Thai dictionary

[anotheruser]

What are the highest quality and most comprehensive dictionaries for the Thai language for native speakers and also Thai/English English/Thai?

I forgot to add I am not looking for online solutions but printed versions.

Edited August 21, 2015 by anotheruser

[AyG]

The official, authoritative Thai dictionary is the Royal Institute Dictionary (พจนานุกรม ฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน). 2544 BE (2011 CE) is the latest edition. It is 100% available online at the Royal Institute website. Nothing better. However, you may need to supplement it with the Institutes "Dictionary of New Words" (พจนานุกรมคำใหม่) (3 volumes currently). Matichon's dictionary also gives coverage of new words and slang (พจนานุกรม ฉบับมติชน).

For Thai-English (not English-Thai), the best dictionary by far is "Thai-English Dictionary" by Wong Wattanaphichet published by New Age. Price 1,000 baht paperback when I bought it. Not that easy to find, though. Mary Haas's dictionary deserves an honourable mention, though it's a little dated now and very expensive. One of its strengths is that it includes classifiers for all nouns.

For English-Thai, to be honest, I don't like any of them. For beginners the Thai-English English Thai dictionary of Benjawan Poomsan Becker, published by Paiboon is adequate. 425 baht paperback when I bought it.

[Horatio Poke]

.......Mary Haas's dictionary deserves an honourable mention, though it's a little dated now and very expensive.......

For English-Thai, to be honest, I don't like any of them. For beginners the Thai-English English Thai dictionary of Benjawan Poomsan Becker, published by Paiboon is adequate. 425 baht paperback when I bought it.

I agree absolutely with AyG's comments.

I'm a big fan of the Mary Haas dictionary but I don't have one. It's far too expensive, and so for the relatively small number of times I'd use it would be poor value for me.

I don't like any of the currently available English-Thai dictionaries. I have the Thai-English English-Thai dictionary of Benjawan Poomsan Becker as mentioned. I see it as the best of what's available, but have it only on a better-than-nothing basis.

My all time favourite is The Conversation Dictionary of The Thai Language by Dr Wit Thiengburanathum. It is both English-Thai and Thai-English, contains huge vocabulary, and OK transliterations. Some of the translations do seem to lack precision but by and large it gives pretty much what you want, and definitely as much as you need so long as you're not using it for composing sophisticated documents. I used to have two of these dictionaries, lost one, and the remaining one is falling to bits. I bought it about fifteen years ago for 240 Baht. I never see it on sale nowadays, and haven't done so for about ten years. If anyone sees one anywhere, or has a spare one I'd be interested.

I find online dictionaries to be very variable, and largely unreliable. Google translate and the likes are maybe OK for single words, but nothing more..... maybe not even that much.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Horatio Poke

[Richard W]

The official, authoritative Thai dictionary is the Royal Institute Dictionary (พจนานุกรม ฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน). 2544 BE (2011 CE) is the latest edition. It is 100% available online at the Royal Institute website. Nothing better.

It is not reliable for pronunciation:

• When the Thai script (as generally understood) cannot show the pronunciation, it is helpless. The problem is that it won't use maitaikhu in conjunction with a superscript mark, eg sara i or a tone mark.

• Unless this has been remedied recently, it won't show a falling tone on a short dead syllable.

• Again, unless this has been remedied recently, it doesn't shown the tones of words borrowed from English unless they're explicitly marked in writing.

I also suspect that it is unusable for the pronunciation of final lo ling in loanwords from English.

A few years back, McFarland's was recommended here as the most reliable for pronunciation, or at least, for vowel length.

If you buy a copy, check the pages are all there. I've bought five big Thai dictionaries (RID, Se-ed's Modern English-Thai Dictionary, New Standard Thai-English Dictionary, Maefahluang Lanna-Thai, Northern Thai Dictionary of Palm-Leaf Manuscripts (NTDPLM)), and two - RID and NTDPLM - had sections missing and sections duplicated.

[anotheruser]

Thanks for the info guys.

[oxo1947]

Their is also a Thai-glish version edition out at the moment, ....

My friend you, he-she already buy it tomorrow.....its the same same but different...................... .

Edited August 23, 2015 by oxo1947

[fang37]

For English-Thai, buy 2

Pocket dictionary

Comprehensive dictionary

Take a friend with you when buying - one who can speak Thai well.

Phonetics is # 1.