Podcasts In Thai

[aanon]

Hi all,

I'm looking for educational podcasts in Thai. I wonder if anyone is aware of Thai universities that offer podcasts of their (Thai language) lectures? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

ps. I've found a number of podcasts in English covering material relating to Thailand and the region. In case anyone has similar interests, I can suggest the Lowy Institute, Asia Society and CSEAS (Centre for Southeast Asian Studies) podcasts. From the latter I've just downloaded an episode titled "Images of Women in Thai TV Dramas". Promises to be interesting!

[Rikker]

This trend has yet to hit Thailand yet, though e-learning has been a big buzzword for a few years. Ramkhamhaeng University has been the leader in open education from what I've seen. For several years now you've been able to download hundreds of their textbooks in PDF format for free, stream their classroom lectures, and so forth.

http://www.ru.ac.th/e-University.html

You can find direct audio downloads (in WMA format, but that can be converted) in the m-Learning portion of their site.

First you will go the page where you have to select which term you want lectures from. Then you select the course (based on its abbreviation, so you may have to do some back-and-forth in your browser to find an interesting topic -- HI is history, TH is Thai language, etc.).

Eventually you'll get to a page that looks like this: History 121, พื้นฐานวัฒนธรรมไทย, Semester 1, 2008. Ignore the video and scroll all the way down to the bottom. On the bottom right are links to zip files containing WMA audio files of the lectures. There are also WMV video files. Here's a direct link to the audio of the first lecture of that course.

I suspect you already know about it, and it's not directly "educational" like the university lectures, but there's also ช่างคุย Changkhui podcast. I was invited to do an episode, which just went online. I haven't even listened to it myself yet, so be prepared for my Thai -- dumb mistakes and all.

[aanon]

Hey Rikker,

Many thanks for the excellent info. I had found Chang Khui and have a few of the various episodes from there but the Ramkhamhaeng link sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. I might even just use the WMA files, as my car stereo plays them. This is great.

Will be checking out your episode on Chang Khui, too. Will be interesting to put a voice to a name -- and no doubt you'll be speaking about something worthwhile as well.

Thanks again.

This trend has yet to hit Thailand yet, though e-learning has been a big buzzword for a few years. Ramkhamhaeng University has been the leader in open education from what I've seen. For several years now you've been able to download hundreds of their textbooks in PDF format for free, stream their classroom lectures, and so forth.

http://www.ru.ac.th/e-University.html

You can find direct audio downloads (in WMA format, but that can be converted) in the m-Learning portion of their site.

First you will go the page where you have to select which term you want lectures from. Then you select the course (based on its abbreviation, so you may have to do some back-and-forth in your browser to find an interesting topic -- HI is history, TH is Thai language, etc.).

Eventually you'll get to a page that looks like this: History 121, พื้นฐานวัฒนธรรมไทย, Semester 1, 2008. Ignore the video and scroll all the way down to the bottom. On the bottom right are links to zip files containing WMA audio files of the lectures. There are also WMV video files. Here's a direct link to the audio of the first lecture of that course.

I suspect you already know about it, and it's not directly "educational" like the university lectures, but there's also ช่างคุย Changkhui podcast. I was invited to do an episode, which just went online. I haven't even listened to it myself yet, so be prepared for my Thai -- dumb mistakes and all.

[aanon]

Reporting back...

Using firefox, I found that there were some issues with rendering the Ramkhamhaeng web pages and I ended up having to go to the History 121 link Rikker gave above and click on the orange writing ("click to choose another subject") to get to the page I needed. Anyway, it worked. I also used a firefox plugin called "Down them all" to get all the WMA files on a page at once. I mention these things just in case someone else wants to do the same thing.

Great job on the Chang Khui podcast, Rikker. Came across as a very natural and informative discussion. I'm also a fan of Win Leowarin and will keep an eye out for a few of the other writers you mentioned.

Thanks again.

[Rikker]

Yeah, I've had issues with their sites, too. The design is very 1998, and they don't play well with non-IE browsers. Still, though, I haven't found any other universities with so much material so freely available. I wish they'd spring for slightly better audio quality (and higher scan quality for the textbooks), but beggars can't be choosers. I hope the trend catches on elsewhere.

Also, good call on DownThemAll. That's my #1 most used Firefox extension.

And glad you liked the episode. I was nervous going on tape like that, but it was fun.

[aanon]

One more tip for anyone interested in downloading these lectures from Ramkhamhaeng:

The downloads are organised by subject code. Once you select a particular subject code, you may or may not get a Thai-language description of the subject on its download page (many are left blank). This is a little frustrating and leads to much clicking back and forth to find what you want, as Rikker said. I recommend also opening http://e-book.ram.edu/e%2Dbook/indexstart_eng.htm in another tab. On that page, you can use the alphabetic directory on the left to quickly find out what each subject code stands for. As a bonus, you also get an English-language name for every subject. Hope that helps.

[HerbalEd]

Go to Apple's iTunes Store and click on iTunes U at top of page. There you'll find many university courses and lectures on a broad array of subjects, and most are free. There are several Thai language classes that are dowloadable as podcasts.

[foolforlove]

Someone may find this useful:

http://learn-thai-podcast.com/

this is for learning Thai language.....

[RickBradford]

There is also Thai Community Radio - a new half-hour program every day on world issues, with a family and health orientation.

Straight MP3 downloads.

[Rikker]

I always forget about that site. Good one, Rick.

[rak sa_ngop]

There is also Thai Community Radio - a new half-hour program every day on world issues, with a family and health orientation.

Straight MP3 downloads.

..and also Voice of America in Thai.