Reddit reviews Thai for Beginners

If you're gonna go live in Thailand you're probably better off dropping Chinese and focusing on one language. Learning two at the same time from scratch is difficult.

Have you already done the Benjawan Becker books? Get those, you'll learn some basic Thai, and since you already know the alphabet it should be easy. Add Thai friends on Facebook and start chatting with them every day. What are you doing, what did you eat etc every day. Use google translate (but only for individual words, it cant do sentences very well) to help. Eventually you will be reading and writing on your own. If you can read you can probably pronounce basic words closely enough that people will understand, try to getting your girlfriend to use Thai with you. Download an app called Hellotalk and find people to do language exchanges with.

Welcome fellow Canadian!

Learning Thai is definitely worth the effort. The hardest part about it is the pronunciation; there are a lot of 'ng' sounds at the beginning and middle of words and that can be difficult to speak correctly.

There are some books that help with learning Thai: Thai for Beginngers is the first. It is authored by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. You can find it in any Asia Books store here in Bangkok.

I used this book as well as the intermediate version and, though I don't speak fluently, I definitely have a working knowledge of the language and I can read it. The book teaches you both reading and vocabulary, if learning to read it doesn't interest you, then skip it. However, knowing how to read it (which is not that difficult once you understand how the vowels and a few consonants work) improves your pronunciation quite a lot. Thai has no official transliteration like Mandarin does (pinyin) so every book has a different method and it can get confusing.

I'm wondering, where did you buy it?



It's not a well known Thai language learning book when compared to Thai for Beginners by Becker. If you go to Thailand, you'll see that book, along with its CD, in every English language bookstore there.

There's also an app for iPhone and Android and it's amazing. It's missing some details from the book but it's still an excellent way to learn the language

But to answer your question, I looked on amazon and found the book there but I'm not 100% sure if it comes with the CD. The thing is, it's not amazon that's selling the product. It's mostly third-party sellers who are using amazon to sell the product so you have to contact them

Sadly, I can't find any other sites that are just selling the CD

Sorry but good luck on your Thai language journey

http://www.amazon.com/Thai-Beginners-Benjawan-Poomsan-Becker/dp/1887521003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377482536&sr=8-1&keywords=thai+learn

I used this book and really like it. It's one to consider.

http://www.amazon.com/Thai-Beginners-Benjawan-Poomsan-Becker/dp/1887521003

I don't know of apps as I studied Thai before the invention of smartphones but I really like the youtube channel ThaiwithMod

I also know many foreigners who have done self study with this book and it helped them a lot with writing and reading.

Otherwise just learn some basic phrases about food and directions and try to use it. Thais love it when you try to speak with them in their language. You may get laughs but it is all in good fun.

โชคดี (Chok-dee) Good Luck!

Suh-too-waat

Tell-lee

Learning a little Thai will make your trip here more fun and enjoyable. Pick up this book, and practice before you arrive.

Thai for Beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker

Does a great job explaining tones and pronunciation.