Thai2english

[Harcourt]

For a few years now, the online Thai-English dictionary that I frequented was Thai2English.

It's been offline recently, upgrading, and when I went there a few days ago, it still didn't appear to be operating except for offering for trial and sale it's downloadable version.

I've got 15 days free trial before I decide to buy or not.

So far, it's looks great! With the added promise of free lifetime updates, it looks like a good buy to me.....but before I flash the plastic, has anyone got an opinion on the download?

[SoftWater]

No, I use a mac and Mike hasn't done a mac version (yet...?_) - but I have to say I don't like the design of the new online interface as much as the old one!

[supergoondu]

I have downloaded it, unfortunately I didn't get to explore it much. And now mine had exceeded that 15 days time frame.

I have bought hardcopy Thai-English dictionary, English-Thai dictionary. And I have found both very useful. The other problem was the Thai fonts on the dictionaries were too small, and I have bought myself a magnifying glass to look at the Thai font. The sales person was amused when I told him I need it for reading Thai font. (And I am not really old.)

I have no comment about Thai2english, but I would strongly encouage you to subscribe for Learn Thai Podcast if you would like to build up your vocabularies and under the Thai language structure.

Edited September 27, 2009 by supergoondu

[anothertorres]

No, I use a mac and Mike hasn't done a mac version (yet...?_) - but I have to say I don't like the design of the new online interface as much as the old one!

ditto.

[a1falang]

I've paid and downloaded, and I must say while it looks pretty, it's now a pain in the butt. I loved the old online version, where I could copy and paste a whole Thai sentence or paragraph and quickly get a list of all the Thai words down the page with the English definitions visible at the touch of the Page Down key. This new downloadable version is MUCH slower and takes several seconds to "load" the definitions each time. (Load from where? Isn't this installed software with everything already on my C: drive? It should be nearly instantaneous.) The list produced is Thai and their transliterations only and I have to manually move the mouse endlessly to "hover" above each and every word to see only a few English definitions, not a full list. Maybe I have to go to Dictionary mode to get full definitions, then back to Transliteration mode to copy and paste another line? If so, what a frustrating waste of time!

So, in my opinion, while it looks slick, this new version isn't an improvement at all, but is in fact slower to respond to searches and more cumbersome and time-consuming to use. I know this kind of product takes a lot of time, effort and money to develop, so it's a pity the developer doesn't seem to have done any research on how users actually used the previous version. I think it's actually faster and easier now for me to look up individual Thai words at SiamDic or Longdo than use this.

Edited September 28, 2009 by a1falang

[Khon Baan Nok]

At the risk of appearing as (or being) an ingrate, I have to give a thumbs down to the new online version, too. The interface is vastly inferior to the old one, and it appears to have been de-tuned to produce fewer, and less usable, results. Example: I was looking for the correct spelling of the word กำลัง and entered the word "now" in the search box. To my surprise, none of the results included กำลัง. It is also slower than it used to be, and a lot less convenient to user for "on the fly" translations.

I've used the online version on a near-daily basis for the several years I've been in Thailand, and have benefited enormously from Mike's labor of love. I did the download, but found it less convenient to use than the previous online version, or than the free dictionary that comes with the excellent Domnern Sathienpong Thai to English dictionary. This book/CD is 570 baht, and while the book is only Thai to English, the CD version goes both ways.

I feel like I've lost an old friend...

:-D

Thanks, however, for the several years of a truly great facility, Mike, it was super while it lasted.

S.

[a1falang]

Nicely put, Khon Baan Nok. Thanks for reminding me about the price. Yes, the pricing is also seriously out of whack - 1400 baht or US$39.95. At present exchange rates, the local price is HIGHER than the US price! I might try that book/CD combo you suggested.

[RickBradford]

I have the downloaded version, and I like it.

I especially like that I can type sentences in phonetic Thai and get the correct Thai script transliteration back immediately -- it helps no end in online chat situations. The reference section is very good as well. As a dictionary it seems to be perfectly adequate, and I like the sample sentences provided with words.

As for the price -- who would begrudge paying 1400Bt for a resource that has taken such enormous effort to produce?

Now, if Mike would produce a version which users could modify themselves.....

