wasabi

I don't recommend Rosetta stone for any non Roman based language. RS is a unique way to learn a language, but you simply must learn the Thai alphabet to make any use of Thai since so much of the language is based on tones which can be infered from the alphabet. There's no way you'll just intuitively pick up the alphabet enough to make practical use of Rosetta. You will be forced to use English as a crutch until you know enough Thai to read or at least recognize letters and vowels.

It may seem like a pain but I would study the letters, classes (there are three) and tones (there are five) first. A good start is Thai for Beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. You'll simply have to repeat the alphabet over and over until you have it memorized. Use whatever mnemonic techniques you can think of as you go along. After that build some basic vocabulary but don't spend forever memorizing words, just go through Thai for Beginners. After this start memorizing phrases even if you don't know all the words, in conjunction with this continue to learn more words, but always with an emphasis on phrases which will help you understand word order, classifiers and other things distinct to Thai.

Sounds like a g to me

http://www.thai-language.com/audio/E134345.wma

Thanks, this all makes sense.

ท่า port; harbor; wharf; pier; landing

ถ้า if

These both sound like Thaa with the falling tone to me. How can you tell them apart?

I've knocked up a web page to do conversions.  It's only Version 0.0 - I need examples for mai tri, mai chattawa and pho samphao, e.g. in the same style as the Word sample attached earlier.  It will decrypt (csThai encoding to Unicode) and encrypt (Unicode to csThai encoding).  The encryption has other imperfections - it does not combine vowel and tonemark where csThai uses a single character.

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The page is now at Version 0.2, and I think I've fixed all the above issues. There's unlikely to be any real further improvement unless I get bug reports.

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It's working great. This is a tremendous help.

Richard that is awesome!

I can try to get you more characters from the CSThai font if you can help me complete the mapping. This is very useful to me. Since it allows cross referencing with the various websites out there.

Richard what you say makes sense, I just wish it was simpler, that I could copy and paste the text to further research on other sites. This is essential to me because while I like to learn entire phrases I also like to better understand the individual vocabulary. Though the software allows you to drill down into any text, it surprisingly lacks English definitions for individual words in the phrase portion of the software. There is only Thai script, transliteration and English meaning for the entire phrase. It's nice to memorize phrases but without knowing the individual words it's not as effective. I hope someone knows a solution to this problem or Courage software makes a patch. I have emailed them but haven't heard back yet. I wish I could replace the CSThai with a more universal font.

The problem is that csThai is a hack font designed so that you don't need to switch to Thai to input characters.  Unfortunately, it's based on the Kedmanee keyboard layout - at least the characters you get for Roman letters are.  Those for which you type Roman punctuation are jumbled.

When it says for 'home use', it means for home use.  I presume you can make webpage for use by yourself and other users of Thai Courage Software by specifying the font as csThai.

Think of csThai as a font which visually decrypts a cypher - Thai letters are encrypted as ASCII characters - the characters supported for almost every language using the Roman alphabet.  It's a simple job to write a program to decrypt text meant for the csThai font - one could even write a web page to do it on- or off-line.  It's more complicated if the program has to distinguish text in the csThai font from other text.

There's a possibility it's the same encoding as for the fonts used by SEAsite for Thai, but I hadn't noticed any discrepancies between the SEAsite Thai font and the Kedmanee keyboard.

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I think it's possibly something to do with the proprietary CSThai font. I tried taking that text and selecting the Tahoma font in Word, but it wouldn't display the Thai text properly.

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I agree. It looks like the real problem is converting the CSThai font to something readable by most other programs, such as Tahoma.

Or alternatively if I could get Courage Thai to use a font other than CSThai.

Any suggestions anyone?

You are saying that it shows up correctly (Thai) in MS Word but not in your web browser? If so check to make sure your browser is set for Thai encoding.  Select "View" "Character encoding" and then "Thai TIS-620" or "Thai Windows-874" and see if it displays correctly.

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I have tried to change the encoding without success, here is a screen shot so you can see what I mean in MS word. I wonder what font format Courage Thai uses so I can better explore how to make it appear in other apps? I've also included a copy of it in .doc format.

example.doc

I wish to copy and paste text from Thai courage software, the only way I can even highlight the text is to go to the print function of the software, but even though I can see it in MS Word when I copy and paste it, it looks like this

o'lvgfb[

look at the following

http://www.couragesoftware.com/page3.htm

"Print Activities which can be

edited and printed for home use."

