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Rating: 
Summary: Has drawbacks, but else good
Review: First of all good news. The Thai course of David Smyth has the advantage to be a good introduction to the Thai script and pronuntiation. Covering of the grammar is a little bit sketchy, but anyway it is enough for beginner and the grammar is certainly not the most difficult part of Thai. Now the inconvenient points. The course unfortunately gives too much place for specifically tourist things such as haggling for price, ordering drinks and food, taking taxi, visiting places etc. - which would be much more in their proper place in a "Lonely Planet" conversational guide as in a more serious language textbook. One could have rather included texts/dialogues on Buddhism, on Thai history, way of life. A very bad transcription system - letter "r" is used where it should be not pronounced, the aspiration is not shown, and the most disconcerting thing is using "u" to represent the sound of "a". Similarly "air" is used to represent open "e"(more convently to be represented as "ae") and so on. It has taken a certain time for me to figure
out that "wun" (day) shoud be actually pronounced as "wan", or "bpairt"(eight) as "pae:t" or "nakorn" as "nakho:n". I wonder why David Smyth has not used the signs of the International Phonetical Association which are far more understandable for beginner and for experienced linguist alike. A second inconvenient thing is that D.Smyth does not use Thai script in the exercises, at least in the beginning of the book. This is very inconvenient when making revision. One would like to remake excercises using Thai script. Anyway I wonder whether there is need to use Romanised transcription for a Thai course at all. Certainly the Thai spelling is not exactly phonetical, but one could give the transcription of irregularly spelled words with Thai letters themselves. Only tones would require special markers in the beginning until one has not yet learned the tone rules. Another thing what should be needed in such book is a table showing the Indian(Pali-Sanskrit) values of Thai letters. This would help to figure out the class of letters(high, middle or low) with much more ease, greatly facilitate understanding the alphabetical sequence of Thai, to help recognize South Asian borrowings (which maybe make 30-40% of Thai vocabulary) for those who have learned a South Asian language(Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi, Bengali etc). Nevetheless I give 4 stars to this course since as it appears there are not too much better courses of Thai, if any, as this one.
Rating:
Summary: Very Effective!
Review: I am about to be transferred to Thailand and will be taking formal and intensive Thai instruction next month. I wanted to get a head start on the language and after reading the..reviews purchased the Smith book with the two cassette tapes. After three weeks of study I find myself (to my surprisE) learning to read and speak Thai. First let me mention some things I do NOT like (but remember I am a pure beginner). The transliteration is confusing and frankly often does not match what I hear on the tapes. Second, there are disconnects between the tapes and what the book says I am supposed to be hearing. Third, the tape's intro to tones is not sufficient. Now what I like about the Smith book. I am learning to actually read Thai! It is a complicated alphabet (no matter what David Smith says) but I am progressing. The text progresses easily from one step to the next. Contrary to some reviews I like the practical application in the dialogues e.g shopping, menu ordering. etc. But most of all I like the easy and maybe even chatty way the book guides you into the language. I must admit I certainly enjoy studying this language with this book. And Smith is correct that 20 minutes a day is more effective than one 2 hours session weekly. Yep, a new edition of the tapes is needed but it is the best 20 bucks I spent in a long time!
Rating: 
Summary: Inconsistent but good alphabet lesson.
Review: i bought the book for the writing lessons. of all the (few) books on the store shelf, 'teach yourself' was one of the only to include writing and reading lessons. the typewritten font is clear and easy to read. also, handwritten examples of each letter are included, with arrows and so you know exactly how to write the letter. letters are included in order of commonness (for the most part) with the least common at the end. while this may accelerate the reading of real words and sentences, perhaps it would be more valuable to learn the alphabet in dictionary order (now that i have a dictionary, i have trouble finding words in the thai half because i don't know dictionary order). also it would be a plus to teach the alphabet with its items (gor gai, kor kai...). i haven't found any book to include this. for the most part, the alphabet is well taught. much of the rest of the book (and tape) is inconsistent, however. mistakes are made in the text. at at least one point in the tape, a phrase is incorrectly translated. the book is not well organized, nor does it contain a lot of information. some of the excersises do not have answer keys (some excersise visual recognition of letters, without the need to understand the sounds). finally, the english transliteration is rather good i think. unfortunately, it is not (or there is no) standard. after learning the script from 'teach yourself' i find it difficult to read other transliterations. this is not a problem of this book specifically, but i would like the author to explain a little about his chosen method in the introduction. i took my first trip to thailand after studying this book casually for two months. i was able to read slowly much of what i saw on signs and menus.
Rating:
Summary: Inconsistent but good alphabet lesson.
Review: i bought the book for the writing lessons. of all the (few) books on the store shelf, 'teach yourself' was one of the only to include writing and reading lessons. the typewritten font is clear and easy to read. also, handwritten examples of each letter are included, with arrows and so you know exactly how to write the letter. letters are included in order of commonness (for the most part) with the least common at the end. while this may accelerate the reading of real words and sentences, perhaps it would be more valuable to learn the alphabet in dictionary order (now that i have a dictionary, i have trouble finding words in the thai half because i don't know dictionary order). also it would be a plus to teach the alphabet with its items (gor gai, kor kai...). i haven't found any book to include this. for the most part, the alphabet is well taught. much of the rest of the book (and tape) is inconsistent, however. mistakes are made in the text. at at least one point in the tape, a phrase is incorrectly translated. the book is not well organized, nor does it contain a lot of information. some of the excersises do not have answer keys (some excersise visual recognition of letters, without the need to understand the sounds). finally, the english transliteration is rather good i think. unfortunately, it is not (or there is no) standard. after learning the script from 'teach yourself' i find it difficult to read other transliterations. this is not a problem of this book specifically, but i would like the author to explain a little about his chosen method in the introduction. i took my first trip to thailand after studying this book casually for two months. i was able to read slowly much of what i saw on signs and menus.