[Chrubble]

It also no longer works on my Mobile (Nokia using Opera)

[montri69]

I use ThaiSoftware Dictionary v4.0 and it works great. You can translate words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs. It gives you multiple meanings for what you've translated since you're not hearing it. The wife brought it home from work so I imagine you can buy it locally (she works for the university and they use it there) Chook Dee Krup

[a1falang]

Thanks, montri69, I'll try that as well. I don't mind paying for a good product. Which leads me to Rick Bradford: it's not paying that's the issue, it's paying over twice as much than other products that offer similar or better features. A perfectly good online dictionary with a simple way of quickly "translating" whole paragraphs has now been ruined for the sake of money. Ultimately, it's their loss, as the number of regular website visitors plummets, whle most people who do try their downloadable version will find it slower than and inferior to before, and seek better alternatives. The old version was fine, and the smart thing to do would have been CHANGE NOTHING, but offer added new features e.g. more definitions and audio clips, for a competitive price like 599 baht or US$19.95. Thai2English has been a wonderful tool in its time and I have found it invaluable. No longer. Thai2English is causing irreparable damage to its brand.

Edited October 4, 2009 by a1falang

[SoftWater]

I agree. I can't see the sense in what Mike has done. If the aim was to get some financial return on all his hard work (surely deserved), this seems to be the totally wrong way to go about it. I did email him and ask him to look in on this thread - maybe we're missing something about the new one...or maybe it's just in a transitional phase..or maybe I'm just wishfully hoping it would go back to the way it was...in any case, Mike doesn't seem to be responding.

I would have been happy to buy Thai2English as it was before with an expanded vocabulary or some other extra functionality had it been available for the mac. I was also a regular user of the site and have regularly mentioned it as the first port of call to others, including having a direct link to it on my blogpage (which I am now about to remove). I've now switched to the Haas dictionary which I like a lot less than the old T2E but infinitely more than the new one.

Though of course it is silly to be sentimental about such things, it does indeed feel like the loss of an old friend.

Shame.

Edited October 4, 2009 by SoftWater

[OxfordWill]

can I recommend making the installer a small file which then connects to the server to download the full installation files, you will likely get more customers this way.

Also dont forget about linux.. it doesnt seem to run under WINE

[TomOT]

I have to agree it is definitely worse. I started to buy it a while back but something came up and I had to abort. Looks like I was lucky.

[afx]

I emailed the guy asking about a windows mobile version. Next year he said, I'll wait as there's more than enough free resources whilst sat in front of the computer. For me the killer app would be for a pda (windows mobile) version with a nice interace that is fast so I can take everywhere with me.

[DavidHouston]

I agree. I can't see the sense in what Mike has done. If the aim was to get some financial return on all his hard work (surely deserved), this seems to be the totally wrong way to go about it. I did email him and ask him to look in on this thread - maybe we're missing something about the new one...or maybe it's just in a transitional phase..or maybe I'm just wishfully hoping it would go back to the way it was...in any case, Mike doesn't seem to be responding.

I would have been happy to buy Thai2English as it was before with an expanded vocabulary or some other extra functionality had it been available for the mac. I was also a regular user of the site and have regularly mentioned it as the first port of call to others, including having a direct link to it on my blogpage (which I am now about to remove). I've now switched to the Haas dictionary which I like a lot less than the old T2E but infinitely more than the new one.

Though of course it is silly to be sentimental about such things, it does indeed feel like the loss of an old friend.

Shame.

Softwater,

Is there an online, down-loadable, or CD version of the Mary Haas dictionary currently available? And, is the content as up to date as Thai2English?

Thanks.

[Rikker]

David, the dictionary at thai.sealang.net is essentially the Mary Haas dictionary. Or Haas+, you might call it.

The core of the SEAlang Thai dictionary is Haas' master data files, with improved cross-referencing and many corrections of internal inconsistencies and other things that were extremely time-intensive in the pre-computer days but are a cinch today.

It's also supplemented with data from the Lexitron dictionary and the Royal Institute's ศัพท์บัญญัติ database-- whenever these have entries that Haas does not -- but always gives preference to Haas data. This can be changed in the settings by telling it "always add non-TDP data", in which case it would return both the Haas and non-Haas entries for a given search query. (TDP here stands for Thai Dictionary Project, the name for her project, one output of which was her Thai-English Student's Dictionary; she also planned but never completed an Unabridged Thai-English Dictionary.)

