How shocking is it?

Spend any amount of time talking with someone who has been to Thailand, lived in Thailand, or read about Thailand, and chances are you will be inundated with warnings and stories about how completely 180-degree different Thai culture is to our own. For every person you find that loved it “over there” you will probably find at least five others that will find something about it to complain about. For some reason, Westerners think that everywhere they go should be set up specifically to accommodate their big, clumsy, foreign ways.

As with any trip abroad, good planning is essential. More so than just making sure you pack your underwear (yeah, I forgot to do that once) having at the very least a cursory understanding of what to expect from a cultural perspective is paramount. And so when I came across the book Culture Shock! Thailand: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to learn a little bit more about my wife’s homeland and the place that fascinates me so much.

But the question lingers: does the book provide enough information for us hulking, loud, sweaty farang to navigate through the murky canals and seedy side streets without losing ourselves?

Let’s find out…

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Learning Thai? What to Buy?

If you are serious about learning any trade, craft, or hobby, you will find that each endeavor usually requires a standard set of must-have items; whether they be tools, equipment, books, DVDs, etc… every pursuit contains certain essential items that those who came before you feel you simply cannot live without.

As I have now spent a fairly good amount of time in the Thai language learning community, I feel that I’m now in a place where I can pass on my recommendations to those who are just starting out on this wondrous journey.

Here is a list of the products, materials, and resources I recommend that you have at your disposal for learning Thai.

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I think I’m starting to sound like a broken record. I’m sure it will come as no shock to hear that the folks at Paiboon Publishing have, once again, set the standard for Thai language learning with the release of their Thai-English Talking dictionary for iPhone. Not content to rest on the success of their paper dictionary and PC software dictionary, PP’s addition to the ever-expanding list of Thai language iPhone apps proves once again how committed they are to putting out the highest quality products.

Okay, so I’m gushing a little bit, I admit. But you have to understand, I have about ten copies of their paper dictionary scattered throughout my house, car, and work backpack. It can be very tiring to have to look up every word I need a definition for (and I need a lot of them). With my iPod Touch, words come to me in a matter of a few seconds rather than minutes.

And so, I’m happy to offer this completely biased, fan-boy review of the Thai-English Talking Dictionary for iPhone.

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All pictures used with Permission, Lanna Innovation

Thai food is a very strong bonding element in Thai culture. So much activity revolves around food and food culture that I’m hard pressed to think of a more popular method of socialization. I cannot tell you the number of times my wife and her friends have gotten together and basically cooked the entire day; cooking, eating, talking… all day long. But it’s almost as if the actual eating part is secondary to the event of cooking. Doggy bags and Tupperware bowls are required items to bring along. One only has to go into any Asian market to see hundreds of variations of Thai spices and food from Thailand to realize just how serious they are about food. I’m honestly surprised that the Food or Travel channels haven’t spent more time in Thailand showing off the wonderful culinary delights.

Even several of our American friends have commented to my wife and I about how much they love Thai food, wish they knew how to cook it, and jump at the chance to come over and eat it when we’re making it. Though I am surprised that it took this long, it’s not terribly surprising that a company would take the angle of teaching Thai through food. Be that as it may, Lanna Innovation has one again, well, innovated, with their latest set of flash cards; this time focusing on everyone’s favorite Thai culture subject — food.

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Pimsleur Thai CD Audio Course

Pimsleur has been in the language-learning game for a long time. I remember learning Japanese by using their cassette tape language course. Thanks to the course I was able to navigate around Japan reasonably well on ten separate trips.

So you can imagine my pleasure when I received a copy or Pimsleur’s Thai course (CD Audio) to review for the blog. Arriving at my doorstep was a 16-CD audio package, and I couldn’t wait to dig in.

What was different this time was that I already have a fair bit of Thai under my belt. Unlike with the Japanese course, I can already read and write Thai well enough; though my speaking ability isn’t fantastic, I was very curious as to how this course would help me. Because of that I decided to look at the course from two perspectives — as both a beginner and low-intermediate student.

