Giveaway: Reading Thai + Reading Thai Words and Sentences

Giveaway: Reading Thai + Reading Thai Words and Sentences

This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.

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Giveaway: Reading Thai + Reading Thai Words and Sentences…

This giveaway is not going how I’d planned. Apologies, but getting sick right after landing back in Thailand totally messed up my intentions. So I now need to be creative or these free codes will be lost forever. That’s right. Promotional codes have an expiration date and these die on the 21st. Possibly.

So this is what I’m going to do…

There are two different apps (Reading Thai + Reading Thai Words and Sentences) and I have three apps each to giveaway. In the last giveaway we met up with students who seriously want to learn Thai… and since the time is short short…. drum roll…

The winners are: Paul Ellis, Keith Williams, and Mary.

Note to winners: An email is on the way so please collect your app asap! And if you already have a copy then let me know in as short a time as possible as well.

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Note to the rest of the world: If for some reason one of the three does not get back to me within a reasonable asap I will gift the set to whoever says ‘hey’ in the comments. And I’ll need a ‘hey’ somewhere in there because I’ll asap need to know who’s on the market for these apps.

Reading Thai: iPhone iPod app…

Reading ThaiReading
Price: US$4.99 | £2.99
Author: Nagaraja Rivers
Date: Updated 02 June 2011
Version: 1.3
Internet connection required: No
Word count: Alphabet + 350 words
Thai script: Yes
Tone tips: Yes
Zoom: Not needed
Sound: Yes
Quiz: No

Reading Thai is one of the very top iPhone apps for just that. It has clear sound files (needed for learning the Thai alphabet). And while it doesn’t have a quiz you can easily fake it by guessing the sound before pushing the button.

I won’t write a complete review in this post because the deed is already done: Win the TOP Reading Thai Alphabet iPhone App. Ah. And I see that I’m apologising in that post too.

Reading Thai words and sentences: iPhone iPod app…

Reading ThaiReading Thai - Words & Sentences - Nagaraja Rivers
Price: US$4.99 | £2.99
Author: Nagaraja Rivers
Date: 22 June 2011
Version: 1.1
Internet connection required: No
Word count: Alphabet + 200 common words
Thai script: Yes
Tone tips: Yes
Zoom: Not needed
Sound: Yes
Quiz: No

Description: If you’ve been learning the Thai alphabet, this app will take your reading ability to the next level. Practice reading Thai words and sentences in the Thai script. Check your reading and comprehension by tapping to reveal the Romanization and English translation for each sentence or set of vocabulary words. Listen to the audio of each sentence spoken slowly so you can clearly hear each word and follow the Thai writing.

If you are new to the Thai script, a review of the 44 consonants of the Thai alphabet has also been included.

While I do have this app, I haven’t reviewed it yet but Richard Barrow has a review here: Reading Thai – Words & Sentences for the iPhone (no longer online).

Note to self: Do a proper review of Reading Thai Words and Sentences (it’s in the works, just needs to see the light of day).

More iPhone iPod iPad stuff you should know…

Even though these have not been revamped for the iPad (yet), they will still work seamlessly. Trust me on this. And more. I always like more.

Anyway, congrats to winners everywhere!

25 thoughts on “Giveaway: Reading Thai + Reading Thai Words and Sentences”

  1. @Keith – gotcha. Makes sense. Thanks for walking me through that. I’m percolating on it. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Josh, That is exactly what I meant. Small manageable doses, in graded progression and an analysis following, so that you can work at it yourself and afterwards read where you went wrong! Add in a sound file 😉 and it would achieve total perfection! Thank you

    Reply
  3. @Keith – I think I understand what you mean. If Cat, doesn’t mind, I would like to give you a link to a post on my site. I know you don’t like the Manee content, but I’m wondering if the format is more akin to what you are looking for.

    http://letstalkthai.com/2010/09/08/translating-manee-part-2/

    The idea is to provide the full Thai text, and then have the text broken down, translated, and then grammar points are given to help explain context. If the actual content itself was more in line with your age and/or interests, would the format be in the right direction?

    Reply
  4. How fun! Photography lessons are great. I went through a series of those myself several years back and need a refresher. I’ve gotten terrible lazy. And no, PS is not a camera store 🙂

    Reply
  5. Cat, Oh cameras! I decided on my first visit to LOS in February, to buy a super duper new DSLR camera. So I have some beautiful out of focus photos of flowers, one or two “accidental” snaps that I am still trying to identify and an excellent photo of my bathroom door, slightly ajar and at a 30 degree angle. So my time recently has been filled with Thai and camera lessons. I have just realised that Photoshop is not a camera store

    Reply
  6. Keith, on the subject of your camera… have you taken off into the Thai countryside? I go at least twice a month when I’m here. I keep finding more subjects that I absolutely must photograph… most in the hopes of writing a post (I learn more than way). I mean, did you know that there’s a Wat with Doraemons hidden in the murals? After I found I just had to see. And snap.

