Rosetta Stone Thai Level 1 Torrent
James
thirded. you can get the same level of quality from the internet (hello, thank you, where is the bathroom, etc...) that Rosetta Stone Thai (level 1 only). take it from me, i know first hand. pay for a teacher if you are serious, otherwise, surf the web. there is a ton of basic thai phrases and words that will get you through a vacation.
I'm not sure if the reading part is a joke or what. They have picture of something (such as a Red Car) then they have 4 Thai sentences (in Thai alphabet) and you are supposed to pick the correct sentence.. With absolutely no explanation of Thai alphabet. I would challenge even the smartest person on earth to learn to read Thai just by starring at a block of Thai text.
My suggestion is always Pimsleur Thai. Buy it cheapest on amazon.com, but make sure you get the 30-lesson course and not the 10-lesson course. I have Pimsleur Thai CDs and all they have is beginner level (30 half-hour lessons, takes merely 30 days to get through them as they suggest you don't overload yourself but just do half an hour per day), but you know what? They work, they really do. Did for me, at least. Like any of these courses developed outside of Thailand, they had a few mistakes in usage, using the Isaan word for "wine" for example, which all my friends said really isn't used across Thailand. But overall it definitely helped me get a basic understanding and then it's amazing how you can pick up more when talking with Thai friends having that base.
Rubbish, Rosetta Stone is a great starting point and has a great pronounciation recording facility where you follow the reader, record yourself and play it back. Coupled with help from Thai friends or GF etc this is a good place to begin, if you really get into it then true, you should get proper Thai lessons after that. I have learnt loads of words from the RS that have helped me communicate with Thai people.
Rosetta Stone is only available as level I. I found it better than other CD systems I'd tried, but it teaches as a child - by repetition and association, not "translation" Same but harder for the reading. You need to study the characters first out of a written course for that, and I'm still weak at it.
A teacher locally, and grade school children to practice pointing and speaking with are better, though Rosetta Stone is good to use every few months to help mentally organize what you've been hearing, repeating and stumbling through in other settings.
ONE HUGE WARNING: The Software company spends so much energy on protecting their software that 1) you'll always need the CD in your drive and 2) it challenges (possible wears out) some drives by forcing access to write sectors not normally used. My CD reader always grumbled when that disk (English or Thai) was inserted, and last week died after I'd left it in during a reboot. I'd noticed this before and it was a discouragement in my using the software. Now I need to replace the drive.
I have Rosetta Stone, but got it at Pantip Plaza as a copy for 50 baht. Consequently the record function will not work. With that being said, I found it helpful ONLY AFTER you have a foundation of basic reading and comprehension of the thai language under your belt. I doubt anyone could learn to speak or read thai solely from that program.
While this is off topic, I think it is still applicable; Another poster mentioned the books by Benjawan Poomsan Becker; Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. They are a good foundation to start from and I know several thai language schools here in Bangkok who rely only on these books for their course materials. While I am NOT a fan of her personally by any stretch of the term, having met her several times; I will give her credit for her methodology and most certainly her very savvy marketing skills.
The first book relies on phonemic-transcription (writing thai with english letters), to help you along, but as the books progress it is used less and less, until in the Advanced book there is none, just thai and the english translations. You are introduced to the thai alphabet, and writing from the first book. In the advanced book, I like that she introduces new vocabulary words before the stories, and uses the thai method of pronunciation to help you sound out new words.
FWIW: the Advanced book has a companion webpage (NOT developed by her) which asks questions to gauge comprehension of the stories you read in her book. However without the book the webpage is no good as the stories are not on that site, just the comprehension tests.
Her C/D series "Speak Like A Thai", is also good. C/D-1 is contemporary thai expressions, C/D-2 is colloquial slang, and in the back of that booklet is an entire section on "impolite slang", although there are no sound files on the C/D to go with it.
Many people complain how difficult it is to learn to read thai. I found it far easier to read than speak coherently, although you must learn vocabulary by rote, just like the thais do in school. Reading is only about vocabulary acquisition, not about the ability to sound out the word perfectly. Either you know what the word means or you don't, and the ability to say it with perfect diction is valueless in reading only. It is memorization, and takes time. Granted in some compound words you may be able to glean a meaning by knowing one or more of the components, but reading is for the most part just memorizing what thai words look like and their corresponding meaning
For a total of 21 possible characters to represent basically 5 sound. Learning those you can pretty closely pronounce words even if your toning is off. I still don't know the tone rules; yet my comprehension on reading thai is way up there for everything but specialty thai (i.e.; legal, government, science, etc).
When I learned to speak I only concentrated on the 2 most critical tones in the thai language; the falling tone, and the rising tone. They are the two tones which can send you "off-script" very fast. The other three tones when spoken in casual conversational thai are often pronounced so closely by native speakers that missing a tone slightly will usually be understood as the correct word by thais from the context of your sentence.
I think it is a good adjunct to building vocabulary and listening skills, as the sound files are really quite clear and spoken in normal thai cadence, but as an initial learning tool, I'd give it a pass.
it did help me to get some basic grammar and words (ok, i really dont need the phrase that three kids jump off a table in everyday life ;O), but have to agree: if you live here, a thai teacher brings you a lot more.
I tried rosetta stone and didn't like it at all. I joined the learn thai podcast premium course and this works best for me. I don't understand why people still stick to books for learning languages if there are way better alternatives out there, unfortunately rosetta stone is not one of them.
I spent a lot of time with Rosetta Stone. With it you will learn a form of Thai spoken nowhere in the world except by people who have studied Thai using the Rosetta Stone software. My wife thinks it's hilarious and will occasionally break in to "Rosetta Stone Thai" after which she will end up cackling with laughter and rolling on the floor.
That said, I did learn to read from Rosetta stone. I did not and still do not know the Thai alphabet. I do not know any of the reading, or pronunciation rules. I did not make an effort to learn how to read, it just sort of happened while using Rosetta Stone and seeing the written form of the language.
I still cannot speak or understand Thai. If I go into a restaurant with a Thai-only menu I read it, figure out what I want and point to it on the menu. If I try to pronounce the name of the dish I want there is a 90% chance that it will not be understood.
For example, the software shows the learner four photographs. A native speaker makes a statement that describes one of the photographs, and the statement is printed on the screen; the learner chooses the photograph that the speaker described. In another variation, the learner completes a textual description of a photograph.
Grammar lessons cover grammatical tense and grammatical mood. In grammar lessons, the program firstly shows the learner several examples of a grammatical concept, and in some levels, the word or words the learner should focus on are highlighted. Then the learner is given a sentence with several options for a word or phrase, and the learner chooses the correct option.
The program immediately informs the learner whether the answer is right or wrong. Through the Preferences screen, the learner can choose whether a sound is played or not when an answer is clicked. At the bottom of the window, the program shows all the screens for the current lesson. If all answers for that screen are correct, the button for that screen turns green. If some answers are correct, the border of the button turns green, but the screen number itself turns orange. If all answers for a screen are wrong, the button turns orange. This applies to all lessons except review and Milestone lessons, which are treated as tests. In those lessons, the buttons for each screen all remain clear. In all lessons, there is a button that can be hovered over to display how many answers are correct, incorrect, or have not been answered. Each time an answer is clicked, one point is given. At the end of the lesson, the total number of correct, wrong or skipped answers is shown alongside the percentage of correct answers for that lesson. If too many questions were answered incorrectly, the program suggests the learner should retry the lesson.
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