I am using Windows XP with service pack 2 and have installed several types of Thai font

when opened in MS word the font defaults to csThai however it becomes garbled as soon as I try to bring it to a web browser.

what does ไปก็ไป mean?

thank you.

My spoken Thai is fine, better than most actually, no worries, however after 13 years I should really learn to read and write. My 5 year old kid can so I should.

I need a teacher of some decription who's experienced at teaching "thick" people. Any names or numbers folks?

It my New Years resolution.

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TS,

after 18 years, this is the best program I've found.

It's available at (or used to be) Panthip, Sriracha, etc.

chok dee

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Tomissan, what is the exact name of the software you mention above? Is it Courage Thai?

Siam Royal Authentic Thai Cuisine - (650) 329-8129

338 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301

Map

Bambi (queen of google)

She's dangerous today!

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Unbeknownst to Siam Royal we just greatly enhanced their search for a new employee. I'm sure the phone will be ringing off the hook now.

I can't quite make it out.

I am confused by the use of ก่อน in this phrase. It literally seems to mean. I must go before, though I know it means I must go now. It seems one would say ต้องไปเดี๋ยวนี้ instead.

Why is the word ก่อน used?

Thank you.

W

I keep hearing this in Thai songs, but I tried the transliteration of it on thai-english without any luck.

Thanks.

I can read the standard Thai script fairly well. However I have a lot of trouble reading the other type of Thai font, evident on the website linked below and on most Thai TV

http://www.siribuncha.com/thai/index.html

Are there any websites that help learn this other Thai script?

Here's another example. Here ร looks like an S in one of the styles. I would like a website geared towards teaching this other style.

http://www.thai-language.com/let/195

I have a Thai-English dictionary which lists every letter and alternate styles, however it would be easiest for me to learn with a side by side comparison of standard Thai script and this other type. By the way, which type face do Thai people prefer?

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This has been discussed before. Have a look here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...ndpost&p=303927

You can download this document to help:

http://seasrc.th.net/paper/tellthai.zip

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Thanks a lot, very helpful.

I can read the standard Thai script fairly well. However I have a lot of trouble reading the other type of Thai font, evident on the website linked below and on most Thai TV

http://www.siribuncha.com/thai/index.html

Are there any websites that help learn this other Thai script?

Here's another example. Here ร looks like an S in one of the styles. I would like a website geared towards teaching this other style.

http://www.thai-language.com/let/195

I have a Thai-English dictionary which lists every letter and alternate styles, however it would be easiest for me to learn with a side by side comparison of standard Thai script and this other type. By the way, which type face do Thai people prefer?

What about the fact she primarily speaks Thai and I speak English?

I probably could do it myself, but I don't want to make any mistakes and have to do the process over again. It seems to get exponentially longer if you screw up any paper work. These lawyers tend to run a few thousand dollars and I am not a rich man, but at the same time getting my wife to America is my prime concern. Getting it done in 4-6 months versus 12 or longer is worth a few thousand. She is in Thailand. I am in America. We both speak a little of each other's languages but there are definitely communication barriers at this distance. A legal team that speaks Thai and English will be essential. Thus far I'm just going to go with mythaifiancee.com I can't find anything negative about them and so far they've been very good responding to my emails. Maybe I'm paying a bit too much but I've wasted much larger amounts of money on far less worthwhile pursuits before. For me using a legal service is worth it. Since no one has any suggestions I'll just go with mythaifiance.

I appreiciate the advice however what I really need to know regardless of which Visa I use is who is the best lawyer to assist me.

I am about to marry a Thai woman. I am a US citizen. The family wants me to get a K1 visa, not a K3 fiance visa so the K1 is the one I will need to work with. (Maybe I have them confused I need the one you use after actually being married in Thailand) I've decided I will most likely need the help of a lawyer to get all the paperwork done and assist my soon to be wife. I was thinking of using Brian's service at www.mythaifiancee.com But I can't find much information about him. I believe he advertises on this site. Does anyone know anything about Brian and the www.mythaifiancee.com service? If not him, what lawyer should I go with that speaks both Thai and English and can help me and my wife with all the paperwork?