High Speed Thai Course

[Ratsima]

When showing my friend how to use the course (or actually data files), I heard some of the sound.

Really terrible quality, not up to date standard. These sound files must be very old and re-mastered many times. Therefore I assume they have been copied and not produced for this course.

Curious at your response about the sound, I just spent five minutes listening to different sound files and I can't find any that are not clear and easy to understand. Are you sure that it's not your friend's computer?

Ditto. They're all quite clear to me as well. I've used them on several Macs and an iPad.

I do agree with the criticism of HST not being very well integrated. The material would be easier to use if it were. That said, it doesn't take much of an effort to do the organizing yourself. I've got a separate desktop (a "Space" on the Mac) devoted to HST with a bare file window (Finder) open to the HST directory, the HST ebook, an audio player and Anki. I've put my current Anki decks on an iPad so I can do quick reviews even when I'm not sitting at the main computer.

[bmore99]

Curious at your response about the sound, I just spent five minutes listening to different sound files and I can't find any that are not clear and easy to understand. Are you sure that it's not your friend's computer?

It's not my computer, so not sure about that, apart from the "barber shop dialog", I only heard a windows beep.

So, please check out that dialogue and reply how the quality is on your computer.

[desi]

It's not my computer, so not sure about that, apart from the "barber shop dialog", I only heard a windows beep.

So, please check out that dialogue and reply how the quality is on your computer.

I did a search inside the pdf for 'barbershop' and 'barber shop' and nothing came of it. So if you tell me exactly where the lesson is, I will get back to you. Or maybe someone else can as I have an old version so it might not be on the one I have.

But I'm surprised that, after coming across one iffy sound file, you didn't poke around to listen to more before making your comment.

[Ratsima]

I believe the barber shop scene is in the Movie Lesson Files which come at the very end of HST. The barber shop scene is on page 892. I agree that the sound is not perfectly clear, but the point of the Movie Lesson Files is to get you to listen to real-world speech as opposed to language lesson speech. But, you shouldn't go there until you've mastered the previous material.

[Aside: for reasons unknown to me, searching for words in the HST ebook PDF doesn't work very well. That's why a search for 'barber' turns up nothing.]

[desi]

Thanks Ratsima. I just listened to the files and I agree, they are real conversation with background noise included. It's a good idea and prepares students for the actual world.

On search - my brief search using Thai script didn't work either.

[bmore99]

It's not my computer, so not sure about that, apart from the "barber shop dialog", I only heard a windows beep.

So, please check out that dialogue and reply how the quality is on your computer.

I did a search inside the pdf for 'barbershop' and 'barber shop' and nothing came of it. So if you tell me exactly where the lesson is, I will get back to you. Or maybe someone else can as I have an old version so it might not be on the one I have.

But I'm surprised that, after coming across one iffy sound file, you didn't poke around to listen to more before making your comment.

I didn't come across any 'iffy' sound files in the Thai and Isaan material I use myself. And that is the way it should be, certainly considering the price you had to pay for your course.

You like the material of your course and you think it's worth the money, fine by me. Doesn't change my opinion that there is a lot more user-friendly material on the market for a fraction of the price to teach you Thai in the same speed. Anki is even free!

[Ratsima]

Doesn't change my opinion that there is a lot more user-friendly material on the market for a fraction of the price to teach you Thai in the same speed.

Care to enlighten us? The only software you've mentioned so far is the Paiboon course which only runs under Windoze. HST material can be used on Macs and Linux machines, iOS devices, Android phones, etc.

[bmore99]

Doesn't change my opinion that there is a lot more user-friendly material on the market for a fraction of the price to teach you Thai in the same speed.

Care to enlighten us? The only software you've mentioned so far is the Paiboon course which only runs under Windoze. HST material can be used on Macs and Linux machines, iOS devices, Android phones, etc.

The way the question is put, it already favors HST ...

I favor Paiboon's (Benjawan Poomsan Becker's) material. Lot's of it, very good quality at very low price. The sound files you can use on any player (even your car radio).

The DVD courses Speak Thai & Speak Isaan Thai from See Sip Publications run on anythink that plays DVDs and you can convert them to run on your iPhone4/iPod Touch

For the rest(as I don't think you are really interested), google ahead and you'll find it. You might end up learning by using the free online material, hahaha. Even free material at the iStore available.

