Talking Dictionary

[thedi]

My daughter has a small handheld computer 'talking dictionary' which translates TH <-> EN.

I am looking for one for myself. I can read/write Thai and English.

There are two kinds of new models:

CP1 and MD99 http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/prod.asp?id=10

MD88 and MD88S http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/prod.asp?id=18

CP1 and MD99 use touch sensitive screens for input, while MD88's use a small keyboard.

Does anybody have experiences with this touch sensitive screen input? Is this practical or should I rather buy one of the conventional keyboard handhelds like MD88s?

Any reports of experiences would be greatly appreciated

Thanks a lot

Thedi

[JAS21]

My daughter has a small handheld computer 'talking dictionary' which translates TH <-> EN.

I am looking for one for myself. I can read/write Thai and English.

There are two kinds of new models:

CP1 and MD99 <a href="http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/prod.asp?id=10" target="_blank">http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/prod.asp?id=10</a>

MD88 and MD88S <a href="http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/prod.asp?id=18" target="_blank">http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/prod.asp?id=18</a>

CP1 and MD99 use touch sensitive screens for input, while MD88's use a small keyboard.

Does anybody have experiences with this touch sensitive screen input? Is this practical or should I rather buy one of the conventional keyboard handhelds like MD88s?

Any reports of experiences would be greatly appreciated

Thanks a lot

Thedi

My step daughter, like you, reads and writes English and Thai. We bought her what a short while ago was the top of the range model to take to england as she was going to study there. She previously had the older keyboard model. You just poke this one with a small 'plastic stick'. She finds it easy to use and has not had any problems. I thought it had both oxford and cambridge dictionaries, as well as a 'business' one and you could also plug in a little memory card.

didn't need an edit..something went wrong....

Edited October 23, 2007 by John45

[JaiRawnNitNoi]

I am very interested in this thread and hope some users chime in with thier impressions of some of the available units. I read and write thai at the beginner level, have good paper dictionaries, but would like something very portable for travel and everyday use. I see some very simple units for only about 1100 baht. But the resolution is so coarse on those that I have a hard time reading the characters (i will be needing bifocals soon I guess).

There seem to be three main vendors, with varying designs and integrated dictionaries. I look forward to seeing some comments, hopefully on some of the more upscale high resolution units.

[Gary A]

I bought my wife a talking dictionary. It is an E Dict Vocal 201. No touch pad, just a keyboard. If you buy one like this, you better be a Brit because as an American, I can't understand many of the English pronunciations. It actually works for ten different languages including Thai.

[Rinrada]

you better be a Brit because as an American, I can't understand many of the English pronunciations

...Supprised to hear that..

wife has a couple of them and needed to buy more (for Thai friends in the UK) and last time in LOS she asked me to check out the English translation in the shops at Pantip ( CM) and Secon/Siri Centre (BK) and ALL were in Americian English....

Try inputing the word "Tomato"......

[thedi]

I bought my wife a talking dictionary. It is an E Dict Vocal 201.

They have a web site: http://www.thai-way.com/listproduct.php3?m...ic%20Dictionary which is in Thai.

Thaiway.com translators translate several languages. Vocal 201 has Thai and 9 farang languages, including German, English and French. Vocal 206N has SE-Asian langages (Thai, Japan, Korean etc) and there is even one with 20 languages.

In an other forum I got the response, that Thaiway.com translators have a rather limited vocabulary. They claim to have 20'000 words in each language. Talking Dictionary have 200'000 words (but only TH <-> EN, no other languages).

• Does anybody have more informations about any of this systems?
  
• Are there other producers?
  

Thanks for any informations

Thedi

[meadish_sweetball]

I bought my wife a talking dictionary. It is an E Dict Vocal 201. No touch pad, just a keyboard. If you buy one like this, you better be a Brit because as an American, I can't understand many of the English pronunciations. It actually works for ten different languages including Thai.

Are you sure it is because of British style pronunciation?

I do not know, but I suspect it might also be because the computer uses a speech synthesizer that tries its best to pronounce words according to the guidelines for pronunciation available in the software... and when the word in question is not pronounced according to the standard rules, you get an incorrect pronunciation from it.

Just a hunch though, I have very little experience with modern electronic dictionaries, the last time I used one was sometime back in the mid-nineties.

[gampaan]

I've never used one myself, but my wife seems to like the keyboard types. She can read and speak English very good I'd say, but she wants to take some classes here and wanted it for school. She just had one sent to her by her sister, made by Cyberdict Technology Ltd. out of Bkk.

She had another also keyboard style but our little girl got hold of it and......it is no more.

The pronounciation is a bit rough from what I've heard, but just the best a synthesized voice program can do I suppose.

