Book On Isaan Thai, Available?

[THAIPHUKET]

Status= Farang monk speaks and reads Thai rather well . Want to self study Isaan Thai.

Any books?

Electronic devices/ courses are naturally out in a temple.

[leah]

This sounds a lot like this topic:

[THAIPHUKET]

Very helpful indeed, thanks a lot!

[Tod Daniels]

While I am certainly NO great fan of Benjawan Poomsan Becker ; she's probably done more to help foreigners learn thai than any other thai national ever has .

She has a series out called "Speak Like a Thai". Volume 5 is entitled; Northeastern Dialect. It comes with a c/d and a small companion booklet. It'll at least get you going in Issan Dialect.

I also dunno (nor particularly care ) why you say that electronic devices aren't allowed in a temple. In almost every temple I've been to in Bangkok (and I've been to more than my fair share) most all the young(er) monks have I-pods, I-Phones, Game Boy’s PSP’s etc. When they use their I-Pods, you can see the 'small-talk' (ear piece) stuck in their ear but they have the cord surreptitiously hidden under their orange robes and the I-Pod itself is in their little orange pouch/purse that they carry.

I'm relatively sure given that you're trying to learn another dialect, instead of listening to the latest music or playing shoot-em-up video games that it might be okay . Then again, maybe not.

[desi]

This is a new product line out last year (I believe).

http://www.learnspeakthai.com/

They released their Volume 2 in both Issan and Central Thai just recently.

As for trying to do without an iPod (ie without sound), you are awfully brave.

And like Todd mentioned, monks have all the gear tucked away somewhere in those orange robes. So why not you?

Besides, 'rules were made to be broken' = sooooooooooo Thai... as is 'up to you'...

[THAIPHUKET]

Again very helpful, tks. I am only the mouth piece for my friend. He is a forest monk, a bit more serious than the Ipod wannabe monks. Anyway, I will bring him an old fashioned portable CD player, that might work.

[charlie10]

I would highly recommend the Speak Isaan Thai books to your monk friend. It's a properly structured fully comprehensive course that takes you up from begginer to intermediate level.

Speak Isaan Thai covers the language in good detail, and all the words and phrases are written in Thai script that reflects the Isaan Thai tones and pronunciation.It also has an easy to read phonetic. Given your monk friend reads and speaks Thai, this should enable him to learn the Isaan Thai pronunciation very easily without the aid of watching and listening to the DVD. If the wat has a DVD player or PC, your monk friend should have no problem at all learning to speak the language, because all the words and phrases in the book are featured on the DVD; their 'see,hear, speak' system.

It's worth checking the Learn Speak Thai website out. It has a look inside book and dvd feature that allows you to see part of the book and dvd content.

http://www.learnspeakthai.com

[THAIPHUKET]

Thanks a million, I will buy Isaan Thai and give it plus a small portable, old fashioned CD player to him at the occasion of his ordination on Sunday. He is still in white now.

[Tod Daniels]

FWIW: I looked at the website, as I'd remembered hearing the mangled engrish 'Learn Speak Thai" before . I realized that when they first came out with the books some thai women were walking around hawking them at the Tops Market Food Court in the basement of Robinson's on Sukhumvit Soi 19. I also saw them at Emporium in the food court approaching any foreigner they could find.

I looked at both sets of books and thought they were total crap . The phonetics are written screwy , the color coding is off putting , and the books were obviously NOT proofread with and degree of accuracy, as I found mistakes on page after page . Maybe that was a first run and theyve since straightened it out, dunno.

Granted I didn't look closely at the speak Issan book (mostly because every one in this country can speak bangkokian thai) and I didn't feel the need to learn a cutesy dialect just to 'fit in' .

Despite the glowing testimonials from various and sundry foreigners posted on their web site; I wouldnt waste the 1574 baht for their special offer . I still feel Benjawan Becker's stuff is about as good as you're gonna get as far as a quality product .

Edited July 14, 2010 by tod-daniels

[desi]

Tod, you might have spoken too soon as they have updated. I don't know what version you saw, but the phonetics are the typical lines angled above and below (nothing earth shatteringly different than a lot of the courses out there). And the colour coding denoting the different words in Thai script could be helpful for those just learning how to read (the other option for beginners is to separate the Thai words).

[Tod Daniels]

Tod, you might have spoken too soon as they have updated. .. ...

Point taken. ..

I stand humbly 'erected' due to my overzealous critique of the Learn Speak Thai material.