You like HST, แล้อแต่

Whatever you want to use, as long as you learn the language. Not enough farangs out there speaking Thai.

And with this I end my role in this discussion. I really don't care what people want to use and how much money they want to spend on it.

Looking for the 'miracle' system? Forget it, there isn't any. Work hard and practise practise practise...

[desi]

You like the material of your course and you think it's worth the money, fine by me. Doesn't change my opinion that there is a lot more user-friendly material on the market for a fraction of the price to teach you Thai in the same speed. Anki is even free!

For the record, I don't use High Speed Thai but I do have a draft copy.

I couldn't find a problem with the sound files. Ratsima couldn't find anything wrong either.

The program might not be user-friendly, but there is nothing wrong with the sound files you pointed out.

I'm not trying to change your opinion because everyone learns languages differently. Use HST, use Becker, whatever. 'Up to you'

[vincentv]

bmore99: The audios that you mention are not “iffy” they have been extracted directly from a movie. The sounds are as they are in the movie. These audios are paired with the advanced lessons. The aim of these audios is to give the user exposure to more realistic Thai. When one learns from these movie lessons, he goes though the movie sentence by sentence, the learner is able to replay each sentence as many times as he likes and the audio is also paired with the script from the movie.

Your comments show that you have never actually used the system so your comparison of the program to others is fairly worthless. Only the people who have actually completed the lessons will be able to provide worthwhile feedback on the program. And as you can see, a number of these people have posted extensive feedback on this thread.

Thank you for sharing the books that you used to help you learn the language, no one book is ever going to get you to fluency. The HST program aims to give learners a very solid grounding in the language. Many thousands of hours have been spend on the program and I doubt you are ever going to find something equivalent for free. Learning any language is indeed a large task, quality materials are worth their weight in gold as they will save you hundreds of hours of wasted study time. Oh, and you wrote “แล้อแต่” I assume this is a mistake and you meant “แล้วแต่”.

I would have linked the PDF directly to the files if it was possible but up until now there has been many problems doing this. Thankfully the latest version of Acrobat offers a more flexible way to link PDFs to external files. I am testing this at the moment and hope that within the next few weeks the PDF will be fully linked to the files.

[longway]

^ If you link the pdf to the external files can those who have already bought the course get this version?

[vincentv]

Still doing some testing at the moment. Will post a note in here regarding updating when I am done. Thank you.

[docthai]

Sawasdee krap Adjan Vincent,

This is DOC and Zina, we have been hanging out in Thailand since 2004, we started Muay Thai Missions 2007 to bless those in the Sport of Muay Thai in Thailand and we have studied the Thai Language with FOUR different people and I bought TWO different Thai CD programs. This year we started to go to a School in BKK for two months and studied FOUR hours a day - FIVE days a weeks. Our BRAINS were over loaded even when we could understand the majority of what is being taught. We have been doing High Speed Thai for FOUR weeks now ... it is amazing and we feel it is the best thing out there ... especially for the COST !!

Vincent, we say thanxxx and thanxxx again BRO !! You have put sooo much time and thought into this program ... amazing !!

WHY do we love this ??

1. Efficiency - you have us study important things first, they put us on the right track and help us learn quickly. You have given the MEAT and put side knowledge on the burner.

2. Personal Pace - you have given a program that everyone can use at their own pace. Review is easy and you quickly discover your weaknesses. For example I am great at Reading and Writing ... my wife knows the Tones so we can study what we need to.

3. You can practice Thai no matter where you are in the world. We can now go back to America and this program to continue our Thai Language.

4. You have made this program Affordable ... we think it is cheap. Paying for TWO people to go to school in BKK for ONE month already buys TWO sets of this program !! Thanxxx again !!

5. You focus on learning the TONES and most programs do not do this right up front and it should be done FIRST just like you teach it. After only TWO weeks ... I fully know the TONES !!

Phra JAO uay phra pon ... God bless from Bangkok Thailand, DOC and Zina. ;-)

PS- If you want some Private Lessons in Muay Thai just let me know ... FREE !!