How did the course fair?

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I think y’all know by now that I’m a big fan of Paiboon Publishing, especially their transliteration system. I find theirs to be the best and most accurate system for romanization. Their dictionaries are great, their software dictionary is very nice, and they have a lot of products for all levels of Thai language learners. In a nutshell, it seems like just about everything Paiboon releases is of great value and high quality.

Their “Speak Like a Thai” series is something I have been keeping my eye on for a while but had not purchased until recently. I guess I figured that I already owned a ton of learning materials, so it was probably good to pace myself. But, curiosity always eventually gets the better of me and I broke down and purchased the first two audio CDs in the Speak Like a Thai series. The first volume – Contemporary Thai Expressions – is a collection of 500 miscellaneous (but common) phrases that you will hear when speaking with Thai people.

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Bangkok Day by Day

Trying to keep up with all of the Thailand travel guides can be tricky. It seems like a new one pops up every week. Thailand keeps getting more and more popular every year for foreign tourists, so it’s only fitting that new guides are coming out more frequently. Despite the political tensions, I see tourism in Thailand continuing to grow stronger and stronger for many years to come.

As the number of farang visiting The Land of Smiles increases, the need for accurate and reliable travel books becomes more important. The more travel books I read for this blog, the more I cherish what makes each book unique just as much as what “required” information each one contains.

I stumbled across Frommer’s Bangkok Day by Day while perusing the travel section of my local book store. It’s a relatively unassuming book considering it’s size (it’s small compared to most), but don’t let the size fool you. It literally gives meaning to the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

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A little while back I reviewed a certain Thailand travel guide that was less than stellar. In fact, the book pretty much pissed me off. You can read the review if you like (I’d certainly appreciate the page views), but all in all I wasn’t able to put my recommendation on it.

At the end of that review, however, I alluded to other books I would feel comfortable putting my name behind (for whatever that’s worth). Today I’d like to tell you about the travel guide I like the most. I read this book before my 2009 trip, lent it to my Mom before we went, and just gave my old copy to a friend who is planning on traveling with me to Thailand this year.

Since the first copy I bought they have gone through at least one revision, with another due to be released in August 2010. That they have gone through two revisions/updates in a year would normally seem suspect, but this guide is of such high quality I can only assume that they are adding information and detail rather than correcting mistakes.

I’m talking about the Eyewitness Travel Thailand guide by BK Publishing.

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Phrasebooks are something of a necessary evil when traveling to a new place for the first time. Especially when the native language of the country you are visiting isn’t based on Latin characters, it’s very important to have a backup plan to get you where you need to go and make communication easier.

I’m a little bit surprised that there aren’t more Thai phrasebooks on the market. Considering the complexity of the language for the lay visitor I would think there was a larger market. Perhaps there is in Europe; in the U.S., however, there don’t seem to be many available.

Given the dearth of phrasebooks that seem to available, I picked up “The Rough Guide Phrasebook – Thai” to see if it would be something I could recommend to people who are looking for a book they can bring with them.

A phrasebook should, obviously, make it very easy for a visitor to communicate with native speakers. Does this book live up to that expectation?
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A few months ago I reviewed a set of Thai consonant flash cards sent to me by Chiang Mai-based Lanna Innovation. The folks at LI were kind enough to send me their next set of flash cards, dealing with the Thai vowels.

As I recently mentioned in another post on vowel hacking, many students find vowels to be extremely hard to learn. What could be better than having a small set of flash cards to help you drill while you have an extra ten minutes?

I admit to having some reservations and slight objections to the consonant cards Lanna had produced, so when they sent me the vowel cards I was a little hesitant to look at them. Jeff from Lanna did an excellent job, however, of walking me through some of my concerns, so the question is whether or not the vowel cards can stand up to my concerns and be something I would recommend to my readers.
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