[desi]

Hmmmm... well, ok then. But can you [deleted]

Why don't you offer to review?

They have reprinted, so they've obviously corrected mistakes.

(note: there are always mistakes - staring at computer screens is a bugger).

That way, it would be a win win.

[charlie10]

...

Edited July 17, 2010 by charlie10

[charlie10]

TOD:

Wow! Do you have an axe to grind or did you simply get out of bed the wrong way when you wrote this? That's a pretty strong viewpoint from someone who has admittedly only had a quick browse of a product. Those people selling the book around Sukhumvit must have really annoyed you.

I can't say I agree with what you are saying. As I highly recommended this book and DVD earlier in thread, I guess it falls to me to mount a defence against your full frontal attack.

You question the phonetics used, saying they're screwy. I disagree. Just because the phonetic system used differs from the Benjawan approach doesn't make it screwy. There's more than one way to transliterate, and this system does have the benefit of being easy to read; you say it as you read it. Judging from the DVD, where the native Thai / Isaan Thai speaker clearly pronounces the words and phrases, I would say the phonetic system used accurately gives the pronunciation. But then again, I'm a native English speaker. Other nationalities may disagree.

You say the colour coding of words is off putting, but being able to see instantly what each word in a phrase across the phonetic, Thai script and English seems a quite a useful way of quickly learning word meaning and sentence construction.

As for proof reading mistakes, I haven't seen any in the books I have, but maybe you're a more expert spotter of mistakes than me.

You're quite dismissive of the value of having a product teaching Isaan Thai. I think many of us who live in Isaan would beg to differ. It's highly likely the reason the Thai speaking farang monk wants to learn Isaan Thai is that this is the language being spoken around him. It is in the village I live in.

You question the value of the product despite the glowing testaments from buyers of these products. If you don't rate a product then of course it has no value, but if you do, a price of 1574 baht for both volumes of the book plus 7 hours of DVD seems pretty reasonable to me. That's 787 baht for a book and DVD that will give you a good grounding in the language and teaches you correct pronunciation. Really, that's not a bad price given the price of books these days.

Given the positives I'm seeing in the product I'm finding it difficult to understand why you are so anti Speak Thai and Speak Isaan Thai. It may not be the very best on the market but it's still a worthwhile option for anyone wanting to learn the language. You say the Benjawan books are as good as you're gonna get, and I'm not going to knock her product. However, I think most of us end up with more than one learn Thai language book, and that each book offers something different and additional.

I think the Learn Speak Thai products have the benefit of teaching the key words, phrases and speech patterns you'll actually use, which is helpful for someone who is just starting to speak Thai or Isaan Thai. The book and DVD combination is a plus. You get to learn the language understanding from the book and the correct pronunciation from the DVD. Many people will also like the language and cultural insight that the book provides. I think to really understand the language you have to understand the culture of the country, and in this respect the book provides a little of this dimension. It makes it more interesting than a bog standard Thai language learning book, as do the captioned pictures which help break up the text.

We obviously have a big difference in opinion. I would suggest people take a quick look at the look inside book and DVD feature on the website to form an initial opinion.

What do you think? Add your opinion to this thread.

Any one else bought this either Speak Thai or Speak Isaan Thai? What's your view?

Edited July 17, 2010 by charlie10

[DavidHouston]

Charlie10,

Thank you for your honest and stout defense of these products. Just for the record, however, could you please state your relationship with this publisher. Are you receiving any compensation, in cash or otherwise, for your endorsement? If you state your relationship unequivocally, and there is no relationship, your posting will have more credibility.

We appreciate your frank and vociferous opinions.

[Landofsmiles2]

HI Guys,

I am learning from Speak Isaan Thai and find it a very easy and logical way to learn the language. I bought quite a few books to learn Thai. All these other books have lots of sentences you actually never use. The tonemarks are way too small and not clear and before you learn Thai you must learn a bunch of new letters I never remember. My memory is bad but with this Speak Isaan Thai DVD I can repeat little sections over and over until I remember. I don't need to use a dictionary. And what is most important I get the rhithme and the melody of the sentences which makes me understood by Thai people. Maybe there are a few mistakes here and there but I'm sure the writer will fix that. I can recommand everybody to use this system especially the DVD makes it a joy to learn Isaan Thai. I am waiting for their reading and writing book and DVD. If they make reading and writing as simple as their other books then I go for it.

