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Gaccha
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Posts posted by Gaccha
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In Thailand, ANYONE can wear a bullet proof vest anywhere, anytime. You will look like an idiot, but you can wear one none the less. And, if you feel the need to wear one and you aren't on a strike team, bodyguard of an official, Embassy duty, AND ON DUTY, then you obviousily don't have a clue what the <deleted>** you are doing.
Reminds me of my time in the West Bank. The vest acted as an ideal target-- a bullet magnet-- for anyone taking a disliking to Westerners. The only person who had one and wore it just stuck it on as a joke when he was at a dinner party with me. The next minute shots start flying in from the front entrance and we all end up dashing out the back (after, of course, we have paid the bill).
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My sturdy iRiver IHP-120 has finally kicked the bucket. I expected that after 7 years of technological development, it would be a piece of cake to not only get all its functions but improve on its 20GB memory.
I want:
on-the-go playlist
recording line- in
A-B repeat function
at least 25GB memory
file and ID3 tag control
playback speed
remote control
NO touchscreen (useless to control in the pocket)
These are pretty basic in my eyes, but it looks like that after iRiver and Cowon (with their MX5) the product has gone. There now seems to be two product types in the eyes of the technology firms:
a. big memory audio playing MP3s for hyper-consummerist teenagers with simple needs (no recording, no need to repeat intervals)
b. small dictaphone like devices with recording function (but with little memory space)
The nearest to the product I desire is the Creative Zen 16GB (the 32GB is not on sale in Thailand), as the supplier of Cowon in Thailand seems to have ceased to exist. The alternative Sony 16GB and the Samsung have limitations I dislike (one is touchscreen, and the Sony has no on-the-go playlist)
Any suggestions...? Have I exhausted all the limited possibilities...?
The iPhone and Zune seem so loaded with irritiating consumerist stuff I don't want to touch them, unless can assuage me of my concerns, but I don't think either have what I am looking for.
Thanks
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It looks great, but I went to Se-Ed, Book Variety, and B2S, today and no place had it for sale or listed in their computers. Was it just released?
No, not really. I first saw it about 2 months ago. But I do reckon it has not been widely released. It probably does require a bit of a man hunt.
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The best way to master listening is to keep listening to a segment of movie/news/drama until you get virtually every word.
This means you need a 'A-B repeat function' on your computer's media player. That is, a function that lets you listen to just a few seconds of the audio repeatedly without fiddling with rewind again and again and again.
And it means, when things get difficult you can slow the audio down... so you need a 'playback speed function'.
Easy? No.
These are extremely rare functions for computer media players. Go on, see if your Windows Media Player has them.
Oh, almost forgot, I also want to delay the subtitles by, say, 2 seconds so I can guess the audio first time I listen to something... so I need a 'subtitle delay function.'
So this is the solution:
Downland the free GOM software at this address:
http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_Introduction.html
This has both these crucial control functions and is also a dream to work with...
Anyway, lets get back to the Winnie the Pooh movie I'm watching...
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Hello Gaccha, is that McD's on the L/H as you come in? Past the isle R/H that has the moving stair and also leads to kids rides and crap if walk into the other room? On the R/H far corner is Watson's, to your L is the magazines??? If this is the place, after Watson's Tajinis or somthing. Next 'Bata' and then 'Foot In' and then goldshop I think.
I wasn't looking at shoes, the free A/C and the view.
rice555
I reckon the shop is Bata... because it was branded red. It was the small shoeshop next to the big shoeshop. Apparently, they are both owned by the same company...
Anyone done any further walk-ins through Khorat's Mall. Rice555 has got the entrance door right- McDs on your left as you go in and then walk straight ahead...
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This is a serious rarity.
A book obviously aimed at Thai children but which is interesting to adults and has an audio in Thai/English for the book.
A book that goes around the World and looks at key aspects in countries' cultures.
e.g. Germany- Neuschwanstein Castle, Sausages, Albert Einsten and Oktoberfest.
The book has a blatant bias towards Europe and Asia-- just two countries 'visited' in Africa-- but how many of us have visited Burkino Faso...?
With such lines as: "He discovered the theory of relativity and the photoelectric effect theory which contributed greatly to the scientific world. Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize...", it is tough on parents ("Mum, what is photoelectric?").