[SoftWater]

Is there an online, down-loadable, or CD version of the Mary Haas dictionary currently available? And, is the content as up to date as Thai2English?

Thanks.

No CD as far as I know, but the online version can be found at Haas Dictionary

Softwater

[DavidHouston]

Thank you both.

[mike_l]

Well, as thai2english is my site I hope it's ok I reply here.

Sorry about the downtime there's been, an unfortunate combination of the upgrade being quite a bit more problematic than I thought and various events in my life happened to conspire to leave me with little time to fix it. I think it should all be ok now though. I don't really understand the hostility towards the new version to be honest, yes you now have to go to http://www.thai2english.com/online/ rather than the main page but otherwise it should be just as easy to use as before. The download version is because of many requests I got for it, it seems like a better way of keeping the site online compared to advertising (annoying and probably irrelevant) or asking for donations ( i.e. asking for money for nothing, at least this way you're getting something for the money). It's taken literally years of work to get it to this point, and so I think the price is fair considering it comes with free updates. If you don't think it's worth it, well the online one is still free to use. It's very pleasing to me that many people do seem to like it though.

Anyway, the new version is intended as a substantial improvement, it certainly wasn't my intention to try and degrade it in any way. It's somewhat more complex in how it works now, and I'm sorry if that's made it a bit slower, it's something I'll continue to work on improving. The new features in this version are:

- The Thai > English dictionary is about 3 - 4 times bigger, not including all the various Thai district/subdistricts/villages names that are also there now. Whereas the old version was 99% Lexitron data, this one is more like 20%. Lexitron data also includes a lot of fairly odd or out-dated words and definitions, thousands have been added or updated to make more sense.

- The old version was basically one way Thai > English, and when searching in English it would do a reverse search of the meanings of Thai > English dictionary (like thai-language.com does). This works ok usually , but doesn't always give great results particularly when the English word has more than one distinct meaning. The new version has a full English > Thai dictionary too, with the Thai words segregated according to distinct meaning of the English words. Try comparing http://www.thai2english.com/dictionary/state.html to the results you get from thai-language.com or sealang for the word "state" for instance. Having the dictionary this way does mean you tend to get less words returned compared to doing a reverse lookup search, but they're usually much more accurate. I think much more useful too, I can't see many words that are only tangentially relevant being returned as a good thing. You still have the option to do a reverse lookup for any word if you want though, which will give similar results to how it used to be.

- About a thousand more sound files, much better quality ones too.

- The component and example words in the Thai > English dictionary are now linked to an individual meaning of a word, rather than the word itself. This makes them more accurate/useful than they used to be , e.g. http://www.thai2english.com/dictionary/10118.html

- The example words can be be broken down into their components without having to load a new page ( e.g. http://www.thai2english.com/dictionary/71750.html )

- More usable at larger screen resolutions.

In the next few days, I'll update the search to be able to let you search by thai2english or RTGS transliteration plus be able to recognise spelling mistakes and slang spelling. That'll mean you can type จิงจัย and the dictionary will find จริงใจ for instance, I don't think any other site can do that AFAIK. It won't be quite as good as it works in the downloadable version, but it'll still be a big improvement on what it was before.

I really do think it's a big improvement from before, I know it's quite a big change but hopefully if people give it a chance you might change your mind.

I have to manually move the mouse endlessly to "hover" above each and every word to see only a few English definitions

I'm a bit confused by this, the new version works the same as the old in that you can either hover over each word or click the arrow at the start of each line to show every word. If there's something I'm missing please let me know.

The interface is vastly inferior to the old one, and it appears to have been de-tuned to produce fewer, and less usable, results. Example: I was looking for the correct spelling of the word กำลัง and entered the word "now" in the search box. To my surprise, none of the results included กำลัง.

It's hasn't been de-tuned to produce less results, it's just a consequence of the new dictionary as above. As for กำลัง - I wouldn't expect to find กำลัง as a translation for "now". กำลัง before the verb puts it in the present continuous tense, but that's not really the same as making it a direct translation for "now". The results for "now" are "ตอนนี้ ; ขณะนี้ ; ปัจจุบัน ; เดี๋ยวนี้ ; ครั้งนี้ ; คราวนี้ ; ทุกวันนี้ ; ในตอนนี้ ; ในขณะนี้ ; ปัจจุบันนี้" , which I think are pretty reasonable.

