Reading & Writing Thai: A Workbook for Self-Study: A Beginner's Guide to the Thai Alphabet and Pronunciation (Free Online Audio and Printable Flash Cards)

Perfect for languages for kids

everyone learns in their own unique way, so reviews for language learning books and materials will always be biased. For me, I give 1 star because this book is impressively comprehensive, a second star because Tuttle are (and still are) a formidable publisher for quality language books for (South) East-Asian languages, and a third star because there is a lack of jargon that you might find in alternative, would-be academic resource. this book unfortunately just sprawls out the whole alphabet and expects you to trace each letter several times. it would be better to actually spend more time on each letter by tracing words that use each letter rather than making this available much, much later in the book. It is also a bit burdensome to write "These 44 consonants are divided into three groups: mid, high, and low." It just shows a chart of the three classes, ADN THEN you learn each consonant of the Thai alphabet. This seems a little backward especially when after mindlessly tracing each letter, you are then asked to look at random constants in a text box and identify the classes. Am i learning letters? or am I learning the consonant classes? The sandwich technique here is not very smooth or organically progressive. So a fourth star cannot be given. The facilitation of the tones is also murky. You are introduced to the 5 tones with their markings, but the section doesn't explain that the markings they introduced are used exclusively for transliterating Thai and not used in the actual Thai alphabet. The markings used in the Thai alphabet aren't shown until around page 40. Then around page 50 is when you actually have an audio file to listen to that specifically helps to identify tones. Before this, you are exposed to a handful of Thai words with only your imagination on how to perfect the tones. If someone is a complete beginner to a tonal language, a rising or low tone is going to be absolutely alien to them. so without appropriate sounds, introducing the Thai tonal system becomes redundant. A better, natural progression would have been to learn the consonant letters, introduce the tones with audio support, introduce consonant classes, then introduce the vowels. So no fifth star since the sequential logic is a bit flawed for my liking, but maybe this yo-yo style works for other people, who knows. Although I am considering learning the language of Cambodia, Khmer, since is it not tonal, and the alphabet does not contain such intricate spelling rules to my knowledge. This is not a bash on the Thai language, but the myriad of learning resources that make learning to read and write Thai unnecessarily convoluted. In keeping with Thai, I'd recommend Tuttle's "Thai Picture Dictionary" which I purchased at the same time as this book. The dictionary lays out the whole alphabet and introduces the tones in a much more user friendly fashion. At least you could practise each word and its tone with the audio rather than yo-yoing it with this Reading and Writing Thai book.

The downloadable files are saved in a hard to read way to check answers. Although a good book if a complete beginner, I find the book structure/layout very poor, very important subjects/topics seem to be given a paragraph or 2 sentences then move onto the next ...even mistakes that I have seen that have been verified when pointing this out to a Thai native. Again okay if wanting to learn basic/beginner but other than that, not impressed at all.

I had to return the e-book version as it was unusable. Depending on the size of the window used (I use kindle on PC and Android) the characters get all jumbled and the tables unreadable. The paper version might be better.... hopefully.

I bought this book to supplement online lessons. It’s a really good intro to the Thai script with proper stroke order and exercises. Be sure to visit the publisher’s website (listed in the book) for the audio files and answer key.

Muy bueno

The book is well formatted with clear instructions.

This is a good book - it helps with my learning journey.

The kindle edition is faulty, you have to buy the printed one. Very good course, specially if you use it together with the course "easy Thai". La edición en kindle es defectuosa, hay que comprar la edición impresa. El curso es muy bueno, especialmente si se combina con el curso "Easy Thai". Para quien (en portugués) se queja de la falta de acceso al audio y materiales complementarios, bájelos Ud de la página de tuttle printing, son de libre acceso y muy buenos.