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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On a friend’s recommendation I picked up the book Bangkok 8 by author John Burdett. Set in Thailand, this murder mystery/thriller novel follows police detective and not-quite-ex-Buddhist monk Sonchai Jitpleecheep and his partner, Pichai, on a case to involving a U.S. Marine in Bangkok. They are just a little late in catching up to him, however, when he is found dead, being suffocated and poisoned by a car-full of snakes!

It might sound a bit far-fetched on the surface, but once you start reading you realize that it’s completely plausible in Burdett’s world and you absolutely will not be able to put the book down! With twists and turns at every corner, there is never a moment where you feel like you have the story figured out and have to drudge through the rest just to say you finished it. Nope… Burdett’s brilliant writing keeps you on your toes and wanting more.

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When preparing for travel abroad, it’s almost a no-brainer nowadays to find a travel guide to help you plan your trip and find the hidden gems your destination has to offer. Getting some tips on culture and language (if applicable) is certainly a plus, too.

The competition for creating “the” travel guide has certainly heated up as well. As the Internet gets larger the world gets smaller, and it seems that many more people are traveling to The Land of Smiles for an exotic getaway. As more and more travel guides get created, finding the right one becomes more of a challenge.

Well, I’m here to help. I’ve been grabbing up all of the Thailand travel guides I can find, and I plan on reviewing them all to help you cut through the clutter. The first one I’m reviewing is the Insight Guides Thailand travel book. This is a big book as far as travel guides is concerned. Just over 400 pages of information with glossy pages and color photographs, the authors definitely did not skimp on content. The guide starts off with some generalized information about Thailand: history, culture, religion, the arts, weather, cuisine, etc., and it was then – only about 30 pages in – when the bad taste in my mouth started…
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Industry-leaders Paiboon Publishing have teamed up with Word in the Hand, Inc. to create a software version of their highly-popular Thai-English English-Thai dictionary. It seemed only a matter of time before Paiboon would embrace the demand for Thai learning software applications and create a software dictionary.

I got a chance to put the dictionary through its paces. Though I didn’t have a specific set of criteria from which to judge whether or not it was a good product, I did use it during my normal study sessions to see how well it worked in a “real life” situation. Let’s take a quick tour of the dictionary’s features and see how well it works.

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The kind folks at Lanna Innovation sent me their latest product – Thai Consonant Flashcards to take a look at and comment on. In the Thai language-learning community there is plenty of room for new product growth. The problem is that the major players have such a firm grasp on the market in terms of what books you must have to learn, it can be difficult to break through with a new product and set yourself apart from the pack. (I have some product ideas in development as well, so I know this problem all too well.)

So the question is, can a company with a new product break through and make a mark in the learning community? More to the point, does the Learn Thai consonants flash cards set have what it takes to get added to the list? Let’s find out…
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Thailand (Culture Smart Book Series)

I have a disease. I don’t think there is a name for it in the medical journals, but I’m quite sure I’m not the only one who is afflicted. This disease only seems to manifest itself in music, office supply, and bookstores, so it’s no surprise that I had a symptom flareup during a recent trip to my local Barnes & Noble one night. I have come to affectionately call this disease “Too Many Books, Not Enough Time or Money Syndrome.” (TMBNETOMS for the acronymally-unhindered.)

So it will come as no surprise to tell you that I was hanging out in the bookstore recently and came across a little gem of a travel book about Thailand called Thailand – Culture Smart.

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