    Michel, Paul and Mary emailed. Maybe next time? There will be more coming. Promise. All good!

    Reply
  7. Sorry…forget to say that I have already Reading Thai. It’s a great software!..So my interest is only for Reading Thai words and sentences: iPhone iPod app…

    Reply
  8. Catherine,

    The other day I read that Hugh had produced some material on that so I set off to have a look. But butterfly mind, I got stuck reading some of his articles then across onto things he had written on here and spent an extremely interesting hour or two reading about Pali and Sanskrit roots and all sorts of other stuff but never quite made it to what I was looking for. So much to learn, so little time… That’s when I thought I would have a go myself, just for fun really. I have a super camera but there are only so many pics you can take of me cuddling a baby tiger, friends standing over looking the sea, street stalls etc.

    Reply
  9. Oh I’ve just realised that part of what I wrote could be badly misinterpreted. The comment about current affairs for thickies was not meant in any way at all to be insulting to anybody apart from myself or to suggest anything about the writing except to say it is accessible even to me. I meant to say something along the lines of current affairs at a level that even I can understand. Hope my comments did not cause offence anywhere, if they did I unreservedly apologise. I sometimes wonder if what I really need is lessons in writing English…

    Reply
  10. Josh,

    That is the million dollar question. It is easy for me to complain but when it comes to suggesting an answer…

    OK I have given a bit of thought to this and one of the problems I see is that at my current level, I am progressing every week so the material would need to be constantly evolving to be useful to me. Which is of course a commercial nightmare. So what I would really like, if there were no limitations of cost etc would be a largish archive of smallish texts. The sorts of things I had thought would be very much along the lines of the things I see here. Current affairs for thickies, Snippets about Thai culture, history, customs. If someone is learning Thai, they have an obvious love of Thailand (I assume) My teacher recommended to me that I should read an article on here about เกรงใจ It was absolutely fascinating, though to get the understanding from it, it had to be in English of course. A short article/piece just a few sentences long – very brief, but in simple Thai about topics like that would be ideal. Maybe that would be at the more intermediate end of the spectrum. I was over the moon yesterday to receive an email, very brief, totally in Thai from the friend of a friend and I could read it. It was witten fairly formally, all the poms and kuns in there, which gave me recognisable markers, then the simple words chawp and ja and so on leaving only 4 or five unknowns, a couple of which could be guessed at, so 2 or 3 left for dictionary look up. Little brief thumbnail pieces about different places – Chiang Mai, Surin, The South etc. Thumbnail word sketches of events or people in Thai history. Even, and I never ever imagined I’d say this, something like karaoke stuff, you know a YouTube video of a song in Thai with the words printed staticly. Don’t think that would work though as the language of songs tends to be non standard. Short extracts from not too difficult books. I was going to say adult books, but that has different connotations. Doctored well to bring the reading age down. Travel tips perhaps. Unfortunately, Winnie the Pooh does seem to be about the right technical level, but not the best content! I also do feel rather silly reading it! Perhaps I need to scan it and read it on my kindle! One of the things I plan on my upcoming trip is to take hundreds of photos of street signs, posters etc. But of course these aren’t continuous text. The keys are, I suppose, accessible, challenging, brief enough to be non-threatening but long enough to be “useful” On the second day, I’d like a winning lottery ticket…

    I think a lot of my holiday might be spent in bookshops!

    Reply
  11. @Keith – Just curious, but what kind of reading materials (given your current level of Thai, age, and interests) would you like to have available?

    Reply
  12. Emil, “I love that you have html functionality in your comments” you can thank Justin Tadlock for that. He designed this theme with all sorts of niceness and I haven’t felt an urge to move on to others less kind.

    Keith, I’m having the same problem with finding Thai reading materials to interest me (I’ve never managed to wade through all of the Manee series either). In fact, this post was supposed to be tagged to the Tadoku Challenge along with others. I was going to create lists of other researched resources to help with reading. Like, books. But my week did not go as planned.

    Btw: On Monday I was at the airport. There I found a book that might do for when I finally get around to that post: The Greatest Stories Never Told. It’s been translated to Thai from the original English book so I’ve ordered the English version from amazon. It’s a good choice because the subjects are short but interesting. Ok, not beginners but… the style is something to look out for.

