E-translators-4-n00bs Going-2-los...any Recommendations?

[MaiThaiMai]

Sawatdee khrab! I was hesitant to spend more than I did but now I wish I would have shelled-out double at the Thai store or had investigated online deeper into the more sophisticated models. reading online still doesnot substitute for having your hand on the unit or getting human feedback. I found my 5,000 baht model's screen didn't stay lit unless it was constantly accessed (5 seconds then flameout, very annoying) and there was no way to save a phrase or set of words accessed one after another. The model also spoke the word/phrase with a barely adequate Thai voice and spellings were different per other translation devices/websites but I guess I'll always run into that when Thai is "romanized" for phonetics. The phrases and words provided were very limited and only slightly helpful and he unit's size was barely adequate without being too bulky to carry around.

I am curious about the speech recognition translator models but they start getting real pricey and I'd also like to create my own phrases, save them to the unit and maybe create my own opening discussions where if I get a yes or no to a question I can have a phrase or question ready to carry on...am I in fantasy-land or does such a model exist that won't cost me the price of a plane ticket?

Anyone with a link(s) to a model(s) with speech recognition English > < Thai and saves user-created phrases conversation pieces would be greatly appreciated...

Or should I just save my money and spend it on the Thai language class when I get there as I am planning on taking anyway? My first experience with the pocket word-phrase-speech-->out only model was not very impressive...there's so many models on the market I'd rather get some straight positive/negative input from some persons with satisfactory and/or unsatisfactory experiences to aid another decision...if someone had a real bad buy feel free to just shout-out STEER CLEAR OF MODEL#-!@/$%+!!!

Thanks for any input, good or bad...

MaiThaiMai

[MaiThaiMai]

oops, saw I was in wrong area as soon as I hit add...I'll pay more attention next time ...

MaiThaiMai

[dsfbrit]

I paid 15000 baht for one of these speaking dictionaries a couple of years ago and was very disappointed with it. I posted about it on Thaivisa if you are interested.

I bought it at Tesco, so was able to take it back the same day and get a full refund.

I then bought an eDict Language Translator 'Vocal 301' for about 5000 baht and it is fine.

The talking in Thai part is useless - tones all wrong (as was the more expensive model mentioned above). I was told that the speach part is really for Thais to learn how to pronounce English words (but with an American accent on my Translator).

I think what it offers is fine for 5000 baht. However, I dont know why it does not have sample sentences built in as well - like a normal dictionary, to show the semantics.

The word for 'take off' a shirt, if used at the wrong time would mean I am about to 'take off' my airplane - or dafter still - my shirt is 'taking off at 13.30'

So a sentence showing when to use which word is vital.

If you find a really useful translator let me know, although I see most of the pricier units just have more languages which I dont want.

By the way, I expect you can adjust the amount of time the light stays on in the 'settings' menu???

Good Luck

Edit: I have found a combination of the following really useful:

- Carry Translator everywhere to look up Thai words you see and want to learn etc...

- Have a large comprehensive dictionary at home (River Books - English Thai Dictionary)

- Have a smaller dictionary in the car

- Thai Lessons

- Marry a Thai ( that helps a lot for the language learning anyway)

- Play Language CD's in the car

Edited April 9, 2008 by dsfbrit

[MaiThaiMai]

Sawatdee khrab! I was hesitant to spend more than I did but now I wish I would have shelled-out double at the Thai store or had investigated online deeper into the more sophisticated models. reading online still doesnot substitute for having your hand on the unit or getting human feedback. I found my 5,000 baht model's screen didn't stay lit unless it was constantly accessed (5 seconds then flameout, very annoying) and there was no way to save a phrase or set of words accessed one after another. The model also spoke the word/phrase with a barely adequate Thai voice and spellings were different per other translation devices/websites but I guess I'll always run into that when Thai is "romanized" for phonetics. The phrases and words provided were very limited and only slightly helpful and he unit's size was barely adequate without being too bulky to carry around.

I am curious about the speech recognition translator models but they start getting real pricey and I'd also like to create my own phrases, save them to the unit and maybe create my own opening discussions where if I get a yes or no to a question I can have a phrase or question ready to carry on...am I in fantasy-land or does such a model exist that won't cost me the price of a plane ticket?

Anyone with a link(s) to a model(s) with speech recognition English > < Thai and saves user-created phrases conversation pieces would be greatly appreciated...

