Asking About Learning Cd

[soro]

Hi,

I want to learn to speak a little Thai before traveling and was looking at some CD on the market including 'Spoken Thai' the sponsor of this forum. It looks like a pretty cool program with many promises. I like to know from users if it is really easy to use and if the audio files are in good quality.

Thank you

soro

[gdhm]

Hi,

I want to learn to speak a little Thai before traveling and was looking at some CD on the market including 'Spoken Thai' the sponsor of this forum. It looks like a pretty cool program with many promises. I like to know from users if it is really easy to use and if the audio files are in good quality.

Thank you

soro

Hi,

I have been using this package for some time and consider it brilliant. The audio files are of very clear and high quality HUMAN Thai National female voice.

AS well as the words being spoken, they are also written is easy understand English alphabet phonetics which get pretty close to how the words are said. I appreciate that the International Phonetic alphabet is the best, BUT how many people were taught that in order to be able to understand and use that alphabet.

Words in Spoken Thai are not written in Thai script because the programmer seems to to have correctly assumed most new (and not so new) users cannot read Thai script (like me) and maybe never will therefore Spoken Thai seems to have concentrated its efforts on the spoken word. This package is great for that.

Try going to the web-page: http://www.thailandphotoalbum.com/SpokenThai.html

There you can listen to sample sound files AND download a trial version of the program.

Just for clarity, I have no connection with the programmer or marketing company. I am merely a very satisfied user

Regards

Dave

[mangoe]

Hi,

I want to learn to speak a little Thai before traveling and was looking at some CD on the market including 'Spoken Thai' the sponsor of this forum. It looks like a pretty cool program with many promises. I like to know from users if it is really easy to use and if the audio files are in good quality.

Thank you

soro

HI I AM VERY HAPPY TO USE THE PIMSLEUR THAI SERIES FOR ACTUALLY LEARING THAI CONVERSATION. I TRIED A LOT OF PROGRAMS LIKE THE ONE ADVERTISED HERE BUT THIS ONE IS MORE "USABLE" ALTHOUGH EXPENSIVE BUT WELL WORTH IT (FOR THE COMPLETE SET).

\

ALSO CONSIDER SCREIBER'S "LEARN THAI EASILY' A ONE DISC PROGRAM THAT IS ALSO GREAT FOR CONVERSATION.

THE ADVERTISED PROGRAM SEEMS THAT YOU HAVE TO MEMORIZE MANY WORDS/TERMS OUT OF CONTEXT WHEREAS THE ABOVE TWO INVOLVE YOU IN USABLE CONVERSATION FROM THE START

[mangoe]

Hi,

I want to learn to speak a little Thai before traveling and was looking at some CD on the market including 'Spoken Thai' the sponsor of this forum. It looks like a pretty cool program with many promises. I like to know from users if it is really easy to use and if the audio files are in good quality.

Thank you

soro

HI I AM VERY HAPPY TO USE THE PIMSLEUR THAI SERIES FOR ACTUALLY LEARING THAI CONVERSATION. I TRIED A LOT OF PROGRAMS LIKE THE ONE ADVERTISED HERE BUT THIS ONE IS MORE "USABLE" ALTHOUGH EXPENSIVE BUT WELL WORTH IT (FOR THE COMPLETE SET).

\

ALSO CONSIDER SCREIBER'S "LEARN THAI EASILY' A ONE DISC PROGRAM THAT IS ALSO GREAT FOR CONVERSATION.

THE ADVERTISED PROGRAM SEEMS THAT YOU HAVE TO MEMORIZE MANY WORDS/TERMS OUT OF CONTEXT WHEREAS THE ABOVE TWO INVOLVE YOU IN USABLE CONVERSATION FROM THE START

MORE: i WAS JUST LISTENING TO THE SAMPLES OFFERED FOR "SPOKEN THAI" AND I AM NOT SURE I REALLY UNDERSTAND THE PRONOUNCIATION OF THE SPEAKER IN MANY OF THE ITEMS

THE PIMSLEUR AND THE SCHREIBER IS BETTER IN UNDERSTANDING THE PRONOUNCIATION OF THE WORDS

[SpokenThai]

mangoe, your credibility is zero and you should not lie or give the wrong impression to members. you wrote:

I TRIED A LOT OF PROGRAMS LIKE THE ONE ADVERTISED HERE

and five hours later you added:

I WAS JUST LISTENING TO THE SAMPLES OFFERED FOR "SPOKEN THAI"

So it is obvious that the first quote was written with a malicious intend brcause if you realy tried the program why you had to go and "just listening" to the voice samples ?

And more, if you had to go and listen to the voice samples that means you never tried the program itself. How you can talk about programs you never tried ?

AND I AM NOT SURE I REALLY UNDERSTAND THE PRONOUNCIATION

You have a very serious "UNDERSTANDING" problem or very low quality speakers.

Most progrmas I know use compressed mp3 while "SpokenThai" use un-compressed wav files.

[soro]

Mangoe,

Thank you, you certainly helped me make up my mind.

I am going for Spoken Thai !!!

