Talking Dictionary. Where?

[mafaso]

Does anyone know where I can buy a talking Thai dictionary?

I want to be able to type in an English word and it spit out: the Thai script, the transliteration and to actually speak it.

I know they are available but just wondering if anyone has seen them on Samui anywhere?

Mafaso

[The Vulcan]

Does anyone know where I can buy a talking Thai dictionary?

I want to be able to type in an English word and it spit out: the Thai script, the transliteration and to actually speak it.

I know they are available but just wondering if anyone has seen them on Samui anywhere?

Mafaso

Seen them in the electronics department in Tesco's. Not sure how good/accurate they are though.

[Rooo]

Does anyone know where I can buy a talking Thai dictionary?

I want to be able to type in an English word and it spit out: the Thai script, the transliteration and to actually speak it.

I know they are available but just wondering if anyone has seen them on Samui anywhere?

Mafaso

You never cease to amaze me. Read the top of the page. You have to SPEND money to get it.

[mafaso]

Does anyone know where I can buy a talking Thai dictionary?

I want to be able to type in an English word and it spit out: the Thai script, the transliteration and to actually speak it.

I know they are available but just wondering if anyone has seen them on Samui anywhere?

Mafaso

You never cease to amaze me. Read the top of the page. You have to SPEND money to get it.

I'm happy that I'm amazing you but what exactly are you referring to? Are you referring to the CD that thaivisa is selling?

[Nepal4me]

I think you will find the dic's that have speaking capabilities useless. That is unless they've improved in the the past 2 years since I last looked. 2 years ago you could get one that did talk but without the tones and would pronounce the words the silly ways the Thai transliteration has evolved.

i.e. Egg would be pronouced Kai rather than Gai as it is actually pronounced.

Food is pronounced "aaharn" which is a far cry from Aahaan.

Further Aahaan is a rising tone, the dic pronounces it with a flat metalic aaharn. Utterly worthless.

Sorry to bum you out with this info. The best way to do it is to learn the Thai script, not just knowing what the letters are but understanding all the tone rules. That way, when you see the word written in Thai script you can actually pronounce it properly including the tones. Course learning and remembering all the rules is not a trivial task. I did it by taking a 2 month course which was 3 hours per day. That drilled the it deep into my brain cell and it's still there. I read all the time and am quite good at it. I speak like sh1t but my reading is quite advanced. Can almost keep up with pronouncing dialog in movies. Don't know what I'm saying mostly but I can read it quite quickly. I'm hoping over time, I'll just continue to improve my speaking/listening and it'll catch up to my reading skill.

So, take a couple of months, spend a lot of time and learn the script and then you'll be away to the races (whatever the he11 that means).

Good luck........

[Rooo]

Here you are Mafaso,have a look at these it might help.

http://store.thaivisa.com/home.php?cat=4

[mafaso]

Here you are Mafaso,have a look at these it might help.

http://store.thaivisa.com/home.php?cat=4

I have plenty of CD's and books and I am trying hard to learn the language. But what I was talking about in this thread is the hand held small PDA type talking dictionary's. You type in a word and it spits out the word in Thai. I just thought it would be fun to have. I have a lot of girls come to my house who cannot speak English so it would at least give us something to do in between, uh, bird watching!

[Barryz]

I had some difficulty trying to find such a dictionary last time I was in Thailand. Ideally, I'd like a full dictionary with 50,000-100,000 words, a good, fairly slow Thai pronunciation of each word that can be repeated as often as one likes, and perhaps a simple example of the use of the word in a Thai sentence, again spoken slowly and clearly, perhaps twice; first time slowly and deliberately and the second time with normal speed. It would probably have to be a DVD or two to hold all that information.

The best I could find in Bangkok was a series of 5 multimedia, interactive CDs called "Visual Dictionary' version 2, produced by a company called Perfect Vision at www.perfectvision.co.th

However, instead of allowing one to type in an English word, the dictionary presents one with a series of cartoon pictures attempting to visually depict a particular scene with an appropriate comment that appears when the picture is clicked. For example, there'll be a picture of a car and driver with open window and a person outside the car almost poking his head through the window. Click on the picture and you get the Thai script for "Have a nice trip', and the pronunciation in English and in Thai. You can click on the Thai script as often as you like for a repetition of the phrase spoken in Thai. The concept is good, but it's not always clear what word, phrase or dialog the pictures represent.

I got the impression the PDAs had a very limited vocabulary.

[Jet Gorgon]

Mafaso, try the corner of Lamai night market and the beach road. Walking dictionaries everywhere. Make sure you get the BKK dialect version.