[thedi]

...but I suspect it might also be because the computer uses a speech synthesizer that tries its best to pronounce words according to the guidelines for pronunciation available in the software...

They all claim now to have native speakers pronouncing the words.

The Talking Dictionary Elegant of my daughter has a good voice output. But I am not a native English speaker, hence not an expert.

In the web site of the newer models is mentioned, that you can choose between British and American voices.

Regards

Thedi

[khaojao]

by any chance, do any of these Eng <-> Thai dict come with written phonetic pronounciations as well? thx

[thedi]

by any chance, do any of these Eng <-> Thai dict come with written phonetic pronounciations as well? thx

No, all models I saw used Thai script for Thai language. Input and Output.

Thai script is not difficult to learn - at least not more difficult than English.

In fact, reading Thai is quite simple.

Once you learned the Thai script, you will have the advantage to be able to read exactly how to pronounce a word. The Thai language has tones and sounds which have no equivalent in English, hence have no letter assigned in roman or phonetic writing. Or the phonetic writing would have to be extended. This would be at least as complicated to learn as the Thai script.

In short: if you want to learn Thai up to a level were a handheld translator computer may be of help, you should learn the Thai script anyway.

Writing is another chapter: having a farang ear, I'm never sure of the tones - and then there may be several ways to write it, but only one of them is right.

Regards

Thedi

[luumak]

A Norweigan friend of mine purchased one - I could barely understand it, especially the tones. I would give it a miss.

[designersing]

In my local Tesco Lotus supermarket there are at least 10 different models on offer with which you can play with, live, each plugged in to a live electronic terminal, so to speak, to enable you to experiment with. They are obviously based at the Thai market sector for whom wish to learn English to a greater degree, but some models are equipped with interchangeable SD cards, for many foreign languages inc eng thai /thai eng. I will be making a purchase soon, as I wish to indulge my Thai further, as I am far too lazy to study, but would just love to be able to order that somtam bpuu thai in a lovely issan accent. Wonder if they have an Issan tone/language dictionary?! Sanook maak maak!

[thedi]

I go the following informations from Talking Dict in reply to an email:

Dear Thedi Gerber,

Thank you for your letter dated on October 27th, 2007. We are appreciated to learn from your letter that you are interested in our products. We are sorry that the models you mentioned are out of market. Howerver, we would like to present the lastest model MD 98 or MD 88s that you can see their features from the link http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/index.asp which these products are now available at OASIS Khon Kaen. We proundly present these product because they included 57 dictionaries together with the new 4 Oxford dictionries; 9 in 1 multilingual dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary, Business Oxford Dictionary, and Oxford Chinese Dictionary.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours faithfully,

Paradee Jungsuthee

Absolutely outstanding and unique in my experience: a business in Thailand which replies to an email. And even in quite good English, written by a Thai. This certainly makes a good impression.

I will take a look at the MD 98 model in Oasis as soon as I go to Khon Kaen town again.

Regards

Thedi

[JaiRawnNitNoi]

I am in Bangkok, and as a previous poster indicated, many large stores sell several types of electronic dictionaries. I have had a look at several of the available models and am still trying to decide which model (if any) is right for me. Like any electronic purchase, you start looking at the basic model, then get interested in the new, faster, prettier versions. They all seem designed for Thai people trying to learn English, so many models have English grammar lessons, etc. Also, many of the "speaking dictionaries" seem to only speak English.

I am always a little frustrated looking over the models, as the Thai salespeople have limited English, and my Thai is rudimentary. Also, I find that when I show interest in one of the older versions, I almost invariably hear "Mei Mee" indicating that it is sold out, no longer produced. Why they insist on displaying obsolete stock is beyond me, but TIT.

Here are links to the web sites of the models that I routinely see in Bangkok:

http://www.cyberdict.com/index_th.php

http://www.easydictthai.com/

http://www.talkingdict.com/en/products/index.asp

The CyberDict 11 makes me hot, but at 15,000 baht it should. It is has a great feature which allows the user to expand the font size on the words to make for easier reading. This is really useful for me to see tone marks and the strokes that distinguish some of the Thai letters. I find that I can easily read low resolution English text, but it is really hard for me to distinguish some of the Thai characters unless a bright screen and good resolution.