Or should I just save my money and spend it on the Thai language class when I get there as I am planning on taking anyway? My first experience with the pocket word-phrase-speech-->out only model was not very impressive...there's so many models on the market I'd rather get some straight positive/negative input from some persons with satisfactory and/or unsatisfactory experiences to aid another decision...if someone had a real bad buy feel free to just shout-out STEER CLEAR OF MODEL#-!@/$%+!!!

Thanks for any input, good or bad...

MaiThaiMai

I guess I should have mentioned the model bought was the: e-Dict VOCAL 201N. Priced apprx. £85 - $170USD - 5,000 baht as O recall...I was being too cheap for what I really needed/wanted...

[MaiThaiMai]

I paid 15000 baht for one of these speaking dictionaries a couple of years ago and was very disappointed with it. I posted about it on Thaivisa if you are interested.

I bought it at Tesco, so was able to take it back the same day and get a full refund.

I then bought an eDict Language Translator 'Vocal 301' for about 5000 baht and it is fine.

The talking in Thai part is useless - tones all wrong (as was the more expensive model mentioned above). I was told that the speach part is really for Thais to learn how to pronounce English words (but with an American accent on my Translator).

I think what it offers is fine for 5000 baht. However, I dont know why it does not have sample sentences built in as well - like a normal dictionary, to show the semantics.

The word for 'take off' a shirt, if used at the wrong time would mean I am about to 'take off' my airplane - or dafter still - my shirt is 'taking off at 13.30'

If you find a really useful translator let me know, although I see most of the pricier units just have more languages which I dont want.

By the way, I expect you can adjust the amount of time the light stays on in the 'settings' menu???

Good Luck

Yeah the one word/phrase/tone with two completely different meanings is a killer I understand lmao...I've been into the settings a couple times, manual says nothing (I actually read the manual too , only a timer to turn whole unit off 1-15 minutes choice. The only way to keep screen lit on is to hit any keys and keep moving along, this negative alone would have killed the purchase originally as it's hard to get around all the tiny keys as it is and hit the right function-letter-phrase button you want EVERY time and if you realize you made a mistake by the time you focus again on the key you need the lights' out leaving you lost in a dark screen...maybe it's not suppose to go out after 5 seconds and it's defective? I don't know...maybe I'll check their website (and complain if necessary). You have the Vocal 301 eh? Does it have a backlit screen? Mine is Vocal 201N

I'll drop a note if I find one better at an affordable price...

[dsfbrit]

Yeah the one word/phrase/tone with two completely different meanings is a killer I understand lmao...I've been into the settings a couple times, manual says nothing (I actually read the manual too , only a timer to turn whole unit off 1-15 minutes choice. The only way to keep screen lit on is to hit any keys and keep moving along, this negative alone would have killed the purchase originally as it's hard to get around all the tiny keys as it is and hit the right function-letter-phrase button you want EVERY time and if you realize you made a mistake by the time you focus again on the key you need the lights' out leaving you lost in a dark screen...maybe it's not suppose to go out after 5 seconds and it's defective? I don't know...maybe I'll check their website (and complain if necessary). You have the Vocal 301 eh? Does it have a backlit screen? Mine is Vocal 201N

I'll drop a note if I find one better at an affordable price...

You're right and I was wrong, I cannot adjust my backlight either - just modify the shut off interval. I am quite happy with it though - the keys are a good size and I can enlarge the font. A reasonable buy. I would buy an all singing dancing version for up to 20000 baht, but in my experience the adverts never match the actual experience. If you find one though let me know. There is also another thread running at the moment that may help you.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=179291

[kriswillems]

I've an old (10 years) talking dict. I never use it for 1 reason: if you don't take the batteries out every time after use, the batteries will be empty in 3 months. Taking the batteries out is just too much work. Using a paper dictionary is faster. The "talking" part is terrible both in Thai and in English because it's not a recorded human voice.

Do the modern E-translators suffer from the same battery problem?

Edited April 10, 2008 by kriswillems

[dsfbrit]

Do the modern E-translators suffer from the same battery problem?

No worries there. I use mine on average 2 or 3 times a day - a total of about 5-10 minutes I guess.

The 2 AAA Duracell batteries have lasted about 9 months already and still OK.