[Landofsmiles2]

Oops, I forgot to say that the video in the former post made me aware of the learn speak thai course. I think it gives a good idea of what 's in the course.

[THAIPHUKET]

While initially I was more the mouth piece of my friend, the monk you comments entice me, at long last, to try learning regular Thai with this course. My efforts so far where not efficient, shame on me.

The motivation through a human counterpart is important , speaking for myself. So I will be looking for a teacher in addition.

May be unfair to ask your views on this one too=

High Speed Thai Course, which also was well reviewed here on TV.

Edited July 19, 2010 by THAIPHUKET

[SoftWater]

I had an exchange with the publisher about this product some time ago (I forget if his name was 'Charlie' or not). Ostensibly, I was trying to get them to send me a copy to review (as Desi recommends Tod to do), but they weren't interested. On the other hand, I wasn't interested in paying 1500 baht for a beginners book whose level I'm way beyond. So that was kind of that.

However, there are some things I like about this book from scrutinising what they show on the website (you can see quite a representative sample from the 'look inside' feature and you can see the table of contents and sample illustrations).

1. Yes, personally, I think the colours are useful, and so too the tone markings (which if memory serves is similar to that which Higbie uses), for beginners. People who can already read words will find the colourings irritating because they do not conform to tone (so all rising tones are not the same colour, for example). For people who can already read, like Tod for one, I can see how the colouring would be distracting as it has no use other than to differentiate word units. However, the book isn't really aimed at someone of Tod's level.

2. I love the fact that they represent ป as 'bp'. Not enough books do this (I forget whether Becker does).

3. I like the way they have lots of useful cultural and linguistic asides scattered through the text. Useful for rank beginners and people who have no knowledge of Thailand. Keeps up interest and motivation too, not making it too boring to work through (arguably a problem with Becker).

Downsides:

4. Anybody but a rank beginner (e.g. 'false' beginners and those 'adding to their collection' as Charlie10 suggests) will be annoyed by point 3. above, because it is done at the expense of sacrificing further useful language content. Vol 1. doesn't even take the beginner as far as Becker's vol 1 - it is very lightweight in terms of content - which leads me to the principle drawback of this product:

5. Price - 1500 baht, are you kidding me? You can have the whole Becker series for this price. I don't know how far Vol. 2 takes the beginner, but I'm willing to bet a sizable amount of my inedible hat that its nowhere near as far as Becker or even Smyth's single volume TY Thai. When I said this to the publisher, their reply was they were basically aiming at farangs in the US and European markets (where people pay far more for books and of course there are far more profits to be made [ - that's my bit, not theirs!]) who had maybe visited Thailand once, had gf's here, or were planning on coming over. They were clearly not interested in the expat market here, as evidenced by the fact that at that time the book was not even available in Thailand, only via credit card/Paypal sale from abroad. He did also give a vigorous defence/comparison of their work with Smyth, but it was not convincing to my mind.

In summary, (sorry, I seem to have a bit of the tod's today ) this is a decent product, well produced and useful for the rank beginner. It's not worth the price for people who are 'just adding to their collection', and if you are actually in Thailand, I wouldn't be tempted to fork out this much even as a rank beginner when you could get far better value for money out of Becker and/or Smyth.

Such at least is my humble opinion. As the publisher noted, I seem to have a lot to say based on not seeing the book , but since you can't go look at it on a shop shelf anywhere in Thailand that I know of (definitely not then, anyway), the most anyone can do is either scour the website (which I did) or pay 1500baht up front to find out more. They wish!

Edited July 19, 2010 by SoftWater

[Tod Daniels]

FWIW: I was at the Asia Books on Sukhumvit (about Soi 17) this morning. No NOT the one in the Times Square Building, but the old townhouse type one across the street. They had the both sets of the "Learn Speak Thai" books there in a display dealy by the check out counter. They even had one of each book open and designated as "demonstration" so you could peruse them.

Sadly I never bothered to note the price or even pick up the book.

Guess I'm having a bit of the tod's today too. .. Hope it’s not catchy!!

[SoftWater]

Thanks Tod. If it's available in Thailand now through Asia books then I could theoretically order it for our school's library.

Thing is, my rebuffed attempt to get a review copy from the publishers left me with a sour taste (largely because they kept pushing me for a sale). As a result I don't feel like doing them any favours.

[Landofsmiles2]

Thanks Tod. If it's available in Thailand now through Asia books

Prices are around a 1000 baht and for a set of 2 books a lot lower I saw on there website