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Thai Language Study Materials 2007


adawes

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Based on several useful posts in this section (sorry I can't give the authors credit, as I can't find the threads), here is what I found, over the last few weeks in Bangkok:

 

AUA Language Center, Thai Course, Reading & Writing workbooks

 

-- R Text (mostly reading)

 

-- W Workbook (mostly writing)

 

These two books are available from the AUA Bookstore, near the Ratchadamri Skytrain Station, same side as the Erawan Shrine, and walking south towards Sarasin Road. The "bookstore" is actually just a hole in the wall, ground floor, of the main building. You'll see the books displayed in a cabinet. Tell them what you want, shove your money through the hole, and they'll shove the books back through the hole. I forget the price, but it wasn't much.

 

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Two elementary level childrenâ??s books are available at the Chulalongkorn University Bookstore (CU Books). Every map I have shows the bookstore in a different location, and every map is wrong. However, it's one of those cases where you really can't miss it. It's south of Siam Square, on Soi Chula 64 near Pahyathai Road (Siam Skytrain station). The original information posted in this forum has a minor typo in the books' titles. Shown below is volume 1 (44 baht), while volume 2 (52 baht) shows a child sitting in a tree. The front covers of both books are shown on the back of each book. At CU Books it literally took 5 employees and two computer terminals to help me find them. Here is the original message, and a photo of book 1:

 

book1.jpg

 

boo2.jpg

 

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As I found in this forum, some excellent, large, and inexpensive posters of Thai consonants, vowels, numbers, body parts, and other useful items, can be found in a book store just past the National Stadium Skytrain station. When you exit the station, stay on the same side of the street as the train you just got off, and walk in the direction away from MBK. The store is equal to about two blocks from the station, and is just past an unmarked convenience store. The unmarked book store is also a Thai Boy Scout store, if you need uniforms or patches. The posters are 25 baht each, and can be found in two different locations in the store. Some are Thai only, while others are Thai & English. The ones I bought were P-001, P-006, P-011, P-013, P-015, and P-022.They are a real bear to look through, as they are difficult to handle. I bought a large mailing tube at a big stationery store, then used a razor knife to cut it down a few inches, so it would fit in my bag. The tube cost about 35 baht, as did the razor knife.

 

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While shopping at Fortune Town IT Mall, I always check out the nice SE ED Books shop there. They had several posters advertising their excellent series of dictionaries. One that caught my eye was an oversize picture dictionary, with listings in Thai, English and Chinese. Sadly, I couldn't find it in the store. However, I like the large SE ED store on the top floor of MBK, past the movie theatres, so I went there, as I had business in the area anyhow.

 

It was a good thing the Fortune Town branch didn't have the dictionary, as not only did the MBK branch have it, but they had several others, that were even better. The 190 baht SE ED version looks great until you look at the others, which included "2000 Words" and "4000 words." Why there is a 2,000 word version that is only marginally less expensive than the 4,000 word version is a mystery. The 4,000 word version is a bargain at 250 baht. These dictionaries have a large cartoon drawing of a situation, such as "at the supermarket" and "at the office." Each item is then captioned with the Thai and English words. The index and other material in the back is in English. The ISBN is 9-749-19015-7

 

So, just when I thought I found the bargain of the century, I found an even more interesting dictionary, which came with two CDs! It is the "5 Languages International Picture Dictionary." The languages are Thai, English, French, Japanese and Chinese. Thus, there are 5,000 spellings and pronunciations of 1,000 words, both in the book and on the two CDs. The cost was a mere 295 baht. The web site is www.misbook.com and the ISBN is 974-99465-8-5

 

While the book with the two CDs came in a sturdy plastic envelope, the clerk spent quite some time putting a nice custom-fit plastic book cover on the other book.

 

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One book I didn't find anywhere in Thailand was "Making Out in Thai." This is an inexpensive pocket-size Tuttle phrase book, and is one of nine in a series (Thai, English, Tagalog, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese, Arabic and Vietnamese). I bought the Tagalog version in the Philippines, and checked out the Japanese version, which was also excellent. These books are aimed at boy-girl encounters of the happy kind. www.tuttlepublishing.com

 

Thanks again to everyone who helped me find these items in Bangkok.

 

 

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AUA Language Center, Thai Course, Reading & Writing workbooks

 

-- R Text (mostly reading)

 

-- W Workbook (mostly writing)

 

First books I bought back in 1990, never made much use of them. Those books I believe are suposed to support study with "Thai course book 1", written by J. Marvin Brown. I still have the 10 cassette tapes as well but the quality is horrible at best.

 

If your looking for some beginer level reads dont miss This link

I found at http://www.thailandqa.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=13

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I didn't like the core AUA books either, but, way back when, they were about the only thing available from the Cornell University Language Center. In my message above I only mention the reading & writing workbooks.

 

Thanks for all the other links.

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I liked the original AUA speaking books by Marvin Brown. They are old though. They weren't exactly new when I was first studying Thai in 1973 and knew Marvin Brown. (He must be very old or deceased by now.)

 

I can't say I much liked the AUA reading and writing books though. The main problem was they were so dreadfully boring, though not as much as the Mary Haas readers from WWII. :(

 

 

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Btw, what do people think about the Pimsleur Thai comprehensive (30 lesson) course? Is it worth $180?

 

Jeez, I paid over $300 for it before it became torrentible for free. Hint, hint.

 

But even for $300 it is worth it IMO, at least for people with too many books (hint, hint) and not enough actual practice.

 

Better having the machine gun delivery of probably only 150 words from the Pimsleur than "knowing" vocab lists of 1500+.

 

No writing taught on the Pimsleur, of course.

 

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Pimsleur is good. I was able to get the understanding of my ex's conversation with her family.

 

"You get money from farang. He rich he buy everything for us. Take him for everything you can get."

 

Something like that...

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