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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Title should be "Useless, Boring Thai", 20 Mar 1999
By A Customer
The beauty of the Thai alphabet has always fascinated me and I purchased this book back in grad school, only because it was the only one I could find that teaches the alphabet. "Easy Thai" was such an incredible disappointment that I never got very far with it. I finally learned the Thai alphabet a few years later, thanks to 2 excellent books written (in Japanese) for Japanese learners. While teaching debate at a university in Japan, I conducted an intensive self-study of Thai for 3 months before taking a trip to Thailand, and completed both books before arriving in Bangkok. It is a pity that these same books are not available to English speakers as well. I have a Master's degree in Teaching Foreign Language and have therefore had the opportunity to review a wide variety of textbooks. One difficulty that learners of less-studied languages face is the lack of good textbooks and other materials. This book may unfortunately be your only choice if you're serious about learning the Thai alphabet (and don't happen to speak Japanese), but it's not a pretty picture.My main complaints are: (1) The book is rife with useless words (especially for beginners!), useless expressions, awkward sentence structure, poor translations, and outdated and/or inappropriate terms like "Chinaman." SEE BELOW for examples. (2) The phonetic system for representing Thai sounds is a mess, full of capital letters, explanation points, and unnecessary letters. Believe me - there's a far better way! (3) shoddy format and layout, poor print quality (Thai letters are hard to read), inadequate/unclear explanations, boring beyond words Incredibly enough, the author actually acknowledges (in the preface) the problems of useless words and boring exercises: "...some of the words used are admittedly not the most-useful ones. (...) Please forgive us if our exercises seem boring or unnecessarily meaningless. You will no doubt appreciate the fact that we are simply trying to initiate you gradually into the mysteries of the Thai language and that it is difficult to concoct much meaning out of a limited number of words. And let us re-emphasize that the following examples are certainly not "deathless Thai prose"; they are only contrived little thoughts to get you to put to work what you have learned." The exercises don't "seem" boring or unnecessarily meaningless - they are. And there's absolutely no excuse for it. The author claims that it's difficult to make meaningful sentences out of a limited vocabulary. How about: Where's the bathroom? What's your name? It's too hot. I like this food. How much does this cost? Vocabulary in each chapter is of course limited by the Thai letters introduced up to that point, but there are still plenty of useful words that he could have used instead. Even "See Spot run" would be more useful than many of the expressions found in the book. As a trained language teacher myself, I know for a fact that "initiating students gradually into the mysteries of a language" requires neither the use of such insanely useless words nor expressions reminiscent of an LSD trip. And how comforting to know that these boring, meaningless exercises are not "deathless Thai prose," but simply "contrived little thoughts." The author's apology in the preface can only be seen as pathetic: "I know this book sucks - Sorry." The following is a representative sample of 27 sentences from the book, which readers are asked to translate as practice. Some are intended to be translated into Thai. Others are to be translated from Thai into English, and the English sentences here were taken from the answer key. 1. There is a method for forgetting the wind. 2. Grandmother smells of the plate. 3. He will return the case; that is, his relatives are well off. 4. Wait! In September I'll go see. 5. At the time they were about to lock him up, you sneezed. 6. People have hairs on their legs. 7. Polish his tongs! 8. Conduct the ceremony for returning the flag. 9. Who belched? 10. Look at grandmother pouring. 11. Look at grandmother's neck. 12. A ghost has come. 13. I ran into the Chinaman's leg. 14. My rice farm has a ghost on it. 15. As soon as I sniffed, I sneezed. 16. There are some Laotians who have burdens. 17. A tiger came (walked here) to see you. 18. The boss returned the ivory. 19. It should have a foreword. 20. The lawyer defeats you. 21. As soon as I win, I will come to expand the work. 22. Did Khun Wicha kick him? 23. A Chinese person sneezed. 24. Come and put down the rubber! 25. Perhaps it will be very soiled. 26. There was a priest who brought Mrs. Nipa to work. 27. The Laotian is confused. Get the picture? One thing is for certain: the Laotian isn't the only one who's confused!
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