Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Thai Phrasebook

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book for my trip to Thailand next winter, so I have not put it into practice yet.

However, Thai is a tonal language, and this book does not indicate what tones one is to use when pronouncing a word.

After traveling using a Berlitz phrasebook in Italy, I went to Thailand, and bought the only one available -- Lonely Planet. It is terrible.

The tone markers don't make much sense. They are not intuitive.

The Food section has something advertised as a "menu decoder" when it is really just the same section all over again. Compared to Berlitz's food section for Italy, the LP guide is rather lacking.

The Dictionary section is very lacking. It doesn't even have all the words listed elsewhere. The index is the same way. It makes finding information in the phrasebook next to impossible.

Unfortunately, this phrasebook has just been whipped out as a companion to LP's monopoly on guide books. Try to find something else.

My husband and I found this small book to be a huge help as we attempted communication in the marketplaces of Thailand. I prefer to use books like this as a reference, pointing to the Thai phrase next to the English phrase I want to communicate. Conversely, my husband actually studied the book from the beginning. He was able to learn to pronounce and understand many useful phrases in addition to numbers (which came in very handy while bargaining). We enjoyed this book so much that I am already ordering the Mandarin version for our trip to China in 2005.

This phrase-book was very helpful in my last travel to thailand. I kept it always in my pocket and thanks to the thai writings, you can just point the word and the friendly locals teach you how to pronunciate it properly. I gave this book MANY uses, even in the most unexpected situations. USEFUL !

This is a small book with contextual topics that are easy to find in the table of contents. Some basic grammar rules are included and can help someone use past, present, future, ability, and the classifiers if they want to learn the basics of using them. It can be carried in your pocket, and I think that is the best asset. It's a small book you can take anywhere. The phonetical pronunciation was incorrect in one area. The beginning consonant "G"is pronounced more as a hard "g" sound, but it is listed in the book at a "k." This caused miscommunication for it changes the entire word and meaning. The beauty salon context, i.e., "getting a haircut" is a section that is not in this book but could be very useful. This book is very affordable and helpful...just keep in mind some of the phonetic transcriptions, which already difficult in Thai to English, could have been more accurate.

I have just started using it and it has a lot of very useful day-to-day phrases. I don't like the size of the Thai script. It is very difficult to read and one nearly needs a magnifying glass to be sure. I have learnt to read and write Thai by learning it through German transliteration (which is much more accurate than English because German has many more sounds which are closer to Thai) and would like to use the phrasebook without Cummings' phonetics. Enlarge the Thai script and the tone marks, clear up the mistakes and it will remain the best phrasebook currently available.

I recently bought a lot of phrasebooks and dictionaries in connection with a trip to Thailand that I've just returned from. Out of all of them, this was the book I routinely carried in my pants pocket.

Pluses:
o Thai-to-English dictionary as well as English-Thai
o I personally find the representation of aspirated consonants with h, eg "ph", "th" etc to be more attractive and logical than the alternatives like "d(t)" etc. The only problem is people who don't read the introduction and pronounce ph as f, etc.
o Generally good choices of vocabulary and phrases
o Useful sections on important cultural features

Minuses:
o No accompanying cd/cassette (but even when these are available they tend to be poorly integrated)
o Many words used in the phrases are unaccountably missing from the dictionary sections
o Many errors and typos, especially in the tones
o Useful sidebars are presented in a disorganized manner which makes them impossible to refer to. For instance, a section on "traditional music" is shoehorned into the "family" section, and is so long that for weeks I did not realize that the family section continued after it! Also, such sidebars are not included in the TOC.

As a student trying to study Thai in preparation for a foreign exchange to Chon Buri, I was a little hesitant to buy this book, but my fears were soon calmed once I opened it up. This book is an excellent guide to the Thai language - even if it is geared slightly for the Aussie/British English speakers rather than Americans. It starts off with pronunciation, then Roman transliteration (it takes a little to get used to - "ae" sounds like 'a' in American "bat", and the tone markers {á, à, â, ã, a} ~ high tone, low tone, falling, rising, and mid, respectively, are a little different), but with practice, you can soon make yourself easily understood. While the Thai- English dictionary isn't very extensive, this guide will teach you basic Thai grammar, customs, food, do's and don't's , and even the Thai alphabet. In the subject guides, words are expressed in English, Thai in Roman letters, and Thai script. If you want to learn more than just the basics, I would recommend a good Thai-English dictionary as a companion with this - the two together will make for an unstoppable team! I would most certainly recommend this book to you.

I wouldn't bother with this one. Although I am a big fan of LPs guide books, this phrase-book was not particularly helpful. 9 times out of 10 they didn't have what I was looking for and when they did it was a real hassle to find. The pronunciation guide was not that helpful but the food section was good. If you already have the guidebook you could probably get by w/out this, but if you feel you need something, get a used copy over there(or maybe an Amazon auction.) If you do get fed up with it (as I did), it makes a very nice gift for a Thai friend. Next time I'll bring a pocket dictionary. Hope this helped.

Of all Thai phrasebooks, this one is definitely the best and the most comprehensive. It has an extensive grammar section and gives valuable cultural insights. It also has a section that introduces some of the native languages (the "Hill Tribes"). The romanticization is easy to read and aids with pronounciation.