Rating:
Summary: Choice of the experts
Review: I'm with the US Peace Corps in Thailand, a job (the toughest one?) that requires learning Thai, and it's not by coincidence that more of us have Mr. Smyth's book than any other. I found learning to read essential in learning Thai, and this book teaches better reading better than any other book I have seen. As for teaching the letters out of dictionary order, well, I haven't found that many Thais who could answer a question analogous to "What letter comes before S?" without reciting the whole alphabet. It's just not how they learn, therefore, most Thai dictionaries have an index of the letters in the beginning. The lesson here is that you are a lot better off learning the letters by class (and therefore tone rules) than you are by dictionary order, which will come later as you use a dictionary more. I've only listened to someone else's tapes briefly, but they seemed to give good assistance separating the tones and learning to pronounce the sounds that we don't have in English. If you are just going to Thailand for a week, I imagine any number of books would suffice, but if you want to learn Thai more than "snake-snake-fish-fish" (bits and pieces), then get this book.
Rating:
Summary: Choice of the experts
Review: I'm with the US Peace Corps in Thailand, a job (the toughest one?) that requires learning Thai, and it's not by coincidence that more of us have Mr. Smyth's book than any other. I found learning to read essential in learning Thai, and this book teaches better reading better than any other book I have seen. As for teaching the letters out of dictionary order, well, I haven't found that many Thais who could answer a question analogous to "What letter comes before S?" without reciting the whole alphabet. It's just not how they learn, therefore, most Thai dictionaries have an index of the letters in the beginning. The lesson here is that you are a lot better off learning the letters by class (and therefore tone rules) than you are by dictionary order, which will come later as you use a dictionary more. I've only listened to someone else's tapes briefly, but they seemed to give good assistance separating the tones and learning to pronounce the sounds that we don't have in English. If you are just going to Thailand for a week, I imagine any number of books would suffice, but if you want to learn Thai more than "snake-snake-fish-fish" (bits and pieces), then get this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fast pace, interesting and fun to work with
Review: I've just finished Thai for beginners by Benjawan Becker and i think this is a great follow on book. Even through it's not touted as an intermeediate book, I think the pace of this would be too fast for an absolute beginner. This book is way more interesting than Thai4beginners however. Each key word and sentense structure is explained very well and the constant Q&A is great. Thai4beginners is much more repetitious and spends too much time on nouns you will likely never remember or need. This book also uses an easier to follow romanization method than the proper phonetic backward 'e' and all that crap used in thai4beg. My only complaint is their insistance on using 'u' for our 'a' sound which seems completely unnecessary and highly confusing.
Rating:
Summary: I have not found one better
Review: Let's face it. Learning Thai is not easy regardless of the teaching method. This book however was exactly what I was looking for as it also teaches how to read and write the language. I found some mistakes and the audio is not cooridinated very well with the book but you will have to losten to it MANY times anyway in order to ever learn it. After a few times you learn to find the corresponding section in the book. So, all in all the book is well worth the money and it does what it says it will do.
Rating:
Summary: A very good place to start
Review: Oh, c'mon, people! What's with all these bad reviews? This book teaches you how to speak, write, read, understand the Thai language. The Thai writing system is listed both in dictionary order in the back and in a more systematic tonal order on another page also in the back. There's also a handy summary of the tone rules on one page in the back. Copy it, laminate it, make a bookmark and dive in. This book maps the Thai language inside and out. Grammar explanations are there in abundance. The cassette tape is excellent, too (but there's one big boo-boo at the very beginning where the English guy says something like,"Here's how to ask someone what their name is:" and the Thai woman says,"Hello, how are you?" But that's such an obvious mistake anyone can catch it). The book teaches you how to read and write in little sections in each chapter. But from chapter one to the end the author gives you Thai script as well as a romanized transcription for all the dialogues. So you can start writing from the very beginning if you want to. Just skip to the writing sections of later chapters. Who said it's forbidden to read ahead? Just like, photocopy all the writing sections and put them all together in a little writing chapter pamphlet thingy. Take it, shake it, make it your own! This book has everything you need. It has cultural and historical points, too ; like, why is Bangkok called Bangkok? And why is the Thai word for Bangkok not "Bangkok"? (the Thai word for Bangkok is "GrOOng-tayp" which means "city of angels"... Los Angeles?) Thai people are super friendly and most people will speak Thai with you if you try even just a little bit. Get the book and go to Thailand. Now.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably the best one out there
Review: This book is quite good to be modest, the main dialogues are provided both in romanized form as well as thai script, the thai script version is for later on when you can read the script better so you can go back to previous chapters and re-read the dialogue in script.
The book gradually teaches you to read and write the script, I have read other books teaching thai script and this one is by far the best one, you can tell the author knows the language.
Understanding the tapes can be hard at first since they speak at natural speed, but after some chapters you get the hang of it and its not too hard, and there are enough listening excercices for each chapter.
The grammar is clearly explained and is easy to understand, as with many asian languages the grammar is the easy part - pronounciation and script is the real challenge.
In each chapter you get to practice your knowledge of the script, you gradually build up you skills.
The only shortcoming of this book is that I think there are to few excerices to practice the grammar, so you might want to get a extra book on practicing grammar. A good book for beginners.
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