Rosetta Stone

[bamboobob]

Looking for copy of Rosetta Stone Thai level I & II

[geordie]

I do not think level 2 is available yet.

[sanook2me]

Looking for copy of Rosetta Stone Thai level I & II

dont bother and dont bother with linguaphone either.

employ a real Thai teacher and buy local books

You have to trust me on this as i have both of them.

[TexasRanger]

Looking for copy of Rosetta Stone Thai level I & II

dont bother and dont bother with linguaphone either.

employ a real Thai teacher and buy local books

You have to trust me on this as i have both of them.

Good advice, Rosetta Stone is crap.

[anothertorres]

Looking for copy of Rosetta Stone Thai level I & II

dont bother and dont bother with linguaphone either.

employ a real Thai teacher and buy local books

You have to trust me on this as i have both of them.

Good advice, Rosetta Stone is crap.

thirded. you can get the same level of quality from the internet (hello, thank you, where is the bathroom, etc...) that Rosetta Stone Thai (level 1 only). take it from me, i know first hand. pay for a teacher if you are serious, otherwise, surf the web. there is a ton of basic thai phrases and words that will get you through a vacation.

you will NOT learn thai from Rosetta Stone. you may learn how to say certain phrases from Rosetta Stone, but no one is going to understand what the heck you are saying.

[dave111223]

I have Rosetta Stone Thai level one.

The listening parts is ok for learning basic words ("dog", "cat", "the boy is in the car").

I'm not sure if the reading part is a joke or what. They have picture of something (such as a Red Car) then they have 4 Thai sentences (in Thai alphabet) and you are supposed to pick the correct sentence.. With absolutely no explanation of Thai alphabet. I would challenge even the smartest person on earth to learn to read Thai just by starring at a block of Thai text.

[Lost in LOS]

rosetta worthless unfortunately. thai teacher or long haired dictionary

Edited June 27, 2009 by Lost in LOS

[Jimjim]

Rosetta Stone is known to be great for languages like Spanish but Thai is one their courses that I've heard is quote horrible.

My suggestion is always Pimsleur Thai. Buy it cheapest on amazon.com, but make sure you get the 30-lesson course and not the 10-lesson course. I have Pimsleur Thai CDs and all they have is beginner level (30 half-hour lessons, takes merely 30 days to get through them as they suggest you don't overload yourself but just do half an hour per day), but you know what? They work, they really do. Did for me, at least. Like any of these courses developed outside of Thailand, they had a few mistakes in usage, using the Isaan word for "wine" for example, which all my friends said really isn't used across Thailand. But overall it definitely helped me get a basic understanding and then it's amazing how you can pick up more when talking with Thai friends having that base.

Edited June 27, 2009 by Jimjim

[soundman]

I have Rosetta Stone Thai level one.

The listening parts is ok for learning basic words ("dog", "cat", "the boy is in the car").

I'm not sure if the reading part is a joke or what. They have picture of something (such as a Red Car) then they have 4 Thai sentences (in Thai alphabet) and you are supposed to pick the correct sentence.. With absolutely no explanation of Thai alphabet. I would challenge even the smartest person on earth to learn to read Thai just by starring at a block of Thai text.

Maybe they have assumed you should have allready learned the Thai charachters.

[dave111223]

I have Rosetta Stone Thai level one.

The listening parts is ok for learning basic words ("dog", "cat", "the boy is in the car").

I'm not sure if the reading part is a joke or what. They have picture of something (such as a Red Car) then they have 4 Thai sentences (in Thai alphabet) and you are supposed to pick the correct sentence.. With absolutely no explanation of Thai alphabet. I would challenge even the smartest person on earth to learn to read Thai just by starring at a block of Thai text.

Maybe they have assumed you should have allready learned the Thai charachters.

Maybe they should have just assumed I already knew Thai and handed me an empty CD case

[meadish_sweetball]

I'd go with the Becker books or Teach yourself Thai. But I have to also stress how much free material is available on the web... ranging from excellent to poor.

[Padrino]

Rubbish, Rosetta Stone is a great starting point and has a great pronounciation recording facility where you follow the reader, record yourself and play it back. Coupled with help from Thai friends or GF etc this is a good place to begin, if you really get into it then true, you should get proper Thai lessons after that. I have learnt loads of words from the RS that have helped me communicate with Thai people.

[grahamhc]

In Bookazine's Pattaya braches, there is a set of teaching books (Beginners, middle and advanced), complete with CD/DVD to give sound tuition. I have not bought the CD version, only the book.

I forget about it when I moved here and left it was home.

Also does the "Lovers" Directory and one for "Laos" with CD - Laos or Isaarn, I am not sure

Anybody know more about these products?

[RPCVguy]

Looking for copy of Rosetta Stone Thai level I & II

Rosetta Stone is only available as level I. I found it better than other CD systems I'd tried, but it teaches as a child - by repetition and association, not "translation" Same but harder for the reading. You need to study the characters first out of a written course for that, and I'm still weak at it.

A teacher locally, and grade school children to practice pointing and speaking with are better, though Rosetta Stone is good to use every few months to help mentally organize what you've been hearing, repeating and stumbling through in other settings.