It has enough vocab for the adult learner. But it is also all on MP3. A sample is available at the website:
http://www.misbook.com/shopexd.asp?ccode=P-ENG-23
It provides key words for each country:
Switzerland:
headquarters/landlocked/manufacturer/stretch
Enigmatically, the keywords for the UK are:
beginning/hinder/officially/tragic
There are some amusing errors in the English language section-- I guess native English speaker checkers are expensive. But I was not planning on upgrading my English from it.
Available at SE-ED bookstores. And it costs (with CD) 199 bahts. Hard to resist.
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I live in bangkok but discovered a fantastic shoe shop in Khorat's The Mall. Problem is: I can't remember the name and I will not visit Khorat anytime soon.
You walk through the main entrance (with Yayoi on your right) and on the right side as you keep walking are two shoe shops next to each other. Both are actually owned by the same company. The one I like has a narrow shopface and is mostly red in branding (from memory).
I really like the shoes there, can a Khorat inhabitant tell me the name. I know they have branches in Bangkok but don't know where...
And if you know their website, that would be a bonus
That must be someone who lives in Khorat who strolls through The Mall.... please,,,
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can anyone reccommend a good online dictionary with english to thai translation for legal terms?
Thanks!
The Royal Institute publishes a comprehensive legal dictionary, English-Thai, Thai-English. See:
In response to the original question: you'll just have to use the standard online dictionaries. There are only two decent ones anyway. (e.g. http://www.thai-language.com/dict/)
If you can get a book, then I recommend 'Windows on Language' Thai-English Legal Dictionary, available in every good bookshop. Its sister book is the best standard Thai-Eng dictionary available.
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A couple of days ago in a Thai restaurant in Central i was charged 5 baht ++ for ice in my water, I never knew there was a charge and they pointed it out in the menu (I never looked at the drinks page as I knew i would have water). I said I wouldn't pay it and the manager said he would have to pay it if I didn't, I said thanks for his offer and I let him pay it
I know its only 5 baht ++ but come on, it's ice <deleted>, the one and only time in 3 years I have seen a charge for ice in a restuarant
I can beat this!! In Central as well, I was charged 50 bahts for not having ice in my Cola...
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It indicates stressed/unstressed syllables using - and ~ ... so the word สนทนา is romanized sǒn-thá~naa. So while it still shows you the formal tone of the middle syllable (high), the ~ also tells you that in practice it's unstressed, and so the tone is neutralized in fluid speech. You could do the same with Thai and avoid Roman (สน-ทะ~นา), but it's still a cool feature.
Now this is interesting. I have often thought tone (i.e. pitch) is privileged in discussions on learning Thai. I feel the stresses are more important. Go shopping and go pitich neutral but get all the stresses right and everything is understood. This fascinates me. Takes a lot of practice to kill all the tones though.
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Affluent? You'd never think it by the state of the shophouses and guys sitting around playing cards/staring all day. They may want to do some research on the Chinese and Indian immigrants though...that's about all they'll find around there. Not a whole lot of open crime going on.
I think you might have your heads in the metaphorical sand.
The main street is one of the main kerb crawler prostitution areas of Bangkok. There is rampant drugs and gambling on a vast scale. And that area had a very serious riot owing to social tensions way back in times before the VisaForum even existed... yep, that long ago.
Visit after dark.
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This one is brand new -- not even in bookstores yet
It is now. Saw it today for the first time. And didn't buy it.
495 bahts. You must be %*^*Y*(& joking... -
The Japanese have done it again:
A book with the basic 540 words with variations in Issan, Chiang Mai, South Thai spelt out in Thai for each one, transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet with the correct accents and an audio provided for every single one. All have a slow version and then a normal speed version.
It says it is aimed at intermediate and above who are interested in understanding the variations. The foreign text is Japanese but then you won't need it because you can already read the Standard Thai.
Nice.
According to a rating in Amazon Japan it is the first time ever that the four dialects have been collected together like this. Its rating in Amazon is 5 stars.
You can buy it at Kinokuniya CentralWorld-- there are about 10 copies.
The books name is 超基礎 タイ単語540 +チェンマイ語、イサーン語、南タイ語
or "The very basic 540 words plus Chiang Mai, Issan and Southern Thai"
...it costs about 550 baht
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I live in bangkok but discovered a fantastic shoe shop in Khorat's The Mall. Problem is: I can't remember the name and I will not visit Khorat anytime soon.
You walk through the main entrance (with Yayoi on your right) and on the right side as you keep walking are two shoe shops next to each other. Both are actually owned by the same company. The one I like has a narrow shopface and is mostly red in branding (from memory).
