Classifiers

[Briggsy]

Yesterday I went out to buy a computer screen and some shirts. I came back with 2 dictionaries which would be about par for the course in terms of my failed shopping expeditions.

In the back of one dictionary, there is an index entitled ลักษณนามที่ควรทราบ i.e. a comprehensive list of nouns and their classifiers. Fascinating for me. The dictionary is a Thai-Thai dictionary entitled พจนานุกรมไทย (บริษัท ซีเอดยูเคชั่น จำกัด). It cost me 155 Baht from, unsurprisingly, Se-ed Books. I'm sure there are online lists but I like a book as well. You can just grab them.

I think this is about the 6th dictionary I have bought for Thai but the first Thai-Thai one. Can anybody recommend to me the 'mother of all Thai-English and English-Thai dictionaries' or Thai-Thai. I have great trouble downloading anything to my computer and I don't work in IT so I'm asking about chunky tomes here rather than any computerised file. And also where I would have to go to get it. Thanks.

I did try the sticky pinned topic above about online dictionaries but I found them to be inferior to the dictionaries I already have. I'm particularly referring to meanings when words are collocated.

[tgeezer]

online lists but I like a book as well. You can just grab them.

I think this is about the 6th dictionary I have bought for Thai but the first Thai-Thai one. Can anybody recommend to me the 'mother of all Thai-English and English-Thai dictionaries' or Thai-Thai. I have great trouble downloading anything to my computer and I don't work in IT so I'm asking about chunky tomes here rather than any computerised file. And also where I would have to go to get it. Thanks.

I did try the sticky pinned topic above about online dictionaries but I found them to be inferior to the dictionaries I already have. I'm particularly referring to meanings when words are collocated.

I went to get a dictionary from CU bookshop on Friday. I could not get what I need which is ฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน (do get one; it took me ten minutes to write that) . My copy is twenty six years old now. The problem is they don't publish regularly and if a big place like CU doesn't have them I don't know who will. I have friends on the lookout for one. I think it is the one people call the 'Royal Institute Dictionary' I don't know what it is like, only, that by definition, it can not be gainsaid.

[DavidHouston]

The "mother of all Thai-Thai dictionaries" is, as Mr. Geezer points out, the Royal institute's Dictionary of the Thai language. As Rikker has pointed out in this forum, the dictionary is also available in its new incarnation at http://rirs3.royin.go.th/dictionary.asp. This is a site you should bookmark and keep in handy use.

Good luck.

[Briggsy]

แค้น เกลียดคอมพิวเตอร์

I am so clueless with IT as I said. I went to that link, David, but it would not recognise the Thai script. so unfortunately I'm back to square one.

Thanks anyway for pointing me in the right direction.

What about the best Thai-English English-Thai on the market?

[DavidHouston]

แค้น เกลียดคอมพิวเตอร์

I am so clueless with IT as I said. I went to that link, David, but it would not recognise the Thai script. so unfortunately I'm back to square one.

Thanks anyway for pointing me in the right direction.

What about the best Thai-English English-Thai on the market?

It is possible that the dictionary site is not well tuned to produce Thai script on your computer. After getting to the site, click on "View", "Character encoding", "Thai" [this is in Firefox; there are equivalents in Internet Explorer]. Some sites are not welll-behaved.

[ElZorro]

It is possible that the dictionary site is not well tuned to produce Thai script on your computer. After getting to the site, click on "View", "Character encoding", "Thai" [this is in Firefox; there are equivalents in Internet Explorer]. Some sites are not welll-behaved.

I have the same problem every time I visit the Royal Institute website. It happens in very few websites and it's a bit annoying, but that is no reason to avoid those websites.

About using monolingual dictionaries, I think they can be useful when you are fluent, but they can be a hurdle if you are not at a very high level. I just happened to read a blog entry last night about this very subject at the Tower of Confusion blog.

[Briggsy]

Excellent. It works now. Thank you.

[Briggsy]

I have the same problem every time I visit the Royal Institute website. It happens in very few websites and it's a bit annoying, but that is no reason to avoid those websites.

About using monolingual dictionaries, I think they can be useful when you are fluent, but they can be a hurdle if you are not at a very high level. I just happened to read a blog entry last night about this very subject at the Tower of Confusion blog.

I read that blog and agree with it to some extent but not completely.

My favourite dictionary (What a sad man I am, I have a favourite dictionary) is a T-E E-T Junior Dictionary for Thai school kids. It gives examples in Thai of Thai words, some collocations in context, the pronunciation of all the Thai words, synonyms in Thai and usage notes sometimes after which the English meaning, when you get finally get to it, is redundant as you have a good understanding already.