[insertcoins]

Vincent, how long will the update take you think? I want to buy the course, but I will hold out for a bit if that means I can get the linked pdf version.

Edited January 30, 2011 by insertcoins

[insertcoins]

bump

[davoz45]

I have been using the HST for about 4 months and am just at the beining of the vacab lessons, I had a bit of trouble trying to use the Anki on my notebook after saving it on a stick, but i got there eventually. Also my work PC doesnt want to play the Anki . But it works well on my home PC. I can not compare HST as this is my first real attempt at learning another language, and my brain is really hurting with the vocab lessons but I'm sure thia is a reflection on me not HST.

So far I do think it is fantastic, I printed out all the letters and stuck them on the wall at home and this helped a lot.

My mind boggles at the amount of work that must have gone into this.

For me it has already been worth the money.

[vincentv]

This should be completed in the next 2 weeks. Thank you.

[insertcoins]

Thanks, I'll be waiting for the update then. Please keep me up to date.

[vincentv]

Thanks to the latest version of Acrobat I have been able to include the links to the external files within the PDF, so now you simply click within the PDF to open the audio files and exercises.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks

[Ratsima]

Thanks to the latest version of Acrobat I have been able to include the links to the external files within the PDF, so now you simply click within the PDF to open the audio files and exercises.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks

How do we get the updated PDF? I clicked on the "Updates" link and got the following:

Thank you for checking for updates. At this time there are no updates available.

Edited February 15, 2011 by Ratsima

[vincentv]

It is a little bit tricky to provide this as a downloadable update as there are changes in the file system and encrypted/watermarked PDF. I will see what I can do, it may require new DVDs to be sent out.

If you are interested please send me an email.

Thank you

[SIAMBULL]

Thanks to the latest version of Acrobat I have been able to include the links to the external files within the PDF, so now you simply click within the PDF to open the audio files and exercises.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks

Would help immensely.

[slipperx]

Hi

I am using this progam.

Benefits

Great Content

Great method to learn

Well set out

Superb support (I cannot vouch for Money Back Offer as I never considered wanting to send it back)

Good Value for Money

Comprehensive teaching method

Beats Rosetta Stone hands down in my opinion which is also much more expensive though Pantip would get you a rip off) - I tried it (Rosetta Stone) and really did not get on with it so well

Disbenefits

Can't get a rip off (but I believe the guy who sat down and designed this is entitled to a living for his efforts - it must have taken thousands of hours)

Interface not so slick as some other programs - makes it look less professional than the content prooves

If not computer savvy can be tricky to first get set up

Requires some effort to learn and a commitment for regular study but then that is true of any language / learning

For the price I think the product is very good value for money and if you are a person who can commit to regular diligent learning then I believe this course to be an excellent way to learn to early intermediate level. also I have always found Vincent to be courteous and very prompt in dealing with my questions.

slipperx

[stargazer]

WARNING: I purchased the "HIGHSPEEDTHAI" course as a result of viewing Vincent's sales video. When I received the course it did not resemble the video and I requested a refund. He requested that I try the course for a while and after spending some time trying to utilize it I was unable to retain any material. I then requested a refund for the second time and Vincent put me thru an inqusition saying that he had to make a determination that the cancellation was valid. His so called guarantee states "for any" reason or in other words an unconditional guarantee, but he will not honor it.

[vincentv]

I am thankful that stargazer has posted here. He has given me the opportunity to answer some questions and present the facts.

First of all let me talk about the guarantee, I stand by the guarantee and never once told this user he was not going to be refunded. I simply did not state at any stage I was not going to honor his guarantee.

Let us all have a look at the conversation that took place between me and stargazer to see what actually happened.

(Online Chat Log)

This dialog began on 19/07/2011 1:31:41 PM

101.109.134.146 joins the channel.

vincent says:

[13:31:44] Hello

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:32:16] Hey Vincent. This is Carl Bethell. I need to complete the cancellation.

vincent says:

[13:32:26] Hi Carl,

[13:32:29] Thanks for your time

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:33:08] What must be done in order to receive my refund

vincent says

[13:33:29] Ok, so you purchased the program not so long ago.

