This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.
Karn.TV: Education media for Thai kids… and me…
Karn.TV is a fun educational site for Thai kids. It has lessons for maths, science, art, music, crafts, pets, English and Thai.
In the art section you can paint and learn how to draw (funny sounds are included). In the science section you are encouraged to play with fire. A multimedia section touches on a range of subjects, and in the article section I found one advising me to eat more fish to alleviate a short attention span. I’ll take note of that.
All through the site are learning games to play and lessons to download, but my main interest is in the 140 mgs worth of free Thai reading and writing materials to download . And as I mentioned before, a set of Manee books are included.
Note: The Manee exercise books for 5 and 6 are not available, and I’ve been informed that there are pages missing from the books that you can download. So it’d be wise to grab the full set from the Thailand’s National Digital Library Network mentioned in my previous post, Download 12 FREE Manee Books. But the other downloads are useful…
Web: Karn.tv
Twitter: @karntv
Thai downloads: Karn.tv/thai
I hope it helps! A chunk is for Thai kids learning English, but not all.
Great resource for my son, too. Since we’re living in America at the moment and he gets only once a week formal Thai learning, anything to get Aidan to learn more Thai is beneficial. Thanks for this I’ll have my husband fully read it.
And there aren’t enough learning games for Thai…
Cat, this is right up my alley…learning games always make things more fun and interesting .
Hi Martyn, I enjoy knowing that you’ve been here, but I have selfish reasons for wanting you back home. Once back, we get to hear about all your Thai adventures (I’m still on the lookout for my very own scarecrow – my Thai friends are even looking).
I so agree about the kids stuff. Some of the kids materials are way slow but… so is learning Thai at times. You pound, you pound, you pound away. Then one day you are fluent.
I sort of live by the philosophy that if one throws enough stuff against a wall, some of it will stick. So I’ll keep throwing this stuff out there, and we can all pray that some will pound into our heads.
Catherine anything which is useful for Thai kids to learn their own language is also a great tool for many of us trying to grasp the basics of the Thai lingo. Having been away in Thailand for the first 12 days of the month and having returned to the UK now, I have all of my monthly internet usage still available to me. I’ll use some of that on downloading the 12 free Manee books.
Paul, do you have the Thai alphabet song CD’s? They are great fun (even for adults). When my son was little, he learned most of what he needed to know by singing (our home phone number, address, the alphabet, etc).
Hi Cat, he turned three a couple of months ago. We plan for him to go to school next May. He can already read ABC but struggles with his Gaw Gai.
Lani, the Manee books are a fabulous resource. It’s a pity that only the first two books have online sound, games, exercises and such.
Btw – if you are looking around for a complete experience, you can’t go wrong with TCU’s Open Thai Courseware. I was looking at the pdf’s I downloaded (around 170 mgs) just recently. The pdf’s have sound embedded so you can still study without being connected to the internet (great if you are on holiday yet still want to keep up with your homework).
This looks really great and is at my level of Thai 😉 Thanks for sharing this valuable resource. I can’t wait to learn how to read and write. The Manee series (from what little experience I have) looks to be really great. I saw Manee postcards at the market the other day. . .
Good idea Paul (it’s one of the better designed sites for Thai kids). What age is your son? He’s quite little isn’t he?
The downloads also have a handful of vocabulary pdfs that I’m interested in. I plan on dropping them into my vocabulary excel sheet to see how both resources measure up.
I will probably bookmark this one Cat. I think it could be useful for my son. He is a bit obsessed with the computer at the moment. My wife and I are working hard to prepare him fur anuban, For some reason he seems to be doing a lot better at English than Thai – just like his dad 🙂