Begginers Reading Material

[LivinLOS]

I have decided that its time I went back to basics, and started to learn to read Thai, as a proper foundation. I am working on a system and am doing well at memorizing individual letters, vowels, etc but am at the most basic level possible, literally spelling out the sounds and piecing the words together.

Of course the next problem is, all the Thai I pick up, is written (as it should be) in continuous text without word spacing. Usually containing words I dont know, so am unsure if I am even getting the right breakdowns of letter groups.

Does anyone have any documents, of simple thai words in sentences, that are broken into words ??

For the beginner if I could work on reading words, before having to launch into reading words and splitting them out of the next construct, it would be a stepping stone.

If someone really wanted to help beginners, they could create document, simple words and simple statements, childlike stuff, with the words split, with consonant groups color coded, silent letters in a half tone, lots of helpful clues and rules could be applied, all without actually changing the thai script. Once familiarity with the letters / sounds becomes more second nature, then doing it from unspaced text will be the next step up.

Has this been discussed ??

Does anyone have any text like the above ??

Or what text would they suggest a low vocabulary learner to start to practice with ??

[Ciaphas]

If you know the rules to written Thai and with perseverance I think you will be able to break down a sentence. I'm not sure if learning to read Thai script in a western fashion will help you to learn to read Thai because westerners read in a completely different way to how Thai script is constructed. Westerners generally don't read the words because our brain recognizes the shape of the words. What I found helped break my initial confusion was to buy several children's books and then break down each sentence into individual words with a pencil after a couple of books my brain was used to looking for the things that signify a new word.

[LivinLOS]

What I found helped break my initial confusion was to buy several children's books and then break down each sentence into individual words with a pencil after a couple of books my brain was used to looking for the things that signify a new word.

Thats what I am looking for.. Those first couple of books..

Someone's suggested Manee Mana and it looks ideal.

[NBD]

Good topic! I was just about to post something similar myself.

I'm actually currently helping my girlfriend to read English using the SE Ed books, which are excellent. Anything along those lines but written in Thai with English explanations would be great. Any ideas?

[AyG]

It's worth having a look at the Mary Hass reader. It doesn't split the words up, but there's an accompanying audio track which should help you with where the word breaks are. (The speakers speak slowly and very clearly.)

http://www.seasite.niu.edu:85/thai/thaireader/frameset.htm

Gething & Bilmes' Basic Thai Reader also comes with audio track.

http://siamwestdc.com/thaireader-UH/index.htm

The University of Wisconsin Thai Reader doesn't have an audio track, but is much more rigorous than the other two readers in its approach, and is well worth a look.

http://readingthai.wisc.edu/thai-reader-site-volume-1.html

[LivinLOS]

Well that proved a bust.. I just went round 3 different bookshops.. All of the service girls knew Manee Mana (once they had a confab and understood the crazy farang) but none of the shop had anything that was exactly what I sought.

I did find some kids workbooks, but the only useable stuff for me was the single word stuff.

I am hunting stuff like the pages in this.. http://www.ee43.com/photo/topic/182.html that is ideal for me sounding out syllables.

Will get the wife to try a library.

With work, I can decipher the text on that link, and with a bit of nudging from the missus, I can pronounce most of it ok, sure silent letters, tone rules, and constant groups are all a bit beyond me, but its all part of the process, it will come. But when I go from text like that, where I can work on sounding out a word, to 'real Thai' text all run on without spaces, using words I dont know anyway, I am just lost. I need to do baby steps and build my skill and confidence, jumping too far will be one of those walls that blocks me and stops me doing it.

So any more suggestions gratefully received.. Online texts / PDFs / Anything.

[AyG]

Well that proved a bust.. I just went round 3 different bookshops.. All of the service girls knew Manee Mana (once they had a confab and understood the crazy farang) but none of the shop had anything that was exactly what I sought.

Manee has been long out of print. However, Manee Book 1 is available on-line at a number of sites such as Manee and Friends

Book 2 is also available on-line, but only at a single site, the name of which I can't remember. A Google search should throw it up, though.

That said, I would caution against using Manee. Thai children already have a much, much larger vocabulary that most foreigners who are learning to read Thai, so they will recognise unusual words from the sound of them, even though they don't know how to spell them. Foreigners won't. The very first lesson of Manee uses the word กา. I hadn't encountered it before, and have only rarely encountered it subsequently. (It means "crow" - the bird.) In my opinion you'd be better off using graduated material designed for foreign learners of Thai.

[quiksilva]

Good topic!

I need to do baby steps and build my skill and confidence, jumping too far will be one of those walls that blocks me and stops me doing it.

That is exactly the reason I lost interest in pursuing my learning any further! I will watch this with interest, please let us know how you get on.

[bhoydy]

I'm currently reading อมตะนิทานพื้นบ้านไทย Classic Thai Folk Tales by วัลภา อรรถนิต. I bought it in the discount section for 29฿, bargain. There are words in it that i don't understand but i read it in two different ways. Sometimes i just read it and the words i know and understand i soak up, the ones i don't know i just try to pronounce them as a reading exercise. Other times i read the story and stop at each word i don't know, look it up and put it in pencil on the book. There are 21 stories in the book and they're not too long for my attention span (low). When i have finished the book, i will read it again, hopefully the 2nd time i'll be able to read it faster and understand more. This is part of my step by step. With regard to the above post, one of the stories is about นกแขกเต้าสองทัวพี่น้อง 2 red-breasted parakeet brothers/sisters. I have no idea when i will come across the red-breasted parakeet in Thai language again, possibly if i do get round to reading this book again, i will. However, there are plenty of other new words in the story which i will come across again much sooner, possibly in the next story. Also, i had to skip one of the stories called, เจ้าชายกำพร้า about an orphaned prince, because the amount of royal language was getting me confused for a kid's story.