[13:34:10] And you had some problems completing the lessons. You mentioned you were unable to retain the info. And that it was information overload.

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:34:45] That is correct. Problem with short term memory.

vincent says:

[13:35:17] Which part of the program made you feel this. You mention that you completed 3 lessons. Was it these lessons that made you feel that? Which lessons were they?

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:36:35] I was never able to complete any lessons. I tried doing the first three lessons wityhout any results. I really just need to end this.

vincent says:

[13:37:15] Which lessons did you try?

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:37:53] I don't wish to pursue this line of questioning. Please refund my monies to me.

vincent says:

[13:38:09] I am trying to be fair and understand your situation<br style="">

Now something here is very strange. He states that he did the first 3 lessons but was unable to retain any information. The thing is the first lessons are pronunciation lessons, they basically explain how certain sounds are pronounced have you listen to some audio files but you do not have to commit any symbols, characters or vocab to memory. This is the first thing that did not add up.

[13:39:26] Yes I have your explanation up here in front of me stating that you waded though 3 lessons without much progress

[13:40:38] That is why I asked which lessons, to understand your viewpoint, what happened and where I can improve the product so this never happens again. I would like every customer to really enjoy the program.

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:42:57] I assume you could not improve your product without getting rid of the copy protection devices. In the format that it is in, I am unable to retain what I have read. At 70 years of age it is a problem.

vincent says:

[13:44:08] Yes the copy production features are a slight annoyance but they must be present

[13:44:49] Ok so for the record could I know exactly what you have done with the program.

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:47:36] I simply spent time trying to assimilate some of the information in the first 3 leassons and failed miserably. My first chat with you indicated that I was not happy with the format in which I received the course. I felt it was not as promoted in the video tha caught my interest. I was able to retain the characters in that video and was impressed. Not so with the information that I received.

vincent says:

[13:48:42] Ok, thanks for that, which lessons were they?

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:49:09] 1,2, & 3.

vincent says:

[13:49:24] From which section?

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:49:43] reading - *This is strange because there are over 7 lessons to do before you do the reading lessons.

vincent says:

[13:50:31] Did you access the lessons via the ebook?

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:50:42] yes

vincent says:

[13:53:40] ok thanks, could you please email me the 4 files that are located in the Anki tutorial folder in the highspeedthai files folder along with the 3 anki files in the Reading Lesson Files\Reading Lesson 1 Files to [email protected]

101.109.134.146 says:

[13:56:25] Where are these files.

vincent says:

[13:56:38] On the desktop there is HighSpeedThai Files folder

[13:57:33] Please send the four files in the Anki Tutorial folder and the 3 anki files in the Reading Lesson Files/Reading Lesson 1 files folder

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:05:42] This is very frustrating. Your guarantee states "If you are not happy for any reason, please send your product back within 30 days of the date of purchase and we will happily refund all your money and all postage costs.". Please honor this. No more nonesense.

vincent says:

[14:07:26] I am sure you can understand that this program took thousands of man hours to make, I honestly have never been asked for a refund based on content. I give the program basically free for people to trial. Anyone could purchase the program and then ask for there money back and use the program for free.

[14:08:32] On to of that for genuine people who do not like the program, there is no use in me just giving their money back without further amending the product or website so this situation never happens again.

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:12:29] Yes I have that email

[14:12:45] Is there a problem sending me those small files which are about 1 MB in size?

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:13:19] Be a gentleman and honor you word and make the refund Vincent.

vincent says:

[14:13:29] I did not say I was not going to

[14:13:44] I just asked you to email me 7 small files

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:14:03] No more hoops thankyou.

vincent says:

[14:14:30] You can not email me 7 files?

[14:15:09] You could have sent them to me by now it should only take 1 minute

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:15:38] I have spent almost a month in doing additional items for you. It is quite clear that these are just stall tacttics. Enough is enough.

vincent says:

[14:16:17] I am not sure what you mean, I have not stated I am not refunding your money

[14:16:23] As I said

[14:17:37] This program is basicaly free for any one to try, anyone can download it. Then ask for their money back because they do not want to pay for it. It is for this reason I need to establish the reality of the situation

[14:17:59] In order to ensure this never happens again and refund the money. I think this is very fair.

