Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles, so just think how many more smiles you’ll get by making a humble attempt to learn the local language. Learning Thai is rewarding, but it can also be quite frustrating; learning how to speak a tonal language and read a whole new script are challenges you don’t have to face when learning most European languages. But don’t give up just yet! Authors John Moore & Saowalak Rodchue have come out with the book, Colloquial Thai: The Complete Course for Beginners, that can truly help you learn basic Thai.
The book is quite a standard beginner’s Thai book. It starts by explaining the transliteration system used in the book. It may be tempting to just skip over this, but don’t. Learning how to exactly say a Thai word from a book is already a bit difficult; don’t make it harder by ignoring the rules of transliteration in the beginning. Learning what the placement of different accents mean will help you to speak more accurate Thai while learning from a book.
Though the book uses some written Thai throughout, it mostly relies on transliteration of the language. This makes learning much easier if your ultimate goal is only to get around the country, find bathrooms when necessary and bargain for the best price. If, however, you want to go beyond surface level Thai, then at some point you will probably want to learn how to read and write Thai. The book does present the alphabet and corresponding sounds at the beginning, but it’s really not enough to help you learn how to read and write. If your goal is to master Thai, then you will need to supplement this book with another one.
This book can be used for students learning Thai independently or with a teacher. If you are a self-taught student of Thai language, then you will probably have some difficulty mastering the tones. Luckily, the book does come with an audio CD of recorded dialogues presented in the book. This will help you to hear the correct sound, but that doesn’t ensure you will be able to mimic the sounds correctly. It’s important that every once in a while you get a native Thai speaker to hear you speak to be sure that you’re mastering the tones correctly.
"Learning Thai is rewarding, but it can also be quite frustrating; learning how to speak a tonal language and read a whole new script are challenges you don’t have to face when learning most European languages. But don’t give up just yet!"
If you are a Thai teacher, this book is a decent place to start. You can have your students listen to the dialogues and work on the exercises at home. You can review their answers in class and give more thorough explanations for the rules of grammar, usage of vocabulary and so on. All in all, this is a pretty straight-forward beginner’s book that can help your students learn Thai.