• Built-in the 3 Most Powerful Dictionaries (The Nation's Most Entries by Prof. Dr. Wit, Oxford - River Books, Oxford Advanced Learner's)
  
• 4.1" TFT Wide Color LCD
  
• 11 Languages Dictionary and 11 Languages Travel Dialogs With Human Voice
  
• Chinese - Thai Dictionary by Prof. Pei Xiaorui, Beijing University
  
• Thai - Chinese Dictionary by Inventec Besta, Taiwan (Downloadable)
  
• Comprehensive Chinese - English Dictionary by Dailian Science & Engineering University Press
  
• Japanese - Thai Dictionary by Santaro, Honorary Translator
  
• Voxware Human Voice (100% English Headwords)
  
• English, Chinese, Korean Phonetic Symbols and Japanese 50 Phonemes
  
• Power Conversation - English & Chinese Video Learning (over 550 Titles)
  
• Business Letters - Over 145 Topics
  
• VDO, MP3, Flash Player, FM Radio, Digital Recorder
  

[trader1]

I just bought a cyber dict, but went for the cheap version (1750 baht with the discounts they now offer). has a huge vocabulary and the screen is easy to read.

[tartempion]

Cyber dict 1 is for sale at Lotus for 890B, will try to find one today.

[SoftWater]

Does Cyberdict 1 speak thai?

Like many others, I've been interested in this kind of product for a long time, but I'm not prepared to pay 10K baht for Cyberdict 9 and 10 which are admittedly packed full of features 90% of which I wont't use. The last time I tried asking a salesperson, they told me that only Cy9 and 10 speak Thai - this may have been a sales ploy, I don't know, so I'd love to hear from those of you who've got one.

Regarding the point about displaying obsolete models - ahh! This is an old sales trick. By displaying a large variety of models, customers are more likely to browse and take an interest than if you only have one or two options. Also, we tend to think that a retailer displaying a large variety means the retailer will be knowledgeable about their products. In fact, they only need to be knowledgeable about the one's they make the biggest mark-up on! Before the THAI SCAM brigade roll in from the GENERAL forum, let me point out that this is a sales technique long practiced on every retail high street the world over, including New York, London and wherever else you may come from!!

[kriswillems]

I have an old "talking dict" at home which I never use for many reasons:

- The voice is computer generated. Both the English and Thai sound is so bad that it's totally useless.

- The battery will slowly discharge if you leave your battery in the device. After about 1 month your battery is empty. So, the only way to use this dictionary is to take out the batteries after every use and put them back before you start using it. Because of this using a paper dictionary is much easier and faster.

- The dictionary is very limited and is missing at lot of features a good dictionary should have (like phonetic Thai script or examples).

Edited July 28, 2009 by kriswillems

[kriswillems]

Does Cyberdict 1 speak thai?

I don't think the cyberdict 1 can speak at all (all not English).

http://www.cyberdict.com/pro_besta_cbd1_th.php

[Richard W]

In fact, reading Thai is quite simple.

Once you learned the Thai script, you will have the advantage to be able to read exactly how to pronounce a word.

That works for the vast majority of monosyllables, but then it gets difficult. Also, it fails for the -อ- vowel - length is unmarked in native words - and a tone mark will always suppress maitaikhu, e.g. เล้น [H]len, not [H]leen. The only way to type เงิน phonetically in Thai that I've seen is เงิน็, though possibly that is just a limitation of typewriters and computer input and rendering systems. (WTT 2.0 allows maitaikhu above sara ii.) However, try น้ำ, ไม้, จักร and เกียรติ - they're [H]naam (in Bangkok, at least, except in compounds), [H]maai (also short in compounds), [M]jak and [L]kiat.

The Thai language has tones and sounds which have no equivalent in English, hence have no letter assigned in roman or phonetic writing.

Same goes for Spanish e.g El Niño, mañana.

The International Phonetic Alphabet has characters enough, though there's no satisfying way of asciifying -อ-, or even rendering in Latin-1 - åå is not acceptable to all Swedes.

There's a surfeit of ways of writing tones, even in ASCII. The IPA has both tone letters and a way of using common accents - unfortunately, it uses haček (typographical name caron) for rising tones, which causes such rendering problems that some transliteration schemes silently substitute breve.

Or the phonetic writing would have to be extended. This would be at least as complicated to learn as the Thai script.

This is definitely not the case for people who have already become acquanted with the phonetic alphabet, which several dictionaries (e.g Larousse) use. If you are referring to tone symbols, then learning 4 or 5 phonetic symbols (some would leave the common tone unmarked) can be simpler than having to learn the Thai consonant classes - though most books seem to make that unncessarily hard. (Just refer to the periodic table of Thai consonants.)

[jacksode]

I just bought the cyberdict 3 advance, for 2500 baht and it seems great so far. Loads of vocabulary, nine different dictionaries, including English- English and a legal dictionary and some other technical ones. The screen is easy to read and the speaking is reasonably clear, with an American accent. All seems great for the price.