New Game to Help Learn the 3,000 Commonest Words

[ThaiNotes]

I've just added a new game to my Thai language learning website. It's probably quickest if you have a look, rather than my trying to explain how it works, but it's really simple. (And there's a short help page if you get stuck.)

http://thai-notes.com/freethai/FreeThai.shtml

Any thoughts and feedback much appreciated, either here, or via the Feedback page on the website.

Incidentally, if the typeface is too small for the game (or the colour scheme not to your liking), you can change it via the Options menu item.

[Gene1960]

Thank you for the game. It's useful and fun. Being away from Thailand for a while, I am forgetting the words.

Loved "เลย means Loei", the most correct explanation of the word in English.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mjef]

Thank you for the game. It's useful and fun. Being away from Thailand for a while, I am forgetting the words.

Loved "เลย means Loei", the most correct explanation of the word in English.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That actually refers to จังหวัดเลย or Loei Province not the other meanings!

[Gene1960]

Thank you for the explanation. I'm still not certain of the geography

I am on the level 40 today and enjoy the game so much.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Lannig]

Interesting game but without something to hear the correct pronunciation it's not as fun and instructive.

I know I'm asking for a lot, but if you would consider adding audio like on another Thai language web site (and on Google Translate) yours would be the greatest one

Edited June 2, 2016 by Lannig

[ThaiNotes]

Interesting game but without something to hear the correct pronunciation it's not as fun and instructive.

I know I'm asking for a lot, but if you would consider adding audio like on another Thai language web site (and on Google Translate) yours would be the greatest one

I've updated things, and audio is now available for most words. (The source I used, LEXiTRON, doesn't provide audio for very common words or complex ones.) I hope what I've done is what you were expecting. Question: when going from English to Thai, should I provide audio for all four Thai options? I'm not sure how useful this would be.

One issue is that playing the audio is relatively slow. This is because the audio file is only downloaded once you click on the "speaker" icon. This is to reduce the workload on my server. (I fund the site myself, so the hosting is cheap and consequently pretty slow.) I will probably have to revisit this.

I've also added sound effects so you get audible feedback on whether your answer is correct/incorrect and when you go up a level. There have also been a few cosmetic changes. And I fixed a bug in that the order in which words was presented wasn't randomised. It now is.

One possible slight annoyance for those of you that have completed a few levels is that the content of each level has changed slightly. This was unavoidable, unfortunately.

Anyway, the game is still at the same address. Let me know if you have problems.

http://thai-notes.com/freethai/FreeThai.shtml

[Tim207]

How were the words selected? There seem to be many words that I would not think are commonly used in conversation. I could be wrong but "formal" words are not commonly used in everyday communication. This makes me curious where the list comes from. Originally I was going to try to memorize any words I came across that I didn't know but I can't see me ever needing a formal word for dog or eat and it would likely just be forgotten if it is never used.

Otherwise I like the game.I am up to level 60 so it must be entertaining me.

[ThaiNotes]

How were the words selected? There seem to be many words that I would not think are commonly used in conversation. I could be wrong but "formal" words are not commonly used in everyday communication. This makes me curious where the list comes from. Originally I was going to try to memorize any words I came across that I didn't know but I can't see me ever needing a formal word for dog or eat and it would likely just be forgotten if it is never used.

SEAlang (http://www.sealang.net/) analysed word frequencies based upon webpage text, giving each word a frequency ranking band. The 3,000 words are taken from that research. This has the advantage that it reflects current usage, rather than printed texts which tend to be more formal in style and perhaps somewhat dated.

More formal words are frequently used, particularly in signage, so you will come across words such as สุนัข (dog), สุรา (alcohol), รับประทาน (to eat), ศึกษา (to study), สัปดาห์ (week), woman (สตรี), ภาพยนตร์ (film/movie), แพทย์ (doctor), บุตร (child), ศีรษะ (head), มารดา (mother) &c.. For example, supermarket signs for the alcohol section use the word สุรา, and temples label areas off limits to women with a phrase including the word สตรี. Some of these are also frequently used in spoken Thai. I regularly hear radio DJs use สัปดาห์ and ภาพยนตร์.

Since the order in which the words are presented is frequency-based, the formal words you're coming across are in common usage, and probably should be learned. When you get to the higher levels (say above level 250) there are quite a few words that I doubt I'll ever have any use for such as ดวงตราไปรษณีย์ (postage stamp, formal) and อวัยวะสืบพันธุ์ (genitals, formal). However, I may well encounter them whilst, say, reading a newspaper.

There's some discussion of the list at http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/96893-list-of-3000-most-common-thai-words/

[Tim207]

Thanks for the explanation. I was thinking along the lines of spoken words, never considered signage. I guess I should put some effort into formal words so I will at least recognize them when I see them.

[DavidHouston]

Thai notes,

Question: if a particular "word" (i.e. spelling and pronunciation) has multiple uses in Thai (for example "ได้" meaning "to be able to", "to receive", and the grammar indicator for perfect aspect), do you treat this as one word or as three separate words in your listing? And, is the "most common" designation measured by combining all such meanings?

Thanks.

[ThaiNotes]

Question: if a particular "word" (i.e. spelling and pronunciation) has multiple uses in Thai (for example "ได้" meaning "to be able to", "to receive", and the grammar indicator for perfect aspect), do you treat this as one word or as three separate words in your listing? And, is the "most common" designation measured by combining all such meanings?

Good question. I hadn't thought about that - I just used the SEAlang data without thinking too much about it.

Anyway, the answer is that the word appears multiple times, but the ranking appears to be for overall usage. For example, ขน appears as "body hair" with a frequency ranking of 3, "to transport" (also a 3); พาย appears as "paddle" (5) and "pie" (5).