I really like the shoes there, can a Khorat inhabitant tell me the name. I know they have branches in Bangkok but don't know where...
And if you know their website, that would be a bonus
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Whether you are visiting Thailand for a short while or living there
permanently, you will find most of the vocabulary used in everyday
life, including basic medical, cultural, political and scientific
terms. Completely updated and expanded with more than 28,000 entries
and 36,000 definitions, as well as a new, large font size that is easy
on the eyes, this next-generation Paiboon dictionary now lists over
15,000 classifiers along with nouns.
Who on earth is this really aimed at? It seems it is trying to please everyone and anyone and failing to please anyone. With so many entries that could only be utilised by an advanced speaker it seems to be for an advanced speaker. But then there are no example sentences, so how does the speaker learn to use the words...
Perhaps it is aimed at the novice; it does have transliterations of the Thai. But could they, would they, should they need so many words...?
My suggestion for Paiboon is to do this:Release a dictionary of 2,500 words with a breakdown of their meanings and around 8,000 simple sentences, and use transliterations (I recommend the International Phonetic Alphabet), with a very large font size.
Release another dictionary with 28,000 words, with a smaller font size, with transliterations, but concentrate on tough sentences.
For the time being, I will continue to use Concise of Windows of Languages for Thai-English, and the Eng-Thai dictionary compact edition that is the only small dictionary with sentences. Is that fair?
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For the benefit of this topic I went and played on the latest Cyberdict (number 11).
The following points:
There is a Thai spoken component. This is incredibly rare among standard electronic dictionaries (as opposed to the useless phrase book electronic books) and should be applauded. It is also substantial. My guess is 35,000 words.
There are 2 standard English dictionaries. The good one is Oxford River Books-- enormous and well-written. It includes lots of sample sentences. The word "revenge" had 4 examples, along with antonyms and synonyms.
It is touch screen. You don't know the word then you can look up the Thai word with a touch of the screen. Very useful and possibly unique.
There are multiple dictionaries such as legal, medical, Japanese-Thai (but not the reverse), Chinese- Thai. I would regard the legal dictionary as poor quality.
The spoken voice is restricted to the "multiple language" dictionary. This has only the word and no explanation, no definition and no example sentences. To get these you must switch between the dictionaries.
The issue is the price tag (about 13,000 bahts). This makes sense if you plan to use the astonishing number of features for learning English but none of these features (e.g. animation spelling games) exist in reverse.
The dictionaries cannot be picked-- they are pre-installed. In an ideal world the Thai-English dictionary would be the "Concise" dictionary by Windows on Languages.
So I still await the entry of the big Japanese players onto the market. Hurry up Canon, Sony!
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Hello,
I have a question. I have a computer Windows XP. What is the easiest way to transfer music from a CD to one of those usb flash drives so that i can plug it into the car and listen to it.
Thanks to anyone who can help me in advance.
Unless I am missing something here, you just need to burn onto your computer the CD music (say, with Windows Media Player, select "Rip"). Then copy and paste across onto the USB from wherever your computer stores the ripped music.
(If you try to copy and paste direct from the CD it won't work because you are simply pasting the listing to the USB, and not any music)
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1. Buy the spray that is just for spraying onto the mosquito screens. Stops any making any attempts to rush through gaps.
2. If they make it in, turn on the air conditioner (obviously, close the window) and take the temperature down to 17 degrees-- it will kill them all
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Ok...so now I have learnt sufficient vocab to hold a broken (Thai) conversation with Thai folks. I can form simple sentences like, "I've just come from the shopping mall. The things there are great!" but I realised my sentence formation capabilities is limited to the structures that I've learnt from my Benjawan Poomsan's Beginner's book. I wanna move on from kindergarten Thai.
Where can I learn how to string more complex sentences like, "In my country, shopping malls may be great, but streetside stalls are even better!"?
KKK
Just buy "Thai Reference Grammar" by Higbie and Thinsan, pick a random page, learn the new grammar point, and use it.
In your above sentence, the two following grammar points are needed:
1. even better-- Chapter 12
2. but-- Chapter 9
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Open?
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WWW.thaiforbeginners.com
Is a website of the paknam network (discussed in my last post) and not of the publisher!
This proves again that the paknam network is polluting the google search results in Thailand. They have more than 50 websites that link to each other (many are almost never updated). They always turn up number one on google (because google prefers websites that are often linked to). So, by typing the title of a book on google you ended up on the wrong website.