    Reply
  13. There is definitely a gap in the market here. Or at least in terms of what I have been able to find. I looked at the Tadoku Challenge thought – yes that’s the way to go. But there is only so much มานี Maanii that you can read, easy reader Aesop’s fables are a bit complex in some ways with some rather “out of the mainstream” language, and Winnie the Pooh is not always the most gripping of tales for a 60+ year old. I am only a beginner, but am hungry for more reading material. I was quite excited this morning to receive a shortish email message from an acquaintance in Thailand. I copied it out in larger print scanned the two lines and picked out lots of words I recognised, mostly Chan, Kun etc then getting from them some more syllable boundaries, could see ja and chawp – It was all falling into place. Couple of words could be easily guessed from context and only a couple needed to be looked up. The pleasure and reward from being able to read a couple of sentences! OK if I was living in Thailand, I could find more in bookshops and could have a go at the sign typefaces etc.

    That is where these apps really come into their own, nice simple stuff that a beginner can build confidence on. Believe me, struggling over Winnie the Pooh really does not motivate an old man too much and I am really hungry to learn and improve. I am lucky in having a teacher who encourages me to experiment and explore, but these good quality back up and extension resources are a godsend but seemingly rare

    Reply
  14. unrelated nerd-talk but…

    I just realised that the ‘obligatory hey’ disappeared from the top of my last post. Serves me right for enclosing it within triangular brackets. I love that you have html functionality in your comments 🙂

    Reply
  15. Keith, thanks for the wonderful review! I also prefer apps without transliteration or apps that give you a choice.

    Emil, yes, Xmas! I like 🙂 Thanks for stopping by to share your views (they are needed).

    And I agree that there is a growing amount of apps for the Thai learning market but very few are worthwhile. Perhaps only two to three in each section stand out. IMHO, obviously.

    Btw: I have an updated review of for both iPad (coming first) and iPhone/iPod (arriving second) in the works. Life keeps getting in the way but not for long.

    Reply
  16. <>

    Another competition already, eh? Must be Christmas in July 🙂

    Anyway, just wanted to drop in and say I’ve purchased the Reading Thai app previously and highly recommend it. The volume is a little low but the layout, usability and, in particular, colouring of different classes easily outweigh that issue. Nice to know there is a more advanced app out now too.

    It’s getting difficult to keep up with all the releases these days 🙂

    Reply
  17. I have not used these apps enough yet to write a proper review, in any case one has already been written (see link above) But I have played with them an can give a few first impressions.

    I am a beginner in Thai, having had a couple of months or so of lessons so aids like this are extremely useful to me. I also ought to add that being in my 60s I do find that some aspects of learning do take much longer than they used to. Whilst I am developing my reading and writing skills, I still keep coming up against problems. Confusing certain letters – eg ภ and ถ recognising and pronouncing certain complex vowels and so on. I have tried flash cards but they don’t really work for me. I really need the multisensory input. The Reading Thai app will certainly provide that for me. I know where my sticking points are and the simple intuitive interface enables easy rapid repetition. A couple of minutes a few times a day should get them fixed inside my skull. It’s the repetition on a number of days that does it, along with copying them out to get the kinaesthetic aspect of learning going.

    I have so far only hit one problem with the app, when in the single vowel mode, the control buttons are right at the bottom of the screen and it sometimes takes a few taps to get them to respond. Mind you that could just as easily be due to fat fingers and failing eyesight!

    The Reading Thai Words and Sentences app is interesting. I am not sure how the sentences to include were chosen. However, this is not intended to be a talking phrase book, nor a dictionary. The vocabulary is wide and common words that you will use a lot.

    What I really do like is that the Thai sentence is clearly written in large writing and the transliteration and translation are hidden, so they do not interfere. Press the play button and the sentence is read out loud. You have to focus on the writing whilst listening to the speech. Much much better than having the romanisation and English there to distract. The range of vocabulary covered is quite large and is listed at the beginning of each section so you can get to recognise and read those words before starting on the sentences.

    Well thought out apps both of them. I know that they are going to get a lot of use from me. Thank you.

    Reply
  18. Keith, you are welcome 🙂 I know you’ve been studying the alphabet so hopefully these will help.

    Josh, excellent! I’ll be waiting on your thoughts.

    Reply
  19. Thank you!!

    I have downloaded them and just have to install them on my phone. I will let you know first impressions asap

    Thank you

    Keith

    Reply

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