A.U.A. Language Center Thai Course: Book 1

By J. Marvin Brown

The set includes extensive grammar, dialogues, and conversations, as well as tone distinction, manipulation, and identification.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877275068
• ISBN13: 9780877275060
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Southeast Asia Program Publications
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.4" x 10.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Great for learning patterns and pronunciation

I started learning thai with the AUA series and have gone through the three books. All build on each other in an orderly fashion, you really have the choice of just focusing on speaking or you can incorporate the reading/writing too. The only negative is that the vocabulary is often times not as useful. "A cow is smaller than a water buffalo" I combined this series with the Colliquial Thai course and the combo addressed each others weaknesses.

If you want to learn thai, buy these books

I've been learning Thai on and off for a while now. When I was in Chiang Mai, I took courses at the AUA there (they were very good), and they roughly followed these books for the classes. From looking around both here and in Thailand, they are really the ONLY comprehensive set of books that teaches english speakers how to speak thai. I also believe that the few college courses in america that teach thai also use these books.The books were published a long time ago, but they still work fine. We had a laugh in book 2 during one of the exercises where they were arguing between 8 baht and 9 baht for a taxi ride (a.k.a. 18 cents or 20 cents nowadays) I started with book 2 because I was already partially conversational. The books include vocabular, tone exercises, dialog practices, reading for comprehension, and how to read and write the thai characters. Each book contains perhaps 20 lessons. The lessons are not especially subject oriented (i.e. chapter 8 foods), but rather they are more a progression of words and sentance structures that are used most frequently.Anyways, buy them, go to thailand and take the classes, have fun.

great course

I studied this couse while in Thailand and can attest to it's effectiveness. As there is only one other review I thought a second might be helpful to an aspiring Thai learner. This course is for serious students though. Expect to spend about 100 hours+ per book and cassette pack. By the way... you must study with the tapes. It starts out with subject matter a little less useful than a guidebook because it presupposes that you are in it for the long haul and will pay your dues in order to REALLY learn Thai! But like I said "you need the tapes!" so here are the addresses if you can't find them on the net:U.S.+CANADA SEAP Publications, East Hill Plaza, Ithaaca, NY 14850 AUSTRALIA+NEW ZEALAND MIP Publications P.O. Box 416 Chatswood N.S.W. 2057 AUSTRALIA and from all other places THAI STUDIES DEPT> AUA Language Center 179 Rajadamri rd Bangkok 10330 Thailand

A must for all potential learners of Thai language

This book is the first in a 6 book set that starts from very basic Thai right through to upper intermmediate/experienced. The major reasons that make this set of books the best I've seen and used are as follows: 1, very well structured logical progression. 2, Use of IPA phonetics 3, Use of Thai script from page one 4, Use of useful language (you can actually use it!) 5, Use of colloquial Thai (book 4 'Small Talk') 6, Use of many styles of hand written Thai and not only typed script. (very useful!)If you are looking for a book on Thai language this is definitely the book I would recommend. When I picked up this book I knewonly a couple of words in Thai, now I am quite fluent.