It also no longer works on my Mobile (Nokia using Opera)

Is this still the case ? There's been lots of changes since your post, so hopefully it might be working again now.

If anyone comes across any problems, or has any specific suggestions or bug reports of things not working as they should/used to, please let me know either by PM or email. Thanks!

Edited October 11, 2009 by mike_l

[harrry]

Mike I havent downloaded the new version but I think the old is a fair offer for the money. I think a windows mobile version would be useful. There was a suggestion to use a small downloader to install theprogrma online. I would hope you keep the downloadable version as one file as many of us do not have access to direct download.

One thing I really liked is the grammar and readng pages. I would like to see these expanded if possible.

[katana]

I would hope you keep the downloadable version as one file as many of us do not have access to direct download.

Agree. I generally do not like or see the point of pre-installers, that download and install things in the background without you knowing what's going on, or being able to examine the full .exe before execution.

Yahoo messenger uses this method and consequently I never installed it.

[THAIFRENCHY]

Hello everybody !

I have been using THAI2ENGLISH for 10 months and I am quite satisfied with it and with the price too : really good value for money.

I have it installed on 2 computers, a recent one and an older one, both are working quickly and perfectly.

I am still using LEXITRON occasionally, but THAI2ENGLISH is better for my personal use, including a good grammar, translating, transliterating, good pronunciation...

A few years ago, I had the SETAPUTRA which was good, but not enough vocabulary when you read books or newspapers in thai.

I think that a too sophisticated dictionary may be inadapted for beginners.

Wish you much fun in learning thai language.

Claude

Edited October 12, 2009 by THAIFRENCHY

[GlennSlayden]

Try comparing thai2english.com/dictionary/state.html to the results you get from thai-language.com or sealang for the word "state" for instance.

It's true that my site is not a bidirectional dictionary. It has been a dictionary of Thai words, defined in English, since it's inception. I've been aware of the limitations of this and have been working for a couple months on a more intelligent and usable search facility. However, my work has slowed now that my classes have restarted. So, since this topic is on everyone's minds, I went ahead and activated my work-in-progress.

The main new feature is a "completion" search which allows you to get a sort of "preview" of search results while you are typing in either English or Thai. From here you can either select a single result, or get the full results. But most importantly, these full results are now sorted in order of relevancy.

At present, these features will only appear if you are using IE8 or Firefox 3.5, and if you have javascript enabled. If these conditions are met, you'll get the new interface when you select the 'dictionary' tab at thai-language.com

If this early release does not work for you, you can still access the old features via a prominent link.

Best,

Glenn Slayden

[SoftWater]

Thanks Glenn, that's a very useful resource.

BTW, the new dictionary doesn't work with latest version of Safari, but just fine with Firefox 3.5 on a mac (always preferred FF to Safari anyway!)

Edited October 12, 2009 by SoftWater

[RickBradford]

^

mike_l

When I click on 'Check for updates' under the 'Help' tab of the download version, it starts to check and then crashes... (Windows XP/Google Chrome.)

Any ideas?

[mike_l]

Rick, I'm happy to help but I'm not sure this thread is really the place - I've sent you a PM instead.

^

mike_l

When I click on 'Check for updates' under the 'Help' tab of the download version, it starts to check and then crashes... (Windows XP/Google Chrome.)

Any ideas?

[kriswillems]

The biggest disadvantage of Thai2English for me, are the computer generated transliterations.

They make the dictionary look amateurish.

For instance:

ผลไม้: pŏn mái

A 40 dollar dictionary shouldn't have mistakes like this.

Besides that, I think thai2english is a reasonably good dictionary.

My favorite online dictionary is www.sealang.net/thai

Edited October 12, 2009 by kriswillems

[jasonstod]

Whats up everyone,

I have purchased this and I am pretty happy with it. I was a little saddened by the change in the online version. When I am at work I sometimes go to the online version if my wife doesn't understand a particular word and it WAS great! I haven't been there in a couple of days as i started using another site while i'm at work. I guess i need to update my paid version if there is a new one out there.

I am pleased with the first version i paid for! i hope this new one is better!!

[jasonstod]

oooo... i almost forgot, one thing that i think would make it better or sometimes easier to use is more of a BROWSE feature. Being able to browse through words would be GREAT! Maybe this is in the new version but if not...hey MIKE....(hint, hint) BROWSE FEATURE...