ONE HUGE WARNING: The Software company spends so much energy on protecting their software that 1) you'll always need the CD in your drive and 2) it challenges (possible wears out) some drives by forcing access to write sectors not normally used. My CD reader always grumbled when that disk (English or Thai) was inserted, and last week died after I'd left it in during a reboot. I'd noticed this before and it was a discouragement in my using the software. Now I need to replace the drive.

[Tod Daniels]

I have Rosetta Stone, but got it at Pantip Plaza as a copy for 50 baht. Consequently the record function will not work. With that being said, I found it helpful ONLY AFTER you have a foundation of basic reading and comprehension of the thai language under your belt. I doubt anyone could learn to speak or read thai solely from that program.

While this is off topic, I think it is still applicable; Another poster mentioned the books by Benjawan Poomsan Becker; Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. They are a good foundation to start from and I know several thai language schools here in Bangkok who rely only on these books for their course materials. While I am NOT a fan of her personally by any stretch of the term, having met her several times; I will give her credit for her methodology and most certainly her very savvy marketing skills.

The first book relies on phonemic-transcription (writing thai with english letters), to help you along, but as the books progress it is used less and less, until in the Advanced book there is none, just thai and the english translations. You are introduced to the thai alphabet, and writing from the first book. In the advanced book, I like that she introduces new vocabulary words before the stories, and uses the thai method of pronunciation to help you sound out new words.

FWIW: the Advanced book has a companion webpage (NOT developed by her) which asks questions to gauge comprehension of the stories you read in her book. However without the book the webpage is no good as the stories are not on that site, just the comprehension tests.

Her C/D series "Speak Like A Thai", is also good. C/D-1 is contemporary thai expressions, C/D-2 is colloquial slang, and in the back of that booklet is an entire section on "impolite slang", although there are no sound files on the C/D to go with it.

Many people complain how difficult it is to learn to read thai. I found it far easier to read than speak coherently, although you must learn vocabulary by rote, just like the thais do in school. Reading is only about vocabulary acquisition, not about the ability to sound out the word perfectly. Either you know what the word means or you don't, and the ability to say it with perfect diction is valueless in reading only. It is memorization, and takes time. Granted in some compound words you may be able to glean a meaning by knowing one or more of the components, but reading is for the most part just memorizing what thai words look like and their corresponding meaning

Once you learn the vowels (which can be trying, but not an insurmountable task), you must then get past the fact the thai language has:

6 characters that are a 't' sound (ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ท, ธ, ถ)

5 characters that are a 'k' sound (ข, ฃ, ค, ต, ฆ)

4 characters that are an 's' sound (ซ, ศ, ษ, ส)

3 characters that are "ch" (ฉ,ช, ฌ)

3 characters that are 'p' sound (ผ, พ, ภ)

For a total of 21 possible characters to represent basically 5 sound. Learning those you can pretty closely pronounce words even if your toning is off. I still don't know the tone rules; yet my comprehension on reading thai is way up there for everything but specialty thai (i.e.; legal, government, science, etc).

When I learned to speak I only concentrated on the 2 most critical tones in the thai language; the falling tone, and the rising tone. They are the two tones which can send you "off-script" very fast. The other three tones when spoken in casual conversational thai are often pronounced so closely by native speakers that missing a tone slightly will usually be understood as the correct word by thais from the context of your sentence.

Back on topic to the Rosetta Stone;

I think it is a good adjunct to building vocabulary and listening skills, as the sound files are really quite clear and spoken in normal thai cadence, but as an initial learning tool, I'd give it a pass.

(edited for a 'sa-pelling' error)

Edited June 28, 2009 by tod-daniels

[khun_j]

"With absolutely no explanation of Thai alphabet. I would challenge even the smartest person on earth to learn to read Thai just by starring at a block of Thai text."

there are quite good free resources on the internet - google "learn to read with manee", there i learned the basics and after that rosetta stone was no problem.

it did help me to get some basic grammar and words (ok, i really don´t need the phrase that three kids jump off a table in everyday life ;O), but have to agree: if you live here, a thai teacher brings you a lot more.

[Rionoir]

I don't know what school some of you went to, but when I learned to read they actually taught us the ALPHABET... they didn't just show me complete words and expect me to learn to read that way. =P

I agree with using PIMSLEUR for your first introduction to Thai. I did and developed a very good starting point for my accent with it.

[fullservice]

I tried rosetta stone and didn't like it at all. I joined the learn thai podcast premium course and this works best for me. I don't understand why people still stick to books for learning languages if there are way better alternatives out there, unfortunately rosetta stone is not one of them.

Edited June 29, 2009 by fullservice

[Ratsima]

I spent a lot of time with Rosetta Stone. With it you will learn a form of Thai spoken nowhere in the world except by people who have studied Thai using the Rosetta Stone software. My wife thinks it's hilarious and will occasionally break in to "Rosetta Stone Thai" after which she will end up cackling with laughter and rolling on the floor.

That said, I did learn to read from Rosetta stone. I did not and still do not know the Thai alphabet. I do not know any of the reading, or pronunciation rules. I did not make an effort to learn how to read, it just sort of happened while using Rosetta Stone and seeing the written form of the language.

I still cannot speak or understand Thai. If I go into a restaurant with a Thai-only menu I read it, figure out what I want and point to it on the menu. If I try to pronounce the name of the dish I want there is a 90% chance that it will not be understood.

However, I remain grateful to Rosetta Stone for teaching me how to read basic Thai.