Learn Thai: A Beginner's Guide to the Structure of the Thai Language

Description

Thai: ฉันให้หนังสือฉันเอง ฉัน ให้ หนังสือ ตัวฉันเอง I give book myself English: I give the book to myself. Learn Thai is a book that outlines the general structure of the Thai language. It's is written in English and is primarily directed at native speakers of English; however, it may also be useful for speakers of Romance or other Germanic languages. Learn Thai is written for beginners and people who have never seen or studied Thai before. Learn Thai starts with an overview of how to pronounce Thai, which is a tonal language. The main portion of Learn Thai discusses Thai grammar and sentence structure and covers the major parts of speech. Some discussion of words and structures unique to Thai are given as well. The final portion of Learn Thai lists the most frequently used words in English and their Thai equivalents. After reading this book, you should be familiar with the general structure of the Thai language, be able to pronounce the words, and learn about some unique aspects of the Thai language that are foreign to English and other European languages. This book is part of an eight part series on Thai. 1 - Learn Thai: A Beginner's Guide to the Structure of the Thai Language 2 - 200 Thai Sentences: Tones 3 - 200 Thai Sentences: Verbs 4 - 200 Thai Sentences: Nouns 5 - 200 Thai Sentences: Adjectives 6 - 200 Thai Sentences: Prepositions 7 - 200 Thai Sentences: Verb Tenses 8 - Learn English: English for Thai Speakers Written in Thai Review: It is not a good study guide for any foreign students - The book has many grammatical errors and many expressions are not used by native Thai speakers (some idioms and expressions are not being used correctly). Also, the book does not have page numbers. It is not a good study guide for any foreign students. Review: A helpful guide to Thai with some flaws that might deter the beginner. - Interesting book that pulls together many aspects of Thai. As is true for many Thai language books, the "romanization" system used is not particularly helpful, but that seems to be par for the course -- any "romanization" is affected by many things such as is the system designed to aid a resident of England, Australia or the US -- each of which pronounces many words with different sounds. And in many cases the "romanization" is not present, leaving one to read the Thai script to make out the pronunciation -- for example, in tenses it states "Continuous tense is indicated by the regular present tense verb or by adding กำลัง." Examples follow, but there is no indication of how one might pronounce กำลัง. As I have learned how to usually sound out Thai script, that is not a huge issue, but for a true beginner, it might be. But the book is commendable for its clear treatment of tenses and generally helpful discussion of parts of speech. My four stars is because I have not found many (perhaps "any") Thai grammar books that treat so many topics. I wish the ebook had a Table of Contents and pagination. It takes time to find subjects on your own. As one dabbling with learning Thai, I like this book for all its limitations. I have found that the Paiboon Thai-English dictionary on google play is an excellent resource which I use with all of my Thai language study aids.