I completely agree with the assessment that Becker's 'Fundamentals of the Thai Language' is an excellent and probably the best place to start. I only say probably because it has been decades since I began studying Thai and I am not very familiar with what other resources are currently available. A huge advantage of this book is that it uses the most accurate phonetic alphabet available which is the same phonetic alphabet used in Mary Haas' Thai-English Student's Dictionary (ISBN 0-8047-0567-4) With just these two resources you can make a tremendous amount of progress if you apply yourself. The problem with transliteration pronunciation guides is that they are all inaccurate, and non-standardized, so the transliteration guides bounce around from grammar book to grammar book which is extremely inefficient. For several reasons, those who claim that learning the Thai writing system it is not a prerequisite for progressing beyond a beginner's level, in my opinion, are giving misguided advice. Not only will you not be able to differentiate between all of the unique sounds of the Thai language, but if you think you can build and retain a large vocabulary without mastering the writing system, you're kidding yourself. Finally, NO Thai/English dictionary or phrase books which go beyond elementary vocabulary rely on English transliteration to guide pronunciation. In other words, with all Thai dictionaries beyond intermediate level, if you look up a word in Thai script, the dictionary, if it gives a pronunciation guide at all, will use Thai script to guide pronunciation. So if you elect not to bother to learn the Thai writing system, all Thai dictionaries will be unavailable as learning resources. That is not a recipe for success, and predictions that you will end up frustrated and giving up are well-founded.
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