This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.
12 FREE Manee books online…
When you get over your fear of Thai script and start learning to read, the Manee books (sometimes spelt Maanii) are often recommended. Long discontinued, the Manee books were written back in the late ’70’s by รัชนี ศรีไพรวรรณ (Ratchanee Sripaiwan) with a team from the Thai Ministry of Education. And while Thais over 30 benefited directly from Manee, if the subject of learning to read Thai comes up most any Thai will fondly mention the books.
“SEAsite: Maanii lessons were designed and written to use as a reading primer for beginners of the Thai Language. The stories depict the lives of a young girl named Maanii, her parents, elder brother, relatives, friends, and their pets…
Because these lessons are “authentic” – written by Thais for educating Thai kids, the aim of the books is two-fold: to teach literacy in Thai and to inculcate traditional Thai cultural values, i.e., a Thai identity: obedience to elders, respect for authority, politeness in speech, dress and social behavior, and basic Buddhist teachings such as generosity and gratitude.
As time passes and Thailand evolves into a more inclusive, multi-cultural society, these traditional values will evolve and expand as well. As such, “Maanii” preserves a picture of the idealized past.”
Along with a ton of other learning Thai materials, last year I downloaded the 12 10 Manee books from Karn.tv. After, I added Karn.tv to WLT’s FREE Thai language learning resources page.
This week I was totally chuffed to find all 12 Manee books on Thailand’s National Digital Library Network. If you have the time, poke around the other interesting information on that site. Yeah… time…
You can download all 12 Manee books from Dropbox here: Thai Language Textbook 1978 Curriculum: Grades 1-6, books 1 & 2.
However, you should note that some words on Manee books are already outdated. If learning new words is your goal, check out these free sources.
More Manee/Maanii around the Internet…
No longer used in government schools in Thailand, over the past couple of years courses created from the first two Manee books have been appearing around the Internet.
Latest in the Manee brigade are two posts from Let’s Talk Thai: Translating Manee: Part 1 and Translating Manee: Part 2. Even starting at book 2 as he’s proposing, it is time well-spent.
Learningthai.com (offline for now) has 22 lessons with sound, a vocabulary list, flashcards, tests and more tests at Learn to Read Thai with Manee and Friends. They also have Aorn and Ae digitized.
The largest collection of Manee lessons are at SEAsite. They’ve created 40 lessons from Maanii Book I and 2 , with a Maanii as an adult version as well. There are 22 lessons for Book I and 18 for Book 2. All come with sound, flashcards, readers with sound and word frequency lists.
The site is dreadful to use but it’s a megga fine resource, so fingers crossed they can locate a generous volunteer to help update the materials.
Easier to use are SEAsite’ Maanii lessons on iTunes: Pod Thai – Maanii I and Pod Thai – Maanii II.
So there you go. Manee, and even more Maanii.
The audio for the first 2 books is fantastic, was able to study it with ease plugging it in Workaudiobook (nothing wrong with seasite.niu except if you’re a graphics designer in 2021).
I won’t work with materials that don’t have audio though – one of the realizations on my long road with studying many languages. Any chance anyone knows if audio even exists for the latter books? Should I invest the time to endlessly hunt across the interwebs? :))
Hi Gary, the issu linked still works (I was able to access it) but it’s a pain to download the books so I’ve coded in my DropBox link instead.
They only have the first three Manee reprints for sale (the third one just came out). I have the first two and ordered the third but it never arrived.
Catherine,
I did notice that mine were the first comments on this topic since 2012 so things have probably changed in that time. I was able to successfully download all 12 volumes from another excellent learning resource I believe you have linked elsewhere on this sight. http://letstalkthai.com/
Catherine
I think I spoke too soon. The two links you have for downloading the Manee books don’t really work now (at least for me). The first link , dlib.in.th only allows them to be read within the current browser, not downloaded that I can see. The second “Update: times change. from app.box.com first prompts for an account login, so I create an account but once I creat the account it takes me to my account home page with the error: “You cannot perform this action”
I can sort of get along with the browser version, I will just need to create links but it would be nice to be able to download the pdf’s. I’ll keep trying and will update if successful.
Catherine
I am very happy to see that you have the Manee books for download. We are using them as excellent aids in learning Thai writing in my Thai language class. Does the website sell, or you know a decent source where I can get the hard copy books? There is a bookstore in Bangkok near the Victory monument that sells at least the first three. I have them on order from their website. The books themselves are really inexpensive, 90-120 baht but shipping is more than the cost of the books even for “ground” which so far is a month.
