For Medium To Intermediate Readers Of Thai

[Tod Daniels]

I peruse the Thai books in B2S or Se-Ed and never seem to find one's that pique my interest. However this one did.

It is written in ภาษาพื้น ๆ or quite a low level of Thai. In English we would say it's written colloquially, in every-day-speak. It's called ฉันคือเอรี่ (I am Aarii) and it related the trials and tribulations of a Thai girl and the things she goes thru in her life.

I thought medium or intermediate readers of Thai would find this book of interest, as there're not all that many words that you hafta look up per page. Even then, you don't hafta really look up the words, as even reading Thai at my level, I could guess most of the meanings by the context of the sentence(s).

Honestly, I don't know how it ends, as I've only read about half the book. Still it is quite the interesting (and fairly easy) read.

Just thought I'd throw this out there, and see what people might think. Sometimes interesting and easy to read medium to intermediate stuff isn’t all that easy to find ..

Here is the forward of the book by the author;

คำนำผู้เขียน

ฉันคือเอรี่กับประสบการณ์ข้ามแดน...

เป็นเรื่องราวที่เกิดขึ้นจริงจากชีวิตของฉันตลอด 40 ปีที่ผ่านมา ที่ต้องเผชิญกับปัญหามากมาย บางครั้งอาจจะเหมือนนิยายน้ำเน่า แต่ฉันก็ไม่ได้เสริมแต่งแต่อย่างใด จริงๆ แล้ว มันก็เป็นเรื่องน่าอาย ที่จะต้องมาเล่าให้ใครต่อใครฟัง ซึ่งเหมือนกับประจานตัวเอง แต่ฉันก็อยากจะบอกให้โลกรู้ว่า มันยังมีอะไรอีกมากมาย ที่ใครๆ ควรรู้ "ว่าอย่างนี้ก็มีด้วยหรือ!"

ฉันไม่ได้คาดหวังกับการชิงรางวัลว่าต้องชนะ เพียงแต่ตอนนี้ตกงาน และอยากเป็นคนดีกับเค้าบ้าง อยากพักผ่อนเรื่องเลวร้ายบ้างแต่ก็ไม่รู้ว่าจะได้พักอีนานสักเท่าใด แล้วจะต้องเริ่มต้นเดินทางอีกมั้ย..

ธนัดดา สว่างเดือน

Apologies in advance, if there're mistakes in my copying of the foward. ..

[Scottish Thailander]

This one?

[Tod Daniels]

Yep, that's it !

[GarryP]

The author was interviewed on Thai TV and in the local press. Very interesting. She seems to have been through hell and back.

[klons]

For basic, if I may but in a second. I ran across a “cute” human interest

news media video with transcript. The speaker is clear and not too fast.

Almost all the vocabulary was covered in Beckers beginner and intermediate

courses. If anyone wants to try it out, here is the link.

http://news.voicetv.co.th/business/5452.html

[bifftastic]

For basic, if I may but in a second. I ran across a "cute" human interest

news media video with transcript. The speaker is clear and not too fast.

Almost all the vocabulary was covered in Beckers beginner and intermediate

courses. If anyone wants to try it out, here is the link.

http://news.voicetv....iness/5452.html

There doesn't appear to be a video on this page!

My mistake, sorry, it just took a long time to load

Edited March 8, 2011 by bifftastic

[bhoydy]

Thanks for that Tod. Thanks to your recommendation i spotted the book in 7 eleven Hat Yai on my way to Malaysia the other day so i snatched it up. It's right on for my level of Thai at the moment. Thanks to the poster who put the photo of the cover up too. Almost finished the 1st chapter. If anyone has any other recommendations for this level please post them. Right on.

[Tod Daniels]

Glad you found it of interest. I'm just getting to the end of the book. What a truly moving story, filled with twists-turns, ups-downs, wealth and poverty. I liked it quite a lot.

Some words thru me for a loop early on. The names of Japanese cities, provinces spelled in thai, the abbreviation(s); passport being spelled พาสฯ, the country Saudi Arabia which they had as ประเทศซาอุฯ. On that one I went thru various countries in my head which started with a "S" as I wasn't home to check the word; Sa-u-witzerland, Sa-u-th-africa, Sa-u-th-america, lol. I finally asked a thai friend, who laughed out loud at my pathetic attempts at guessing.

I mean some words, if you don't know them you just don't know them. Still it isn't nearly as hard of a read as I'm making it out to be. Easy to follow, interesting with plenty of info that keeps you engaged in the story.

I also liked she included notations at the bottom of a page when she used thai spelled japanese words or phrases which a thai reader might not know and she either gave the meaning or the equivalent word in thai.

It's a great and relatively easy read, especially at just 159 baht.

[kokesaat]

Thanks for the tip on the book. If I can make it through all 240+ pages, that should be terrific vocabulary reinforcement and reading practice. I'm tempted to start a separate thread on this book, as I (and maybe other readers) would want to share questions/answers about some of the difficult passages.

My first question: When เอรี่ introduces herself, she says ฉันมีพี่น้อง 4 คน. She then introduces an oldest brother and two older sisters. She goes on: ฉันเป็นคนสุดท้อง. My western way of thinking about this is, she has 3 older brothers/sisters. When talking about her siblings, she should have said: ฉันมีพี่ 3 คน. (For example: In my own case let's say I have 3 older/younger siblings. When I tell someone about my family, I'd say, "I have 3 brothers" and maybe go on to introduce them individually by name. But it seems Thais would say, "I have 4 older/younger siblings, which would include the speaker him/herself.)

Am I missing something?

Thanks again, tod, for the tip!

[bhoydy]

I don't think you're missing anything, that's the way Thais will say it. Like, i have one older brother but if someone asks me มีพี่น้องกี่คน i will answer 2คน and then they'll usually ask if my other sibling is older or younger, or a brother or sister.

Good book, sometimes i stop and look up words i don't know and other times i just keep on reading because i get the general gist of what's going on.

I got mine for 89 baht but when i took the cellophane wrapping off it has that really cheap paper inside that they use for photocopying in the schools here. Ah well, can't complain for the price.

[Groongthep]

I don't think you're missing anything, that's the way Thais will say it. Like, i have one older brother but if someone asks me มีพี่น้องกี่คน i will answer 2คน and then they'll usually ask if my other sibling is older or younger, or a brother or sister.

I agree with bhoydy here. In this particular context I think พี่น้อง would best be translated as a single idiom meaning "siblings in general" rather than read literally as two separate words, i.e.) พี่ and น้อง.