I've spent the last few weeks studying Thai using DVDs with Thai and English subtitles (and some with Chinese, which I'm also studying), typing any word I don't understand into http://www.thai-language.com/ for a translation. I think this is a great way to learn, so long as you choose the right level of difficulty (i.e. begin with the simplest childrens cartoons and work your way up to more complicated ones). If you buy Disney type ones, you'll often find that they have audio tracks and subtitles in languages other than Thai and English, which is great if you're learning other languages at the same time.

However, I'll be travelling again soon, which brings up two problems:

1) I liked to travel light, taking my netbook and just a few clothes, so the prospect of lugging loads of DVDs around with me isn't an enticing one. Is there any way to copy the films onto my hard drive, while still keeping all the additional audiotracks and subtitles?

2) I might be away from an internet connection for some days at a time, so won't be able to access http://www.thai-language.com/. Is there anyway to copy the site so I can use it offline (it's a free site with no advertising, so I don't think there are any piracy issues here).

Thanks

For website downloading try wget. Command line tool.

Thanks, I might give it a try, but am not sure if it will work or not, as I just found this on the website:

"Downloading the online dictionary for local use

The online dictionary at www.thai-language.com has been designed from the ground up as an Internet application. Although you could possibly use a site-ripper or leacher program to copy the whole site, the search function wouldn't work any more if you did this (browsing might still work). That's because the search is dynamically processed by our servers, and includes searching on "hidden" keywords which are never exposed on the web. Also, we're constantly adding new words and corrections to the dictionary, so you'd miss out on these. The site was last updated 3.91 days ago.

Our priority is to support interactive online users. Site-ripping software sometimes consumes too much of our bandwidth, inhibiting interactive users from using the site effectively. If this is happening, we may occasionally disable your site ripper or your IP address from accessing our site. This is usually temporary and you can regain access a few hours later."

Anyone know any suitable programs for the DVDs?

For DVD ripping, look on Lifehacker, I've seen them profile several such applications. If it's a VCD, just copy the .dat files directly to the computer. They're a form of MPEG files, so you can play them using VLC or other smart media players.

If you want audios, video and subtitle in the same file, you will need to rip to DVD to MKV format. There is a free program called meGui for that.

Or you can rip the whole DVD into a ISO file. There are many programs for that. You can then use DAEMON Tools Lite to emulate an DVD drive, mount the ISO file to that drive and play your movie form that emulated drive.

500G portable hardisks are quite cheap. You might want to consider buying one to keep all the ISO/MKV files.

For the dictionary, there is a free dictionary programe called Lingoes. They have all sorts of dictionaries including Thai-Eng. I am not sure how good the Thai-Eng dict is but you can try.

Thanks, I'll give those all a go.