By the way, the sound quality is excellent and from the trial version I checked it seems to be what I need.

gdhm,

Thank you for your serious recommendation.

soro

[gdhm]

EXTRACT

MORE: I WAS JUST LISTENING TO THE SAMPLES OFFERED FOR "SPOKEN THAI" AND I AM NOT SURE I REALLY UNDERSTAND THE PRONOUNCIATION OF THE SPEAKER IN MANY OF THE ITEMS

THE PIMSLEUR AND THE SCHREIBER IS BETTER IN UNDERSTANDING THE PRONOUNCIATION OF THE WORDS

Hi Mango,

I cannot comment on accents of Thais in different regions but to balance the observation I played many "Spoken Thai" audio samples to my wife and family of 6 (all Thai Nationals, some all their lives in Khon Kaen City, North East Thailand and others lived in Bangkok, South originally and they ALL understand all the words spoken with ease.

Maybe this is a region accent thing similar to UK Londoners (South) not understanding Northern UK accents always very well.

You mentioned 2 other products and as I have no knowledge of these I cannot comment on their quality. From what you say they sound like they are directed more at teaching Thai and whereas "Spoken Thai" is primarily a dictionary. HOWEVER, connected to it are Basic lessons on Thai (accessed by clicking on a button) if you wish to start learning and understanding more than just building up your Thai vocabulary.

When I started learning Spanish many people suggested learning grammar at the same time as vocabulary but I found I needed some vocabulary first and grammar second because first you have to be understood.

For example, I could go into a supermarket in Spain and say platanos? (bananas) in a questioning tone and someone would point me in the right direction. Not much good if I knew the grammar but not the word for bananas and only could say "Where are?". They of course would say where are what? Additionally, whilst I did not follow conversations for a while, I was able to pick up certain words and know (at least) what the subject of a conversation was about. All confidence building.

This of course is just my personal opinion but I found when I had a build up of vocabulary I could starts using verbs and learning grammar more easily. Everybody has different learning techniques that work best for them.

Kind Regards

Dave

[tt61]

EXTRACT

MORE: I WAS JUST LISTENING TO THE SAMPLES OFFERED FOR "SPOKEN THAI" AND I AM NOT SURE I REALLY UNDERSTAND THE PRONOUNCIATION OF THE SPEAKER IN MANY OF THE ITEMS

THE PIMSLEUR AND THE SCHREIBER IS BETTER IN UNDERSTANDING THE PRONOUNCIATION OF THE WORDS

Hi Mango,

I cannot comment on accents of Thais in different regions but to balance the observation I played many "Spoken Thai" audio samples to my wife and family of 6 (all Thai Nationals, some all their lives in Khon Kaen City, North East Thailand and others lived in Bangkok, South originally and they ALL understand all the words spoken with ease.

Maybe this is a region accent thing similar to UK Londoners (South) not understanding Northern UK accents always very well.

You mentioned 2 other products and as I have no knowledge of these I cannot comment on their quality. From what you say they sound like they are directed more at teaching Thai and whereas "Spoken Thai" is primarily a dictionary. HOWEVER, connected to it are Basic lessons on Thai (accessed by clicking on a button) if you wish to start learning and understanding more than just building up your Thai vocabulary.

When I started learning Spanish many people suggested learning grammar at the same time as vocabulary but I found I needed some vocabulary first and grammar second because first you have to be understood.

For example, I could go into a supermarket in Spain and say platanos? (bananas) in a questioning tone and someone would point me in the right direction. Not much good if I knew the grammar but not the word for bananas and only could say "Where are?". They of course would say where are what? Additionally, whilst I did not follow conversations for a while, I was able to pick up certain words and know (at least) what the subject of a conversation was about. All confidence building.

This of course is just my personal opinion but I found when I had a build up of vocabulary I could starts using verbs and learning grammar more easily. Everybody has different learning techniques that work best for them.

Kind Regards

Dave

Try Rosetta Stone Thai Level 1,2,3... 100b at Pantip Bangkok or Tuk Com Pattaya. Probably the best self-study package.

[soro]

Hi

Although I have already bought "Spoken Thai" software (which I will give my opinion below) I was checking all CD recommended here and I noticed that the price difference is very big, up to $200 difference. I think it will be very useful for people like me if members who recommend a product will also write the price. Here are the prices I found:

Rosetta Stone Level 1 Thai = £132.97 or $250 US

Pimsleure Thai = $217.35

Learn Thai Easily = Euro 29.90 = $38

Spoken Thai = $38

I also checked other software on the web and noticed that only few give the most important detail of how many words the software contains. My friend bought a CD in Bangkok for about $10 and was surprised to find that it contains only 80 sentences. Doing some research I discovered that many so called "software" are just a CD with mp3 files on it, to use with "Windows Media Player" and not a real software. A topic which gives prices of CD available in the market can help a lot beginners like me.

I decided to buy SpokenThai because their web page gives a lot of details including the amount of words and audios, which I could not find in other products, and the price was reasonable. After downloading all files, which took me a lot of time but saved me the need to buy the CD, I can clearly say that I made the right choice. I can also confirm that the audio quality is excellent. I had some problems with the speach engine but the support instructed me and problem solved.

I especially liked the lessons ebook attached to the software. It is a very big ebook with about 50 lessons where each word in each sentence is written in another color (the same color for the Thai and the English) so it is easy to know what each word means. The lessons are clear and simple to understand. There is no Thai script so it is easy for someone like me to read the Thai in English letters. The software itself works very smoothly and it is very easy to use.

soro

[samran]

mangoe,

please note, that three posts in, your posts appear to be of a critical nature. You will be watched to ensure that you are not unfairly promoting content on this site.

Regards

Samran