Intermediate Thai Reading Material

[sgtpeppers]

I was interested in something like the Mary Haas reader on the seasite.niu.edu but I can't parse the chapters through thai2english because they use incompatible fonts.

Does anyone know of anything similar that might be of interest ? I think newspapers are a little too difficult for me at this stage.

[siamesekitty]

hmm.. having trouble with the fonts too. no matter what encoding I choose, it still comes out as gibberish English characters.

Are you asking about online resources, or suggestions on what are some good books to buy in Thailand?

[sgtpeppers]

hmm.. having trouble with the fonts too. no matter what encoding I choose, it still comes out as gibberish English characters.

Are you asking about online resources, or suggestions on what are some good books to buy in Thailand?

Online resources is what I had in mind, but if you have recommendations for books that would be good too.

With the seasite.niu.edu Mary Haas reader, you have to install special, Thai fonts before it comes up in the browser. It is not done in unicode.

If you don't know about Mary Haas reader, I am guessing it would be about the equivalent of a primary school reading book, broken into short chapters covering several topics. For intermediate learners of reading but before newspaper level.

Edited May 25, 2008 by sgtpeppers

[siamesekitty]

well if you're in Thailand I would suggest you visit one of the Thai bookstores that sell student textbooks, as they will have a range of books for schoolchildren, for their Thai language classes. Prae Pittaya at Central Ladprao (near Jatujak) comes to mind; they have several readers for the different grades. You can browse through them to see which one is most suited for your level.

[kokesaat]

The homepage of http://www.seasite.niu.edu/seasite.htm has a note "Please read this note about Fonts" click on Fonts and you'll go to the page with info on how to install the fonts for free. Like you, I did the Maani series, then the Haas series before moving on to Benjawan Becker's Beginner series. On both the Maani/Haas series, I had my teacher put the lesson in an mp3 file for me to practice listening. Then I'd write it out......not pretty, no idea about tones or even the alphabet yet. By the time I got to Benjawan Becker's first book, I was ready to dive in on tones and learn the alphabet. It worked for me.......maybe not for everyone, but it worked for me.

Good luck.

[Groongthep]

well if you're in Thailand I would suggest you visit one of the Thai bookstores that sell student textbooks, as they will have a range of books for schoolchildren, for their Thai language classes. Prae Pittaya at Central Ladprao (near Jatujak) comes to mind; they have several readers for the different grades. You can browse through them to see which one is most suited for your level.

If you go to the used book section at Jatujak on the weekends and ask the sellers, you can usually find some old Manee Manaa textbooks at different levels and at very reasonable prices. What they have in stock is hit and miss from week to week though, so keep checking back.

[sgtpeppers]

Thanks, ive gone through the Manee Manaa textbooks, I was after something between that and reading at newspaper level, which is my goal.

And preferably something online so I can use the various online look-up tools.

[Rikker]

I'd say the graded school readers have good material. Though the text isn't digitized, you can find a set of readers online at sealang.net/lab (click on the Basal Readers link). The format is DjVu--plugin available here.

The audience for grade school readers is obviously not adult foreigners, but there are some advantages that we can appreciate, such as vocabulary lists after the stories, discussion of the content, etc.

(There are also readers on that page for Khmer, Burmese and Lao, for anyone interested.)

Edited May 27, 2008 by Rikker

[oifarang]

Why not buy the Thai Reader from Amazon for $15

[Rikker]

That Thai Reader is the same as the Mary Haas reader on the NIU website, with a few minor differences. Also currently out of stock (at least on the U.S. Amazon site).

For a different reader aimed at foreign learners, try the Thai Cultural Reader Book 1 from Cornell. Price just recently went up from $18 to $23.95 (price is $28 on Amazon), but it's 500+ pages, enough to keep anyone busy for a while. Book 2 is even longer, something like 800 pages according to used book sites, but I haven't been able to find a copy for a reasonable price yet. Am I right that Book 2 is out of print?

Edited May 27, 2008 by Rikker

[sgtpeppers]

Some good ideas here, i'll investigate some of these suggestions more closely to see what material is best suited for my goals.

[kokesaat]

That Thai Reader is the same as the Mary Haas reader on the NIU website, with a few minor differences. Also currently out of stock (at least on the U.S. Amazon site).

For a different reader aimed at foreign learners, try the Thai Cultural Reader Book 1 from Cornell. Price just recently went up from $18 to $23.95 (price is $28 on Amazon), but it's 500+ pages, enough to keep anyone busy for a while. Book 2 is even longer, something like 800 pages according to used book sites, but I haven't been able to find a copy for a reasonable price yet. Am I right that Book 2 is out of print?

Asiabooks.com is listing Thai Cultural Reader Book 1 by Robert Jones for $7.50 I've ordered from Asia books on several occasions and have always been pleased with their service. Best of all, I can online transfer my payment through my account at Siam Commercial Bank.

[markwhite]

Does anyone know of anything similar that might be of interest ? I think newspapers are a little too difficult for me at this stage.

FWIW, I've just started the Chronicles of Narnia after working through a few of the young kids school books and some of the magazines like Idea. My wife reckons I was up to about an age 7 level of reading, and that Narnia is about age 10, so it is a bit tricky and I'm getting through a page about every 45 minutes. That said, it is quite fun and I can just about remember the story from when I last read it about 30 years ago. And I am learning a lot of vocab which is the main thing.

[Rikker]

That's the same experience I had with Harry Potter a while back (I've read book 1 and part of 2 in Thai). I keep trying to read a lot in Thai, particularly fiction, but I nearly always get sidetracked before finishing long books.

My latest efforts are the series of mostly award-winning juvenile fiction books published by Amarin in the รักวรรณกรรมไทย series. They have a distinctive look, tall and slim. I pick one up every now and again for my collection. So far I've bought several and finished one, เมฆสีเงิน. Currently reading ไข่นุ้ยไปโรงเรียน.

Edited May 30, 2008 by Rikker