Part 1: Japanese-Thai Language Books

[Gaccha]

The books for Japanese speakers to learn Thai invariably put the books in English to shame. But among the enormous number of them there are some that are genuinely useful even if you don’t even know what ‘sayonara’ means. So, one book at a time, I’ll offer some recommendations.

These are all books I’ve used from cover-to-cover and argue that there is no equivalent among English books. They are books that you wouldn’t just buy on a whim because they are expensive (about 650 baht for this book below).

*The best vocabulary builder there is*

‘Ima sugu hanseru taigo tangoshu’ (published by Toshin Books)

[and in English it says] ‘Oral communication training series’

今すぐ話せるタイ語単語集 (東進ブックス)

(available at Kinokuniya Central World)

Under 5 sections, it introduces the basic 2,000 words. Now, other books do this, but this one, for virtually every word, offers an example sentence. …And the whole book is on CD.

Here is the front cover:

And here is a sample page from the Politics/Economics/Society section of the Thai audio:

(there is no annoying Japanese audio)

29 Track_29.mp3

You can see that the sentences offered are quite interesting, not simply “My name is Bob”. I learnt several grammar points and expressions from the book. But it’s beauty is you can learn each word in context and repeatedly hear words rarely spoken, but often read--‘ constitution’, ‘coup’, ‘civilisation’ etc.

Okay, so there is no English translation, so it will be a lot of hard work for anyone below Advanced Beginner level. But persistence would be rewarded.

It has all the professionalism that is typical of the Japanese publishers. The Thai is all written in Thai, there is a romanic transliteration for it and the sentence on the audio, so any non-Japanese/non-Thai reader can read it.

On the rare occasions where there is no sentence, a picture is used instead.

----

I will do more posts but this is my big recommendation for vocab building. My copy is well thumbed.:jap:

[SoftWater]

Thanks Gaccha, this is a useful contribution. I've occasionally glanced at the Japanese-Thai books in Kinokuniya and had the same impression (that they are i. better than the English-Thai books, and ii. still of use to non-Japanese speakers). There are some that even have Japanese, Thai and English if my memory serves.

In any case, I'd often meant to look into this more deeply than just 'at a glance' (like by buying some!), but hadn't got round to it. I'd definitely be interested to read more about your recommendations.

ps: and no, I have no idea what sayonara means!

Sw

Edited August 29, 2010 by SoftWater

[kikenyoy]

Thanks Gaccha... this looks really interesting. Can you give a list of the 5 topics?

I'm planning on going to Bangkok in a few weeks to go book shopping so if you can possibly finish your recommendations by then I'd really appreciate it!

Edited August 29, 2010 by kikenyoy

[LazyYogi]

Some are quite horrible though if you can only read Japanese.

That's because the the Japanese katakana system is even worse than the roman alphabet for representing the sounds of Thai.

If you're not careful you'll be saying "sawatto dii kurappu" :jap:

[Gaccha]

Thanks Gaccha... this looks really interesting. Can you give a list of the 5 topics?

I'm planning on going to Bangkok in a few weeks to go book shopping so if you can possibly finish your recommendations by then I'd really appreciate it!

The book is sectioned as follows:

Prologue- Basic words

Part 1 Movement and feelings

Part 2 Everyday life

Part 3 Society life

Part 4 Culture

Part 5 Flora and Fauna

[desi]

Gaccha, I saw them in Paragon a few weeks ago but didn't think to do anymore than flip through.

Months back a Thai friend brought a copy by (her Japanese friend was learning Thai).

I'll check them out next time I'm in the area (IF there are any left!)