[14:18:28] I am not in the business of cheating any one. I have been selling this program for years, and get great feedback many times a week from users.

[14:18:44] Your experience differs, hence our conversation.

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:20:12] What would be fair is to simply honor your word. My other choices are to make comments on all Thailand forums, every reipoff report on the internet and local Thai authorities if you are to persist in this tact.

vincent says:

[14:20:35] I would say that would be unfair

[14:20:47] Totally unfair

[14:20:52] And unreasonable

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:20:58] "If you are not happy for any reason, please send your product back within 30 days of the date of purchase and we will happily refund all your money and all postage costs."

vincent says:

[14:21:25] And I am not sure why you are even mentioning it because I have just asked for you to email me 7 files.

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:23:10] We both know that I cannot send you back any downloaded files. I can copy and paste etc. but that does not remove any files. Once I have received my refund, I will delete all files concerning "Highspeedthai".

vincent says:

[14:23:57] Yes I am just asking you to email me those 7files

[14:24:17] You can copy and paste them to a new email

[14:24:21] and send them to me

[14:24:34] It is a one minute task

101.109.134.146 says:

[14:25:03] Thank you Vincent. 2 days from now I will spend much of my time dealing with you in my preferred way.

vincent says:

[14:25:37] I do not understand, are you saying that you will not send these files?

101.109.134.146 left the channel.

This dialog ended on 19/07/2011 2:25:46 PM<br style=""> <br style="">

At this point stargazer has left the chat. I was concerned about this whole situation, so I sent him an email almost immediately.

Tue 19/07/2011 2:49 PM

Hello Carl,

I still do not understand what is happening.

Could you please be clear, I have asked you to send me 7 small files. From what I can see you do not want to take the minute or so to do this.

I never said I was not going to refund your money.

Perhaps you have not completed any lessons. I do not mind, I just need to understand the situation. Obviously you can appreciate why I am curious to gain a greater understanding of your experience with the product as I am always trying to improve the program and without an understanding of your experience I have little hope to improve anything.

You can also understand that, anyone is free to purchase the program, and then ask for their money back regardless of if they plan to keep using the program.

I am trying to be as reasonable and logical as I can be here.

So please be clear with me, I am a genuine person and am not in business to scam or rip any one off. If I was doing this, I would be out of business a long time ago. My primary goal is to create the best learning programs around.

Thank you

This is the reply I got from him:

Do you have a work permit. Paid taxes on sales made. Licensed to do business in Thailand.

Here is my reply to this seemingly threatening email.

Hello,

I reside in Australia.

I spend some time each year in Thailand and in other countries, about 6 months. I do pay my tax in Australia.

Why do you ask?

As I said I am trying to be reasonable here, I put my time into helping people learn and making better products. Not just in Thai but other languages too.

Basically you have thousands of hours of my work there that does what it says it does. I have about 130 genuine testimonials from very happy users who attest to how well they learn when using the program.

If one does put the time in, he will learn. Maybe if they have serious memory or hearing issues then learning a language is not for them. This could be you, but if you learnt from the videos you should be able to learn from the program. As the video is just based on a couple of the techniques used in the program. I am just trying to determine where you got stuck, am I being unreasonable?

Could you tell me what a reasonable way would be to verify that all refunds are genuine? The best way I can think is for me to understand exactly what they are having troubles with, refund the money, remove their license and the improve the product so it does not happen again.

Thanks

From here I received no reply. I have been waiting for him to post here so I can answer in full with the facts. I never said I was not going to give him a refund at any stage. From the start when the customer said he was unable to retain what was in the first 3 lessons did not make any sense as there is really nothing to retain in the first 3 lessons.

As now the product is being offered for download and there is no physical product I have to be a little careful that my generous guarantee is not exploited.. I think it is pretty unreasonable for someone to just purchase the product and say, ok give me my money now and I do not want to answer any questions. In these situations there is no way for me to verify that there was an actually a problem.

On top of this, if there is a real problem, I really want to know about it in order to resolve it and ensure that no one else experiences this same issue.