But forcing weaker learners to use monolingual dictionaries is counter-productive, I agree.

[DavidHouston]

There are a number of intermediate steps between simple English- Romanized Thai dictionaries and the full blown Thai-Thai dictionaries meant for Thai cognoscenti.

1. Several sophisticated Thai-English and English-Thai dictionaries exist both in the bookstores and on the web; these have been discussed many times in this forum. My personal favorite is the Domnern Sathienpong Thai-English dictionary which comes with a machine-loadable CD. This allows you to cut and paste words and phrases from anywhere on the Internet or from a machine recognizable document, including many pdf files.

2. One way for relatively new learners of Thai to begin to orient themselves to using a Thai-Thai dictionary is through the use of word lists intended for young Thai students. One series is called "รวมคำศัพท์ ภาษาไทย" "Thai Language Word List". I am looking at the ones for elementary grades 4 and 5. They are not really dictionaries in the classical sense in that they are geared directly toward the Thai language curriculum prescribed for the grade by the Ministry of Education. But for us as foreign learners they are a valuable aid toward learning how Thai dictionaries define words. In addition for difficult to pronounce words, these word lists give a Thai phonetic spelling.w

You can stop at a Thai bookstore and look at these dictionaries for yourself. Please let me know what you think.

[Rikker]

I went to get a dictionary from CU bookshop on Friday. I could not get what I need which is ฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน (do get one; it took me ten minutes to write that) . My copy is twenty six years old now. The problem is they don't publish regularly and if a big place like CU doesn't have them I don't know who will. I have friends on the lookout for one. I think it is the one people call the 'Royal Institute Dictionary' I don't know what it is like, only, that by definition, it can not be gainsaid.

I find it hard to believe that CU didn't have this book in stock. If it didn't, it's their fault, not the publisher. The Royal Institute Dictionary (RID) has always been printed fairly regularly; it just takes a long time to crank out a new edition (there have been three: 1950, 1982, and 1999).

But with respect to the 1999 edition, it was published in 2003 (four years past deadline) in a massive run of 200,000 copies. The 1982 edition had a total of six printings totaling 280,000 copies before it was supplanted. And the 1950 edition before it had 20 printings totally 187,000 copies.

So I'd wager that the 200,000 is nowhere near running out yet, if prior sales are any indication, since it's only been five years. It's been on the shelf every time I've been to CU Book Centre, (which admittedly was most recently several months ago).

The online version is a decent substitute. One trick is to set your browser's default encoding to Thai. It will only affect webpages which don't specify their encoding (any good webpage should), which turns out to be lots of Thai sites, RID included.

[ElZorro]

The online version is a decent substitute. One trick is to set your browser's default encoding to Thai. It will only affect webpages which don't specify their encoding (any good webpage should), which turns out to be lots of Thai sites, RID included.

My Firefox browser is set to Thai (ISO-8859-11) (in tools\options\content\fonts & colors\advanced\character encoding), but it still shows the Royin page http://rirs3.royin.go.th/ as Cyrilic (KOI8-R) every time I open or reload it.

[DavidHouston]

The online version is a decent substitute. One trick is to set your browser's default encoding to Thai. It will only affect webpages which don't specify their encoding (any good webpage should), which turns out to be lots of Thai sites, RID included.

My Firefox browser is set to Thai (ISO-8859-11) (in tools\options\content\fonts & colors\advanced\character encoding), but it still shows the Royin page http://rirs3.royin.go.th/ as Cyrilic (KOI8-R) every time I open or reload it.

Mine is set to Western (ISO . . .) but I do get the correct character set on the RI site. Can you correct the character set in the "View" section each time RI is called up?

[mangkorn]

Why is this thread called Classifiers - Comprehensive List?

I haven't seen a ลักษณนาม yet.

[ElZorro]

The online version is a decent substitute. One trick is to set your browser's default encoding to Thai. It will only affect webpages which don't specify their encoding (any good webpage should), which turns out to be lots of Thai sites, RID included.

My Firefox browser is set to Thai (ISO-8859-11) (in tools\options\content\fonts & colors\advanced\character encoding), but it still shows the Royin page http://rirs3.royin.go.th/ as Cyrilic (KOI8-R) every time I open or reload it.

Mine is set to Western (ISO . . .) but I do get the correct character set on the RI site. Can you correct the character set in the "View" section each time RI is called up?

yes, I can change the encoding (I have to) from the view menu. I tried to open it with IE and it also starts in Cyrillic. งงงง