Haas Dictionary online

[ThaiNotes]

Perhaps the best Thai-English dictionaries is the Thai Learner’s Dictionary by Mary Haas. It may be old (first published in 1964), but as far as I know it’s the only once which:

- provides classifiers for every noun

- uses standard transcription

- shows syllable stress

- gets the correct tone for unstressed syllables*

and

- shows etymology.

 

Unfortunately, it’s rather expensive. Its content is available online at the SEAlang website, but the version there is intended more as a research tool and the interface is rather daunting.

 

In the hope of making the online dictionary more accessible, I’ve developed a simple-to-use front end with an online keyboard and drop down list of words which match what you’ve entered of the term so far.

 

 

I’ve also slightly tweaked the fonts to ensure they work properly.

 

The new front end is available at:

 

https://thai-notes.com/dictionaries/haas.html

 

(Unlike some older parts of my site, this works well on most mobile devices.)

 

It’d be nice to hear what you think.

 

 

 

* Correct here meaning “the standard pronunciation used by educated speakers in Bangkok”. So, for example, สบายis transcribed as /saˈbaay/ - the unwritten /a/ is mid tone. Contrast with Benjawan Poomsan Becker, which has /sà-baai/, and LEXiTRON, which has /sàˑbaay/.

 

Similarly, unstressed, written /a/ has the correct tone, for example, สะพาน /saˈpʰaan/, (BPW and LEXiTRON, both have sàˑphaan).

[KeeTua]

Very nice! One thing that I think would be an improvement is when 'Show keyboard' is deselected the definition result window would show on the same page below the search fields then there would be no need to click a back button. And using the drop-down for the history would have the same behavior, loading the definition window just below.

[ThaiNotes]

34 minutes ago, KeeTua said:

the definition result window would show on the same page below the search fields

Thanks for that.  My other dictionary apps do (sort of) behave like that - though showing the definition results to the right, not below.  The issue for me has become that now roughly 50% of users don't use desktops, so screen space for them is severely limited.  I'm hoping that the new way of doing things, with the search results on a separate page from the search is a reasonable trade off, even if the extra "Back" click can be redundant.

Edited August 5, 2021 by ThaiNotes
Typo

[Exploring Thailand]

This is great, thanks a lot. I thought about getting the print version a couple of times, but I hardly ever use printed dictionaries these days, so it would have just sat on a shelf.

 

The results for จอง include this message "17 items found (redundant non-TDP items suppressed) ". What are redundant non-TDP items?

 

One of the definitions is "1 Undefined. (rhyme? found in --หอง.)".  Is "Undefined" something added by the search function?

Edited August 5, 2021 by Exploring Thailand

[ThaiNotes]

18 hours ago, Exploring Thailand said:

What are redundant non-TDP items?

It means that definitions from sources other than the Thai Dictionary Project (primarily LEXiTRON) which match the search term are not shown.  (To be honest, I wanted to show only entries from Haas, but that's not possible.  If a word is missing in Haas, but present in LEXiTRON you'll get the LEXiTRON definition.)

 

18 hours ago, Exploring Thailand said:

Is "Undefined" something added by the search function?

No.  It means that the work exists, but a definition hasn't been written (and quite possibly never will be).