As you can see it is extremely unlikely that this user has actually completed any lessons. It is more likely that he just opened it up, clicked around randomly without reading any instructions and got lost. The program is structured in a very specific way, there are explanations for why the program is in such an order and why it is very important that one completes the program in the order laid out.

I usually do not like to announce new updates to the program as I prefer to keep any new innovations a little secret. But there are some very exciting updates being completed at the moment that will be integrated into the program very shortly. HST part 2 is also on the way.

If you are looking for real feedback on the program make sure you look at the posts from users who have actually been using the program.

Edited July 25, 2011 by vincentv

[stargazer]

I wish to apologze to Vincent for a flaming post I made a couple of weeks ageo. I was in an angry mood which came from a misunderstanding with him about a refund. I have received my refund and wish to thank Vincent for his time and efforts to assist me. The course is a lengthy and comprehensive course and well worth the money. I have a problem with short term memory and had trouble retaining information as a result.

Hat tip to Linda at Thaivisa for her assistance in this matter.

Edited August 4, 2011 by stargazer

[oilsand]

At Vincent's request I'd like to add my comments on HST.

I've taken about a year to get through all the reading and vocab lessons (thru 40 lessons). One could definitely get through the bulk of the program more quickly, but I find Thailand to be wonderfully distracting in so many ways - who can sit in front of the PC all day for work and then commit to more of the same every day for study?

It comes down to commitment and hard work. HST keeps things fresh by throwing a lot of different study methods at you. I find myself gravitating to the visual (so my reading and writing is far better than my speaking and especially my listening) but there's enough there to provide every sense with a challenge. Of particular value are the "Fast" reading sections which simulate conversational speed. Before I got the v2 update with these I could parrot "How do you say..." brilliantly, and then when I talked to someone in real life the words would fly by too fast for me to decode them. It's pretty key that you practice your butt off and challenge yourself and over time more and more words will fall into the instinct category. HST gives you all the tools you need to get there-- it's up to you to use 'em!

Positives:

- Learning to read is a breeze, and 100% essential. SMS and email with your Thai friends, it's awesome practice.

- Vocab is generally well selected to increase in difficulty and breadth as you go.

- Review tools offer huge amounts of variety.

- Vincent offers quick and detailed support - he seems to really care about your success

- Gives you an overall excellent foundation in the language

Negatives:

Really, these are minor, and maybe not negative depending on how you look at it:

- There are times when the examples of words in context could offer more variety of examples. Sometimes it's unclear how formal a word might be, etc.

- Seems the reading/speaking are all rather boring conversations. Not sure how to avoid this because HST has to simulate conversations, but I know far more "office lingo" than I imagine I'll ever use, while not really being sure about small talk. I'm fluent in another language and I feel the same way, so it might just be a street v. classroom.

- Anki is a great tool, but using it and the program in general is kind of fragmented. For someone less technical I could see it being a little confusing.

- If you don't get out and talk about everything with everyone, your verbal/auditory abilities will lag far behind your reading. As with any learning tool, the construction is more formal than how people chat in general. Thai is tough because there's tons of abbreviations of already abbreviated constructions (look up the thread on the particle/ending ป่ะ for a great example - you have to be out there talking to know). I think the movie section helps cover some of this, but I haven't made it there yet

If you really love to learn languages, and you can force yourself to sit in front of the e-book, parrot back the "how do you says...", and most importantly apply things you learn EVERY DAY in your daily life, you will be proficient in a very short time. 1 focused hour/day would do wonders. If you're like me, and are too scattered to stick to a strict schedule, you'll see progress in fits and starts, but it'll happen.

Lastly, I learned early on to TRUST the program. There are times when the vocab seems a little different than what you hear in the streets, but I have yet to have any issue when using constructions/vocab from HST and they are generally organized according to importance. (Except for eg. เช่น(กัน) > I rarely hear anybody use this word despite it coming very early on in the lessons). I hear a lot of ex-pats taking about how they get the "blank stare" from Thai people when they speak. I literally almost never get this (helps to rehearse before speaking, of course) unless I clearly cock up my lines -- and at that point I can tell what came out wrong and correct myself. I have in a year become the de-facto speaker when in groups of foreign friends -- "hey you do the talking" which is both flattering and damning of the language proficiency of most foreigners -- because my Thai is still infantile! But because of HST my pronunciation is miles better than most and I am 100% intelligible to every native Thai speaker. TRUST IT!