[MaiThaiMai]

Yeah the one word/phrase/tone with two completely different meanings is a killer I understand lmao...I've been into the settings a couple times, manual says nothing (I actually read the manual too , only a timer to turn whole unit off 1-15 minutes choice. The only way to keep screen lit on is to hit any keys and keep moving along, this negative alone would have killed the purchase originally as it's hard to get around all the tiny keys as it is and hit the right function-letter-phrase button you want EVERY time and if you realize you made a mistake by the time you focus again on the key you need the lights' out leaving you lost in a dark screen...maybe it's not suppose to go out after 5 seconds and it's defective? I don't know...maybe I'll check their website (and complain if necessary). You have the Vocal 301 eh? Does it have a backlit screen? Mine is Vocal 201N

I'll drop a note if I find one better at an affordable price...

You're right and I was wrong, I cannot adjust my backlight either - just modify the shut off interval. I am quite happy with it though - the keys are a good size and I can enlarge the font. A reasonable buy. I would buy an all singing dancing version for up to 20000 baht, but in my experience the adverts never match the actual experience. If you find one though let me know. There is also another thread running at the moment that may help you.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=179291

I caught that the other night, sounds like he wants a lap-held with some serious weight behind it , thanks anyway tho. I think I'll just settle on this e-Dict and take classes when I get back, about 6,000 baht for 20 hours I hear...I suspect like with most anything we'll get out what we put in.

I've had mine too short of time for battery evaluation to the other inquiry...but 10 years apart in electronics may as well be a millennium, oh wait, it was bought last century/millennium wasn't it? dam_n time flies...on the speaking part it's a human voice but still it's digitized on a mini-speaker (acceptable) and from what I read Thailand has many dialects much like the States, such as a HEAVY southern drawl is hard to pick up for the west coasties, same with some heavy Boston accents where different words are commomnplace to where just one word you can tell where someone is from in some cases so how accurate e-Dict's Thailand "dialect" is for the region I play in is unknown, gotta wing it all I'd say and hope you get close enough to order or ask for whatever and actually get it

Adios for now but still snooping...

MaiThaiMai

[MaiThaiMai]

Added edit note: Found a great site, for me anyway, works on donations and if you can't donate right now or want to test drive it go here (no charge for test drives and fully functional that I can tell, a great service AFAIAC): http://www.thai-language.com/

Yeah the one word/phrase/tone with two completely different meanings is a killer I understand lmao...I've been into the settings a couple times, manual says nothing (I actually read the manual too , only a timer to turn whole unit off 1-15 minutes choice. The only way to keep screen lit on is to hit any keys and keep moving along, this negative alone would have killed the purchase originally as it's hard to get around all the tiny keys as it is and hit the right function-letter-phrase button you want EVERY time and if you realize you made a mistake by the time you focus again on the key you need the lights' out leaving you lost in a dark screen...maybe it's not suppose to go out after 5 seconds and it's defective? I don't know...maybe I'll check their website (and complain if necessary). You have the Vocal 301 eh? Does it have a backlit screen? Mine is Vocal 201N

I'll drop a note if I find one better at an affordable price...

You're right and I was wrong, I cannot adjust my backlight either - just modify the shut off interval. I am quite happy with it though - the keys are a good size and I can enlarge the font. A reasonable buy. I would buy an all singing dancing version for up to 20000 baht, but in my experience the adverts never match the actual experience. If you find one though let me know. There is also another thread running at the moment that may help you.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=179291

I caught that the other night, sounds like he wants a lap-held with some serious weight behind it , thanks anyway tho. I think I'll just settle on this e-Dict and take classes when I get back, about 6,000 baht for 20 hours I hear...I suspect like with most anything we'll get out what we put in.

I've had mine too short of time for battery evaluation to the other inquiry...but 10 years apart in electronics may as well be a millennium, oh wait, it was bought last century/millennium wasn't it? dam_n time flies...on the speaking part it's a human voice but still it's digitized on a mini-speaker (acceptable) and from what I read Thailand has many dialects much like the States, such as a HEAVY southern drawl is hard to pick up for the west coasties, same with some heavy Boston accents where different words are commomnplace to where just one word you can tell where someone is from in some cases so how accurate e-Dict's Thailand "dialect" is for the region I play in is unknown, gotta wing it all I'd say and hope you get close enough to order or ask for whatever and actually get it

Adios for now but still snooping...

MaiThaiMai