(Looking through the data now I see that there are quite a few duplicates. This would cause problems if the duplicates appeared in the same level. Haven't had any problems reported yet. I'll clean things up when I have some free time.)

[manarak]

Interesting game but without something to hear the correct pronunciation it's not as fun and instructive.

I know I'm asking for a lot, but if you would consider adding audio like on another Thai language web site (and on Google Translate) yours would be the greatest one

I've updated things, and audio is now available for most words. (The source I used, LEXiTRON, doesn't provide audio for very common words or complex ones.) I hope what I've done is what you were expecting. Question: when going from English to Thai, should I provide audio for all four Thai options? I'm not sure how useful this would be.

One issue is that playing the audio is relatively slow. This is because the audio file is only downloaded once you click on the "speaker" icon. This is to reduce the workload on my server. (I fund the site myself, so the hosting is cheap and consequently pretty slow.) I will probably have to revisit this.

I've also added sound effects so you get audible feedback on whether your answer is correct/incorrect and when you go up a level. There have also been a few cosmetic changes. And I fixed a bug in that the order in which words was presented wasn't randomised. It now is.

One possible slight annoyance for those of you that have completed a few levels is that the content of each level has changed slightly. This was unavoidable, unfortunately.

Anyway, the game is still at the same address. Let me know if you have problems.

http://thai-notes.com/freethai/FreeThai.shtml

nice work!

I hope you benefit from it.

I have a question: is there a similar app/game to learn to read thai including audio for pronounciation?

[nabbie]

Nice & useful. I have a question about search tool. Is there a wild character (*)? It will be interesting to see the vocabulary pattern. For example, I enter *วย The outcome would be something like มวย, สวย, รวย, ถ้วย, ช่วย, etc. As far as I know that sealang can use that wild character (*) but not a single wild character (!). Also Excel can extract the specified Thai words by filtering tool.

[ThaiNotes]

Nice & useful. I have a question about search tool. Is there a wild character (*)? It will be interesting to see the vocabulary pattern. For example, I enter *วย The outcome would be something like มวย, สวย, รวย, ถ้วย, ช่วย, etc. As far as I know that sealang can use that wild character (*) but not a single wild character (!). Also Excel can extract the specified Thai words by filtering tool.

The site's front end to the Royal Institute Dictionary allows wildcard searches - with * for multiple characters and ? for any single character. There are also a lot of other wildcard characters. Click on the "Help" tab and then select "Wildcard Reference" for a full list.

For your specific example, *วย, there are 150 matches found.

For ?วย there are 16.

The dictionary is at http://thai-notes.com/dictionaries/RIDictionary.shtml

[nabbie]

Nice & useful. I have a question about search tool. Is there a wild character (*)? It will be interesting to see the vocabulary pattern. For example, I enter *วย The outcome would be something like มวย, สวย, รวย, ถ้วย, ช่วย, etc. As far as I know that sealang can use that wild character (*) but not a single wild character (!). Also Excel can extract the specified Thai words by filtering tool.

The site's front end to the Royal Institute Dictionary allows wildcard searches - with * for multiple characters and ? for any single character. There are also a lot of other wildcard characters. Click on the "Help" tab and then select "Wildcard Reference" for a full list.

For your specific example, *วย, there are 150 matches found.

For ?วย there are 16.

The dictionary is at http://thai-notes.com/dictionaries/RIDictionary.shtml

Thank you for the link. I can confirm these numbers are correct. It is fantastic to use the single wild character in your link where Sealang does not have. Only the problem is I can not see the list of 150 Thai words and 16 others reaspectively. I am hoping you can tell me how. For that purpose, the Thai vocabulay pattern is useful & important to strengthen my lousy spelling....

[ThaiNotes]

Nice & useful. I have a question about search tool. Is there a wild character (*)? It will be interesting to see the vocabulary pattern. For example, I enter *วย The outcome would be something like มวย, สวย, รวย, ถ้วย, ช่วย, etc. As far as I know that sealang can use that wild character (*) but not a single wild character (!). Also Excel can extract the specified Thai words by filtering tool.

The site's front end to the Royal Institute Dictionary allows wildcard searches - with * for multiple characters and ? for any single character. There are also a lot of other wildcard characters. Click on the "Help" tab and then select "Wildcard Reference" for a full list.

For your specific example, *วย, there are 150 matches found.

For ?วย there are 16.

The dictionary is at http://thai-notes.com/dictionaries/RIDictionary.shtml

Thank you for the link. I can confirm these numbers are correct. It is fantastic to use the single wild character in your link where Sealang does not have. Only the problem is I can not see the list of 150 Thai words and 16 others reaspectively. I am hoping you can tell me how. For that purpose, the Thai vocabulay pattern is useful & important to strengthen my lousy spelling....

As you type in the wild characters the application calculates the number of matches. It's only when you press the "Enter" key or click on the "Enter" button that the matches are actually retrieved. They will then be displayed in the right hand panel.

[nabbie]

As you type in the wild characters the application calculates the number of matches. It's only when you press the "Enter" key or click on the "Enter" button that the matches are actually retrieved. They will then be displayed in the right hand panel.

Yes, it works on the right panel after pressing the enter key which I didn't earlier. Thanks. Its search tool is excellent but why can't Thai-English dictionary accept the wild characters just like other dictionaries?

[augustwest]

Thanks

[ThaiNotes]

Its search tool is excellent but why can't Thai-English dictionary accept the wild characters just like other dictionaries?

I developed the Thai-English dictionary first and at the time didn't know there was a demand for wildcard searches.

I don't know if it helps a bit, but once you've got the results from the RID you can search for the word on LEXiTRON which will give you an English definition (where available). To do this, move your mouse over the key word in the results, select LEXiTRON and click OK.

(You can also search for the word on thai-language.com and thai2english.com which may give you an English definition.)