i would like to buy a good thai/thai dictionary for anon.... anybody ahve recommendations....

because of lack of schooling his thai vocab seems lacking when reading thai articles on the net (not magazine sports stuff, more in depth stuff) and he often doesnt know wht the thai word means... he does like to use dictionaries so am looking for a basic one like the equivalent college level type (not school children level and not 5 voumes with technical stuff) something like funk and wagnalls dic.

i dont have much time to shop and search, so a name, publisher and +- price in bookstore say in big c korat would help ... cant shop internet at moment so prefer to buy. i think hard back would be better also (falls apart less quickly)

thanx

bina and anon

forgot to add: he speaks and reads thai not thai issaan (lao) so that isnt the problem

It might be a better buy with a few paperbacks, as they are generally a lot cheaper. But that's up to you.

Unless you're going for the real hardcore stuff, I have a small one that I am pleased with myself, namely SE-Education's Phodjananukrom Thai (Chabab than samai) which is a paperback dictionary I got for 155 baht at DK books in Chiang Mai.

You may find it is difficult to find the exact same one though, small dictionaries come and go. The ISBN of this one is 974-534-149-5 ...

Also...

ปทานานุกรมนักเรียน (Pa-ta-na-nu-krom nak-rien) has been widely used among Thai school kids ISBN9740830226, a handly size, soft binding for 75 baht.

พจนานุกรมฉบับมติชน (Poj ja na nu krom sha bub matichon) is a thick hard copy one for 663 baht...has just launched two years ago.

If you want a hardcover, for general use I'd also recommend Matichon, available from matichonbook.com.

thanx,

have printed out and will search

i prefer hard cover for things like dicts that u dont use every day; u need one for the rest of your life and hardbacks are easier to dust off, and keep on shelves..and they stay open at the page u need also without having to put a can of pickles or somehting in the middle to keep it open. i'm not using it for translations, rather as a reference work...

will let him choose which one seems easiest for him to use (print size whatever)

thanx

bina

Does no-one favour Ratchabandit? (It's the one published by the (Thai) Royal Institute.) It was still only 600฿ a few months ago. It's a bit heavy though - Rikker's said there've been complaints that the paper was too thick, but it seems robust enough to be used as a doorstop if it falls into disfavour. It's c. 19cm by 26cm by 9cm and has nearly 1500 pages.

If you want a hardcover, for general use I'd also recommend Matichon, available from matichonbook.com.

My choice too. The dog's nuts for your regular everyday kind of use.

The Royal Institute Dictionary (Ratchabandit) contains fewer entries than Matichon and is about three times as thick. What it has going is a larger font and thicker paper.

From my own fairly close comparison, RID has more headwords, but Matichon has more total entries, mostly on the side of colloquialisms and slang, and chops out many archaisms found in RID.

I still use RID almost every day (especially since the online RID is the older 1982 edition), but Matichon is handier. Plus, the people at the Royal Institute say it's mostly ripped off from them, which is pretty much the lexicographic tradition, so it's sorta like the best of both worlds.