This is the website of the publisher:
Now I feel bad.
It is strange a sales company adding an expensive extra bit of product that they themselves created to sales for a particular product that they had nothing to do with. If you are a sales company then you try to specialise in sales. The 'extra' that they are offering is worth more than the original product. The hundreds of hours it must have taken to create this extra could surely have been better spent...
My next question is: why not sell this 'extra' product? Half the people on the Thai language forum would kill for it...
And Mr Barrow is a naughty boy in having a website with the same name as the book...
Mr Barrow is offering these books at a very low price (for people that live outside Thailand), with free international shipping, and you get this addon for free. Mr Barrow lives in Thailand and the people he works with are Thai. That probably explains the low prices. Most of the paknam websites use an open-sources content management system (joomla), so that also helps to keep the costs low. Their servers are also rather slow. And besides this Mr Barrow is (or maybe "was") a teacher, so he has more than one income.
www.learningthai.com was originally made by one of his students (called Gor). Gor, was a very talented boy but he started experimenting with drugs and ended up in jail. Some work from Gor is being sold by Mr Barrow and the money is used for a study fund for the daughter of Gor. I think the free extra was partly created by Gor.
That's why I believe Mr Barrow is a good man and he's very helpful on his forum. But besides this I also don't like the marketing strategy of the Paknam websites.
Did you contact Mr Barrow to explain him what happened? So he can make sure there will not be any confusion in the future? Or maybe you can make a deal and buy the addon from them? (PS. Don't expect studio quality audio recordings).
Oh yes, I know about Gor. I've read his blogs and used his Thai language website.
Perhaps Mr Barrow might want to start selling his product. So if he reads this, how about it...? I would also recommed he changes the writing on his website to remove the obvious ambiguity that is pretty misleading.
I am actually sitting on a 38,000 word audio on tape of a Thai dictionary that with a lot of jigging could be pulled down to 3,000 words. I just can't find a cheap tape player. I just want to use it once and then its done. I'll use Audacity software to cut into the right audio. Anyone seen a Walkman tape player around?
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WWW.thaiforbeginners.com
Is a website of the paknam network (discussed in my last post) and not of the publisher!
This proves again that the paknam network is polluting the google search results in Thailand. They have more than 50 websites that link to each other (many are almost never updated). They always turn up number one on google (because google prefers websites that are often linked to). So, by typing the title of a book on google you ended up on the wrong website.
This is the website of the publisher:
Now I feel bad.
It is strange a sales company adding an expensive extra bit of product that they themselves created to sales for a particular product that they had nothing to do with. If you are a sales company then you try to specialise in sales. The 'extra' that they are offering is worth more than the original product. The hundreds of hours it must have taken to create this extra could surely have been better spent...
My next question is: why not sell this 'extra' product? Half the people on the Thai language forum would kill for it...
And Mr Barrow is a naughty boy in having a website with the same name as the book...
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I'm a regular listener to BBC Radio, usually with no problems, unless the BBC site is having problems. I tried several programmes on that page before posting the link and they all worked fine.
Click on the link, select a programme. and click on Listen. A pop-up window should appear and the programme should start. If it doesn't start automatically, click on the Play button.
If you don't get the pop-up window then I suspect your browser settings may need adjusting, but I'm no expert in this.
This is very strange. It is not working in exactly the same way that certain, but only certain stations, are blocked on the regular iPlayer. If you go to the terms and conditions it says they are blocked out of the UK. So that must mean your computer is pulling off an impressive move. Can anyone else confirm they can do this?
If it is only you, my guess is your computer is old...
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Is there any work-around for the "play again" option on the BBC websites for the radio stations?
Does realplayer somehow override iplayer if you have it as your default?
Let me make you a challenge: try to listen right now to an old episode of Moral Maze on Radio 4...
Thanks in advance
Most BBC Radio programmes (live sports broadcasts usually excepted) are available for upto 7 days via the Listen Again facility even in Thailand. The Radio 4 Listen Again programmes are listed on
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml
It's not possible to listen to any broadcasts of Moral Maze at the moment because none have been broadcast in the last 7 days
Through that link it all seems to be blocked. Just tried it and no luck. Have you actually managed to listen?
Mp3 Player With Functions And Decent Memory
in Audio Visual AV
Posted
I like the idea of Blootooth headphones and I'll get a player with bluetooth capability. But as for the Cowon, they are not available in Thailand. Any other suggestions? (the postal options are poor as well)