Hi,

Can anyone recommend some easy books/texts that I can try to read?

I can read and write basic Thai at the moment, but would definately like to improve my skills.

It would be best if the texts are online or the books can be brought online (I'm not in Thailand at the moment).

Thanks, ninjat

Try the Mary Haas Thai Reader

At spokenthai.com there are some easy short stories to read and audio is also available for them.

http://www.spokenthai.com/talking-books/index.php

Have you seen the couple on TV lately? I don't know if they're an appropriate level for you but for relative beginners (like me) check out:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/and3588and36...29-t238480.html it gave me some fun and occasional difficulty.

I'm yet to try this one which seems more advanced:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/and3648and36...29-t237150.html

Thanks others for those links I'm off to check them out.

At spokenthai.com there are some easy short stories to read and audio is also available for them.

http://www.spokenthai.com/talking-books/index.php

Both this one and the Mary Haas have been added to my 'favourites', thank you very much. I hope to get some balance into my learning with sound, although I seldom hear anything but Thai, its all too fast; I need notes and time, which these give me. Thanks again.

The Seasite version of the Haas reader uses 1990s-era non-Unicode fonts that can't be copied and pasted.

An alternate place to find the Mary Haas texts is over on the Just Read! page at Sealang.net. Choose the story from the dropdown menu.

Try the Mary Haas Thai Reader

I am unable to get the screen to show Thai fonts for any of the lessons past the early ones. I have tried to access them both through Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome and have changed the Encoding to Thai when Unicode fails.

Is this my problem or the site's? Thanks.

The Seasite version of the Haas reader uses 1990s-era non-Unicode fonts that can't be copied and pasted.

An alternate place to find the Mary Haas texts is over on the Just Read! page at Sealang.net. Choose the story from the dropdown menu.

Rikker,

At this site, I can view only the Crow story. I am unable to access any of the other stories. Any advice?

Try the Mary Haas Thai Reader

I am unable to get the screen to show Thai fonts for any of the lessons past the early ones. I have tried to access them both through Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome and have changed the Encoding to Thai when Unicode fails.

Is this my problem or the site's? Thanks.

It doesn't appear to be an encoding problem. It appears as though someone simply typed out the Thai story but forgot to switch the keyboard from English to Thai. I took a quick look at lesson 9. I switched my keyboard to Thai and typed the random set of English letters as if my keyboard was set to English and it came out ปรเทศไทยตั้งอยู่... I don't know how one might go about fixing that without retyping it.

I recall Seasite use their own fonts for some material: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/seasite.htm#download

Perhaps if you installed the fonts those pages would work?

I recall Seasite use their own fonts for some material: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/seasite.htm#download

Perhaps if you installed the fonts those pages would work?

That's all it was. With the fonts installed it views fine. Thanks.

I strongly recommend the "Scooby-Doo and You' series of mini-books targeted at learners of English . At least 24 titles with both Intermediate Thai and English text. The stories are written in colloquial language (in fact the English text is very colloquial American-English and I would think that many of the expressions must be difficult for Thai learners of English to understand). However the Thai text is clear and well translated.

The books cost 45 baht each if you can still find them, (I think that once they get sold out they are not reprinted). I have also seen them on sale on one of the Thai learning mail order websites, but at a vastly inflated price.

Other bi-lingual mini-books are also commonly available in Thailand, but I prefer Scooby-Doo.

Scooby-Dooby-Doo!!!!!!!

At this site, I can view only the Crow story. I am unable to access any of the other stories. Any advice?

Which web browser/version/operating system are you using?

It doesn't appear to be an encoding problem. It appears as though someone simply typed out the Thai story but forgot to switch the keyboard from English to Thai. I took a quick look at lesson 9. I switched my keyboard to Thai and typed the random set of English letters as if my keyboard was set to English and it came out ปรเทศไทยตั้งอยู่... I don't know how one might go about fixing that without retyping it.

Right -- it's not an encoding issue, it's a font issue. Unicode has supported Thai characters since version 1.0 in 1991, and the standard for Thai character encoding before that was TIS-620. Seasite follows none of these, puzzlingly. Behind the times, to say the least.