foreign languages

This is the best Thai dictionary that I found anywhere. It has very readable print (both in English and in Thai). There are many wonderful features such as a section that shows the Thai letters in different print style -- VERY useful. There is a section that covers tones and examples of why they are important. The best feature is that there is a section for Thai script to English and a section for phonetic Thai transliteration to English. There is also a handy Thai alphabet at the bottom of the Thai scrit to English section for easy reference. The only thing that could be more useful is a wider range of vocabulary enteries. It's not ment for more than basic to eary intermediate vocabulary. Other than that I give it an A plus!

This is by far the most useful dictionary I have used while traveling in Thailand. Even if you know the Thai alphabet, the phonetic transliterations of Thai can be very helpful in real-time communication. The three sections (English-phonetic-Thai, phonetic-Thai-English, and Thai-phonetic-English) work well together to get you what you need. There are some handy extras: a section on the Thai writing system, a list of common classifiers, and a sampling of Thai fonts. Good study material for long bus rides!

I would recommend this book to people who want to speak Thai but don't know how to read and write it. This is because once you know the Thai alphabet, you can usually pronounce words the correct way by just looking at them. This is from my own personal experience. I wouldn't bother with this book because when I compared the written Thai word to the English phonetic or how my Thai teacher said the word, they were sometimes not the same pronunciation, but similar. And similar doesn't cut it when trying to speak this language because you could be saying something else ;) But honestly, it's pretty good for speakers and even the tone-deaf.