Recommendations: First Book After Children's Stories?

[HappyInCM]

following up on fahrangnarak's post on his reading habits, what is a good starter book?

would it be harry potter and the sorcerer's stone or something else? And does the translation matter?

Preferably, I'd like to have a book with as much spoken language as possible.

thanks.

[kikenyoy]

I would recommend the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. Are you familiar with http://learnthaifromawhiteguy.com/ ? There are lots of good videos on that site with transcripts. Here's what he says about the books:

This is an excerpt from the Thai translation of Diary of a Wimpy Kid which is called ไดอารี่ของเด็กไม่เอาถ่าน. I can’t stress enough how great a tool this is for diving into reading in a new language. I’ve read the series in Japanese, Korean, Thai and I’m currently struggling through the Taiwanese version. Remember that you aren’t going to understand everything. But there are a number of super useful language bits that are great to pick up in any language. It only helps that the book is actually pretty funny as well.

[Tod Daniels]

FWIW: I found this book in the bargain bin at B2S in Robinsons for 50 baht;

ทำไมผู้ชายชอบเที่ยว

ISBN: 974-94498-0-0

159 baht, 205 pages.

It was an interesting read from a college girls pov about what motivates some girls to turn to 'freelancing' or the P4P game. Actually it's well written, and certainly doesn't use big words, (although the explicit sex scenes take some getting used to with the high use of idiomatic expression ).

With that being said, I was reticent to carry it around given the cover pic and the title so wrapped it in a book-cover (to continue to further my pure image here ).

The site (which I have NO affiliation with) http://thailandbookcenter.com/ has books of a wide variety of subjects, and different levels of difficulty.

[Tod Daniels]

Another set of books I completely forgot about but which I have found to have good value is the extensive series which the illustrious Andrew Biggs has published. They're written in thai for thais to increase their english language acquisition.

Here’s his website;

http://www.andrewbiggs.com/

(If you go to Major Ekami where his school is, you can get the books cheaper than anywhere else).

Also he hawks his books & c/d's thru thai ticket major here;

http://shopping.thaiticketmajor.com/index....ers_id=15000005

[HappyInCM]

I would recommend the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. Are you familiar with http://learnthaifromawhiteguy.com/ ?

Hi Kikenyoy, yes, I am familiar with his site but hadn't been there in a while; that's a good find - is there any place in Thailand that sells those books in English? I see the first two are on se-ed.com.

FWIW: I found this book in the bargain bin at B2S in Robinsons for 50 baht;

ทำไมผู้ชายชอบเที่ยว

ISBN: 974-94498-0-0

159 baht, 205 pages.

Thanks Todd, I will definitely pick that up, although w/o an English translation it may be a little out of my reach for now.

Another set of books I completely forgot about but which I have found to have good value is the extensive series which the illustrious Andrew Biggs has published. They're written in thai for thais to increase their english language acquisition.

This looks great too - is the Thai he uses "spoken" thai language?

I already had Thailand Fever which I'd forgotten about and although not the most cerebral book around, it is convenient to have the English and Thai on opposing pages. Anyone read this?

[Peppy]

A decent book for those with moderate reading skills who feel that little kids' books are too easy or boring is ความสุขของกะทิ (Khwam Suk Khawng Kati), winner of the 2006 SeaWrite award, by Ngarmpun Vejjajiva, a well-known Thai translator (I think she did at least one of the Harry Potter books) and elder sister of our current PM Abhisit.

It's written for young adults, so the vocabulary isn't overly difficult, and while there's actually a fair bit of Thai literature in this genre, very few books have been translated to English. ความสุขของกะท, on the other hand, is also available as "The Happiness of Kati", translated by Meredith Borthwick, so it might be a good choice if you'd like a translation to compare side-by-side with the original. It was also made into a movie that just came out last year, though from what I've heard the movie isn't the same as the book (I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know, but who expects the movie to be the same as the book, really?).

The Thai version is certainly available at every bookshop in Thailand, and you can probably find the English version at most stores that sell English-language books.

[kikenyoy]

eljefe2,

I've seen them in English at Asia books, B2S, and Bookazine.

I thought about reading Thailand Fever in Thai but when I showed it to my teacher at the time, she thought it wouldn't be good for me. Since the Thai side was written mainly for Thai women, my teacher thought that a lot of the phrases would sound weird coming from a man.