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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6368 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 1 of 7 18 March 2013 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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http://learn-thai-podcast.com/
Has anyone tried this or know anything about it? It's pretty pricey at nearly 200 USD, but with 800 lessons it's pretty comprehensive, too. I get that they prefer a one-time payment rather than a subscription deal (which is the way most podcast programs work), because they want to avoid people paying for one month and downloading all of the material, but 200 bucks makes it a pretty big investment (probably about as much as I've spent on all my other languages combined). I might be willing to pay it if the lessons are of high quality, as I've found the other podcast alternative (from Innovative Language) to suffer from dialogues spoken in part by a non-native speaker with … less-than-stellar pronunciation. Looking at the suggested curriculum, it looks pretty comprehensive. I especially like that there are entire sets of lessons dealing with the different dialects. That's a sign of a resource for serious learners. There are also lessons dealing with the more formal news language. Directed grammar lessons about specific grammar points, real conversations with native speakers, etc. Looks pretty good, but once again, 200 bucks … So, anyone know anything? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nakrian keegiat Diglot Groupie Thailand Joined 4693 days ago 70 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 7 18 March 2013 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I looked at a few videos on youtube and it seems fine, but a bit slow paced. When I use podcast sites I just read the pdf's and use the dialogue tracks. I find the 15 minute teaching lessons to be incredibly boring. I don't know if this site has individual tracks for each lesson or not.
This review seems to be pretty balanced: http://www.caniliveinthailand.com/ltp-learn-thai-podcast-rev iew/ If money is an issue I can give you a few recommendations depending on how much you want to spend. There are lots of good free materials available, but there are a few books/cd's that are well worth the money. Edited by nakrian keegiat on 18 March 2013 at 8:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6368 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 3 of 7 18 March 2013 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I didn't realize there were example videos on YouTube! I thought there would be more conversations; these are just single sentences spoken at slow pace, it seems. And the hosts are as wooden as in most podcast courses.
[rant] ChinesePod pretty much invented the podcast language learning concept and their strength is the humor and natural charm of the hosts. It's always a blast to listen to those lessons. After CPod a zillion people have tried to copy their concept, and yet every single one seem to fail to realize the importance of having a host that doesn't sound like an inexperienced teenager holding a speech reading from a script. [/rant] Money isn't really an issue; I've got enough. I've also got plenty of alternatives to this course, though I'm always open for recommendations, of course. Not interested in anything in book form, though. I hate books. And certainly no CDs! PDFs and audio files only. But yeah, I've got options. I could always do ThaiPod101. It seems that from Lower Intermediate and up both speakers in the dialogs are native. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nakrian keegiat Diglot Groupie Thailand Joined 4693 days ago 70 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 7 18 March 2013 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thaipod stopped updating years ago. As far as I remember, there is no intermediate material at all and no advanced dialogues, just monologues and I hate the woman's voice. She is native but really over pronounces her long vowels and falling tones so it sounds very whiny. The material is ok so I tried to get through it but then deleted it all after listening to her for about 10 minutes straight. I am literally cringing as I type this and remembering what her voice is like. Ymmv.
The lower intermediate dialogues are good. I was already intermediate when I found the site so I skipped all the beginner lessons so I can't give a review of them. Edited by nakrian keegiat on 18 March 2013 at 9:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6336 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 5 of 7 20 March 2013 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ever try this nakrian?
Some amazon reviewer claimed it's the best program for any price. Of the programs I've used or checked out, Becker is easily the best. But that involves books. Pimsleur Thai is pretty good. There's some pretty good intermediate stuff that's audio/digitized, but not much good beginner stuff. FSI and Assimil both have major flaws. Edited by leosmith on 21 March 2013 at 5:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nakrian keegiat Diglot Groupie Thailand Joined 4693 days ago 70 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 7 21 March 2013 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's a very old program that doesn't work on modern computers and doesn't appear to be supported anymore.
The main course was FSI (or something similar) with a few extras like a letter trainer and some games. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6368 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 7 21 March 2013 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
Not a fan of Pimsleur, so I don't think I'll be using that. Care to elucidate on the flaws of FSI and Assimil? FSI seems to lack the script and suffer from bad quality recordings, but volunteers have been working on adding the script and it's availible for at least the first part. Audio quality is a bigger problem, and of course FSI is super boring. I was counting on using Assimil. It also suffers from a lack of script, but I've found complementary resources there, too. Other than that, it seems to me the only flaw of Assimil Thai is that it's a bit too short, but as a start, it seems pretty good to me. I've transferred the excellent script course from ITS4Thai into Anki. There's no grammar in that one, but it gradually introduces all the letters and pronunciation rules and gives you about 400 words with audio chosen for frequency and use of all these rules, so when I've finished that one (about halfway through, but I'll have to take a break for my trip to HK), I'll be able to pronounce just about any word unless they're really irregularly spelled (but a lot of those irregularly spelled words and words with unusual letters are included in the course). ITS4Thai also has a conversation course, so I was thinking of looking into that as an alternative. It's cheap and if it's anything like the script course, it's effective and no-nonsense. I suspect that with that course and Assimil I should be able to get to a level where I can read simple texts with a dictionary and a grammar, and then it's all downhill from there. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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