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Tags: Learning Difficulty | Language Program | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4669 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 24 16 June 2012 at 9:04am | IP Logged | ||
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1) Michel Thomas French Vocabulary builder.
2) Learn in Your Car Chinese 3) Rosetta Stone 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 24 17 June 2012 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
Last time I checked, any grammar had sections on word order and the parts of speech: pronouns, verbs etc. - a kind of description on how the language works, how sentences are put together. One doesn't have to be addicted to grammar in order to benefit at least a little from knowing basic sentence structure, why the clauses look the way the do. Otherwise it's like "teaching" arithmetics by giving the students and solutions without any explanations. Hypothetical examples: asdf ertr dgdfkj lijbvivof - Where's the nearest police station? kjrlke dsvfkgj tyrölf clvöxölh - How much is this pack of cigarettes? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nakrian keegiat Diglot Groupie Thailand Joined 4905 days ago 70 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 24 17 June 2012 at 5:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with what you wrote but don't understand your point. I never said that grammar isn't necessary or that it's possible to learn only from phrasebooks. I referred to those booklet/cd's as "supplemental" material because they are used in addition to larger courses, grammar books, movies, etc. My point was only that some of those products that you dismiss are very good so they should be evaluated on a case by case basis and that some of them have great value to a learner.
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| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4664 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 20 of 24 17 June 2012 at 6:05am | IP Logged | ||
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It seems to me that the type of materials nakrian keegiat is talking about might work better for Thai than for many other languages. Thai doesn't have much grammar to speak of, and word order tends to be similar to English, except that adjectives follow nouns. Being able to reproduce the sounds is a big part of the battle for Thai, so a phrasebook with audio would be quite useful (especially for the lazy student :))
Although using pronouns in Thai can be somewhat complicated, they can often be left out. Probably a phrasebook would be able to provide some minimal distinctions for men and women, which it would also need to do for the polite particles anyway. But this is just a detail. Nakrian keegiat, I wonder if you could tell us the titles of the materials you are referring to. Personally I learned Thai using TY by David Smyth, I don't think the books by Becker go deep enough into the language. By the way, there are some good one-volume treatments of Thai grammar, each with its own emphasis. Smyth is a good short work which also covers writing, Higbie and Thinsen is very useful for learners, and Iwasaki and Ingkapiromu is more technical and oriented to linguists. Edited by viedums on 17 June 2012 at 6:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4669 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 24 17 June 2012 at 7:51am | IP Logged | ||
I don't know much about Thai, but I've used several "short courses" in almost every language I've studied. I find that it's much more effective than finding some sort of ideal program. There are some really good "stand alone" programs out there, but almost all of them can be aided by these short courses, imo. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nakrian keegiat Diglot Groupie Thailand Joined 4905 days ago 70 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 24 17 June 2012 at 8:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm referring to the Speak Like a Thai series. Volume 1 has a lot of very common phrases that aren't found elsewhere. I consider it to be one of the few "must have" materials. The other volumes are useful but not necessary, imo. I also liked Becker's Practical Thai Conversation dvd's. Shortcut to Speaking Thai is also very good and one of the best values I've seen. It has a small book and 3 cd's with lots of good colloquial conversations for only about $8.
I agree about Becker's books, but that's what I used. I've had people ask me what is the best plan/materials for Thai and I tell them: 1)Learn to read. There are several books like Reading Thai is Fun, and websites that can teach the alphabet, tone rules etc. I can't recommend a specific one because I learned using Becker which is o.k. but not the best choice available now. 2)Everyday Thai for Beginners. It is the best beginner course but there is no transliteration and its section on the alphabet is pretty minimal. Other choices could be Teach Yourself, Becker, or Fundamentals of Thai. 3)After finishing that you should be ready for basic conversation. Speak Like a Thai 1, Shortcut to Speaking Thai, and the Thai Conversation discs will help with common phrases and be good for listening practice. 4)Thai Reference Grammar (Higbie and Thinsan). This is by far the best book for learning Thai and the only other one I consider to be a "must have". After completing it you can move on to native materials. As you can see, I don't recommend only using these booklet/cd phrasebook type materials but they can play an important part. EDIT: The other "must have" is thai2english which allows you to type or cut and paste Thai text and has a popup dictionary. Since Thai doesn't have spaces between words this make sit so much easier when starting to read. I wasted hundreds of hours before I found this program. Edited by nakrian keegiat on 17 June 2012 at 9:11am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5806 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 23 of 24 01 July 2012 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
What in particular is bad about it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4699 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 24 of 24 02 July 2012 at 5:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Any of the BBC things for learnign Chinese, light on content, all pinyin adn more expensive than other courses that give you more.
The berlitz courses, I also think they are over priced, considering what you can get from them. Note - I have never used them, just looked through them in a book store when I was back in the UK, but it was enough for me to reject them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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