On issuu.com there’s a download button. Just look for the box with the arrow pointing down. On horhook.com you click in the acrobat icon for each book.
i tried to download the manee lessons but i could not. please tell me how to download the loessons or please send those to my email.
Good to know Hugh. It’d be useful to have the rest of these books online, similar to what’s at seasite.
I am interested in the Manee and Mana books because my children used these when they started school. So it was nice to see them again after all these years. I have been looking through the Pratom 4 book and see some interesting things there. For one, the language is normal conversational language, not the more esoteric written Thai that one encounters in other books. And another thing is the way new vocabulary is introduced and then appears again and again to reinforce it. Lots of good thinking was done in the writing of these. Probably best of all, they are fun to read.
Hah! I will… I will… and I am 😀
Get off your iPhone Catherine and enjoy your holiday! 😉
Hi Kris, thanks for giving a better explanation of the tone rules. I’m on vacation and attempted to type that out on an iPhone. What fun 🙂
Hi milton.
ฝ is a high class consonant. It’s followed by a hidden ะ. ร is a sonorant. In case a high class consonant is followed by a hidden ะ and a sonorant, the tone of the first syllable (ฝะ) is low and the tone of the second syllable (รั่ง) is determined by the initial high class consonant (ฝ) instead of the second consonant(ร). HIGH CLASS CONSONANT + MAI EEK = LOW TONE
The maanii books on seasite together with David smyth’s “Teach yourself Thai” is how I started with studying Thai. I never knew where to download the whole series. Thanks a lot Catherine.
Simon, thanks for clearing that up. Downloading is slow in Thailand, so it’s useful to know that Karn.tv is lacking in some materials (wasted time is wasted time). My next post is about Karn.tv so I’ll be sure to make a note of that issue.
I played around with Anki earlier and I’m still hoping to see how the iPhone version works. This weekend I’ll check out what you’ve uploaded (I’m running around this week).
Hi Claudio, agreed. Just what Doc Stu ordered 🙂
Milton, thanks! Rule: high class consonant (ฝ) followed by ไม้เอก (อ่) = low tone.
Glenn has a great page on tone rules here: http://www.thai-language.com/ref/tone-rules
Awesome! What a great resource. Thanks. At my stage in learning the language, this is just what I needed.
If you don’t mind, can I ask an off-topic question that’s been bothering me for a few days? (Feel free to delete this if you think it’s inappropriate).
Why is the second syllable in the word ฝรั่ง pronounced with a low tone? Since ร is low class and it has a ไม้เอก, shouldn’t it be pronounced with a falling tone?
Sorry, and thanks a million!
@Catherine: I downloaded the Manee books from Karn.TV a while back, some of the books are incomplete… this probably explains the smaller file sizes.
On another note, if any of your readers use Anki, I have shared a few decks for Manee.
You can download the deck by going to the File menu and select Download > Shared Deck… type “Thai” in the search window.
Just what the doctor (Stu Jay Raj) prescribed. Having all the links to the supporting material in one place is fabulous! Most valuable for any student of the Thai language. Book 1-1 is already downloaded and printed. Let the fun begin! Many thanks for yet another highly useful post!
Hi Paul. I checked and the Mannee books in this set total 366 mgs. Kinda odd, as the Manee set at Karn.TV only amount to 114.7 mgs. Ok, there are two exercise books missing (5 and 6) but it shouldn’t make that much of a difference.
Hi Cat, I downloaded Manee books a few years ago; they were a great help. I remember that they were huge files; it took a full day to download them because I only had a dodgy internet connection back then.
Hi Snap. Some Thai schools targeting expats continue to use the Manee books, so perhaps ask around?
I have one of the later sets. Equally great, and again, discontinued. I contacted the department of education about using them on WLT, but my request went into the gaping hole that attaches itself to most any bureaucratic body… you know how that goes…
Awk! I don’t remember the books I used in primary. But in my defence… my primary education was split across three countries (Japan, US, and New Zealand) and two states (California and Alaska), attending six (seven?) different schools in the process. And there lays my penchant for moving…
Catherine, I loved the one and only Manee book I downloaded. In conjuction with audio, practice sessions and match word games etc. I was actually retaining what I had learnt and could read the Thai script. Because it is designed for children (I guess), it introduces a little information (consonants, vowels, words) at a time, adding and building to what was previously learnt. I only made it to lesson 6 but plan to go back and start all over again and, this time, continue.
It makes me wonder what ever happened to the Dick and Dora books we used in primary school!