other resources though. เรียนไห้สนุกครับ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6555 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 22 of 29 21 November 2012 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||
When you filled out your language profile, perhaps you meant to choose “smokes Thai” instead of “speaks Thai”. Becker is a 3 (small) book series, the first 2 books having dialogues in every chapter. Imo, it’s the best choice for most beginners. One needs to consider all 3 books together as a “beginner program”; it’s not logical to compare only the first book to other programs. Since it seems to have been short changed here - the most popular, best-selling beginners course doesn’t even make the poll, I will give a brief summary. The first book uses transliteration alongside script, teaches the writing system, about 500 high usage words, and about 50% of the basic grammar. There are word lists, dialogues, and sample sentences which all have recordings. The second book covers the remainder of basic grammar. Because it’s only used alongside the vocabulary lists, the learner is weaned off transliteration. There are about 500 new words in word lists, dialogues, and sample sentences which all have recordings. The third book is basically a book of essays. Each chapter is an essay in Thai, the English translation, and a word list of new words from the essay. Transliteration is only given for the word lists. All essays have recordings. I like Becker the best because it’s better thought out, more complete, has more straight forward transliteration and more content than other beginner programs. The Thai alphabet is much more difficult than any other alphabet I’ve learned. I wouldn’t want to learn the alphabet before learning the language in the case of Thai, and I suspect attempting that would crush most learners. That’s why I believe controlled use of transliteration in the beginning is best for most learners, and Becker is the best of those programs. If you already know the alphabet, or want to skip transliteration and learn it up front by some other method, than Everyday Thai for Beginners is an excellent grammar. No ugly transliteration, but no explanation of the writing system other than a quick summary in the first page or two. The book is really well organized and the exercises are useful. The recording is not bad, but not great. As long as you have a decent language plan, which includes Listening from the beginning, the so-so audio won’t be a problem. FSI is mostly non-native audio, and full of really ugly transliteration. I don’t recommend it. Even though I bought Smyth, I did it for the audio, and didn’t read the book. It’s very nice audio, although quite basic. Not nearly as much content as Becker, but it may be your best choice depending on your language plan. I’ve bought the audio and read through several other programs, but to summarize my opinion, Becker is the best for most people, Everyday for people who want to avoid transliteration, and Smyth for a shorter program that uses transliteration. Edited by leosmith on 21 November 2012 at 4:02pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LangOfChildren Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 5432 days ago 82 posts - 141 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian | Message 23 of 29 21 November 2012 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you leosmith, I was going to write something similar. I don't understand how this book series could be missing from a poll about the best Thai books for beginners. This series is the best I've found so far. Teach Yourself Thai uses a terrible transliteration system in my opinion and is way too much tailored for tourists, which is something I strongly dislike.
While I think the layout is quite plain, Thai for Beginners is really well organized. I think it's great that it has both dialogues *and* many example sentences. Get Thai for Beginners and work through it. (Then get the second book) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6234 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 24 of 29 22 November 2012 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
This still totally blows me away! How could FSI record an entire course with non-natives?!? Unbelievable and disappointing!! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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