Form 8/10, Function and Value 10/10. I'd recommend HST to anyone serious of learning to speak, read, and write Thai (and I have - Vincent you should be sending me royalty checks, haha!)

[tjansen]

yvancg (I can't figure out how to get my reply out of the quotes box)

I was rather unhappy with High Speed Thai a couple of years ago and went at it with fits and starts, with some complaints to Vincent. I had looked at and tried other programs without being thrilled. One day I decided to get serious about learning Thai. I went to the instruction part in the ebook and picked the pieces I felt were most beneficial for me (I don't like to work very hard these days) and laid out a study plan and schedule. I started following that and I am now approaching Lesson 30 and feel like I am learning a lot. I am now venturing out on my own on errands, confident that I can communicate enough to get the job done. People tell me my Thai is very good.

Vincent is very responsive and patient and doesn't seem to get ruffled feathers from people's comments (mine). He actually makes changes in future releases based on people's (mine) comments.

If you are interested, send me an email or PM and I will send you my exact study plan.

Tom

HST was my first choice, I was not happy with it, I mentioned it with some suggestions to improve it, but that was taken on the negative side, like i didn't know how to arrange the windows properly.Sorry I i was mislead by your response, as vincent has vincenttv ID here as well as highspeedthai. And you reply was very much on the same tone of voice. My apologies.Even with the iPhone, which is a top of the range product, there as many unhappy comments and they don't hide them. It is hard to believe that i am the ONLY unhappy person about HST. I have already had a few other person contacting me and saying that what I was saying was what they felt about the programme. Again I am not saying it is a bad system. There is a lot of work done behind it, but the way it it presented, and the way it is marketed, is just nowhere close to the market reality.HST COULD be a great programme if it took the user into consideration. For now it is just 1000+ pdf file with a 1000+ files to organize on your screen. It doesn't cost much to integrate all this into one software and make it user friendly.I don't think my comments are unjust, i just related a story that happened to me. As for the Mandarin Chinese I have learnt, I took 2 years courses at the KMT 2 in Tahiti (traditional Mandarin from Taiwan, not the simplified form from mainland China). Please feel free to contact Rose Wong there, who is the lead teacher. I can supply her email address in private if you want to check by yourself. She taught me to read, speak and write. The reason why I decided to learn Mandarin Chinese and not Bikya is probably because Mandarin Chinese is obviously one of the most spoken language in the world (source: http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html).Anything else you want to clear I will be happy to clarify with you.Now if you want to share your own story about the benefits of HST for YOU, please feel free. But don't tell me that I must like it because all the testimonials we get from HST are all highly positive.Having said that, i am glad that you managed to learn your way through HST, and if you know anyone who want to buy a sample of this programme at a discounted price, please feel free to refer him or her to me.

[ThaiSold]

I'll just add my two cents here, I'm fluent in Thai Language I speak much better than Vincent ever will and the owner of Walen for that matter. I don't see how or why anyone would want to learn Thai from anyone or even any program where the maker of that program isn't fluent themselves. I don't care how good you think High Speed Thai is the fact is Vincent (the maker of High speed Thai) is far from profficient enough to teach the Thai language. I see the price has now jumped to $220 and without any credentials as a Teacher or accredited by the Thai language association I can't see why would you purchase this product. In my mind it's only worth $49 at best but because of his advertising costs it's $220. If you want to throw money away then buy this program. @thaisold

[MacWalen]

I'll just add my two cents here, I'm fluent in Thai Language I speak much better than Vincent ever will and the owner of Walen for that matter. I don't see how or why anyone would want to learn Thai from anyone or even any program where the maker of that program isn't fluent themselves. I don't care how good you think High Speed Thai is the fact is Vincent (the maker of High speed Thai) is far from profficient enough to teach the Thai language. I see the price has now jumped to $220 and without any credentials as a Teacher or accredited by the Thai language association I can't see why would you purchase this product. In my mind it's only worth $49 at best but because of his advertising costs it's $220. If you want to throw money away then buy this program. @thaisold

Very confident you are.