Read Thai in 10 Days

by Bingo Lingo

You want to read signs. You want to know what's on the menu. You want to feel independant living in Thailand. But you can't read Thai! Perhaps because the script looks too complex, or Thai people keep telling you how hard it is, or you don't want to spend months learning it.
Here's a challenge; what if I tell you that you can learn tp read Thai in just 10 days? With only a few hours a day for less than 2 weeks, you'll be able to decrypt the mystery of the curious Thai characters and start reading right away!! Still sceptical? Try it and see for yourself!!

Genres: Nonfiction, Language

176 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Sierra Takushi · Rating 5 out of 5]

ดีมาก !! So now I’m basically literate in the Thai language, and that’ll be my biggest flex of 2022.

Arthit Juyaso proved that you can grow attached to the author of a textbook…

I have so much praise for this book and for Juyaso’s effective and personable teaching style. Each chapter of this book was concise, encouraging, and provided creative & critical tips for reading Thai. Not only does Juyaso teach you how to read Thai, but his teaching also helps you speak and understand Thai!

[Cassandra]

A very useful introduction to and reference for learning Thai writing rules and structure. In my opinion, the ten days requires a lot of hours a day. I am not a rote memorization person, so I didn't want to spend the time to do the rote memorization required for each chapter/day to do the exercises. I just read through the book, which I think is efficient. The exercises have Thai but often no translations other than the sounds' transliterations. I prefer learning the vowels and consonants along with words that use them and building that way. But, having some idea of the structure allows me to learn faster and see more in each word.

If you work on all the exercises and try to memorize everything, then you should be able to sound out script at the end, but I doubt it will happen in ten days unless you already know much Thai or spend a lot of time each day.

The book is a very handy reference though! I really like the appendices and some of the lesson learning objectives.

[anh thư · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm learning Thai on my own and did not speak any Thai prior to learning to read. Some people may suggest learning basic conversation first, but I chose to start with learning the script. In doing so, I felt that I could quickly consult dictionaries and books without relying on transliteration, which frankly is super confusing to me. I'm really glad I found this book and gave it a try. In exactly 10 days, I managed to decipher most of the Thai script.

Days 1-5 are very simple. If you're a visual learner, I suggest inventing stories or associations for each letter in addition to rewriting them over and over. For example, my personal trick for พ: it looks like a paw and the sound is similar to "por" (just make sure to remember the circle on the correct side!)

Days 6-9: A lot of small details are presented with many exceptions. This is why after 10 days, I can read quite a bit of Thai (very slowly), but not everything. I haven't memorized all of these small details yet and frankly, I'm not sure I want to (it's rather daunting, maybe I'll eventually integrate them with constant exposure).

Day 10 is mostly a summary.

For Days 1-5, I liked how things were introduced in small bits. It made it possible to read and memorize the material in 1-3 hours every day. The author also provides some tips and tricks to memorize certain concepts. Personally, those were not always helpful for me. For example, there are some lenghthy passages on this "string theory" (cute name) to remember tones. I didn't really get that part to be honest. As a Vietnamese speaker, I instead relied on my own knowledge of tones and just learnt the rules by heart. But it's not to say that those tips and tricks won't help someone else and I appreciate that the author included them to cater to different types of learners.

I found Days 6-9 to be a bit rushed. For instance, we are told that there are different ways to read ร but we go over all those ways rather quickly with only a few examples for each. I actually would have preferred an entire day spent on just this, with many more examples.

Overall, I had a great time using this book/method. I can now read comments under youtube videos and short words here and there in movies, and look up words I don't know. I still find the stylized script difficult though.

For the audio, I just searched for "the name of the book + audio" online, no need to submit any forms.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are surprisingly few resources for learning the Thai alphabet compared to more popular languages like Japanese. This book is perfectly constructed for English speakers and it is clear that the author has a knack for effective pedagogy. I can safely say that after ten days I can read Thai in the sense that I can very, VERY slowly work out the sounds and tones, but as you should expect it will take much practice to be able to put sentences together quickly.

One minor issue: I read the book via the Kindle app on my IPhone and some of the symbols in text would occasionally just not display. There are images with the characters as well so this didn’t prevent me from seeing them, but there were some times where seeing the symbol was essential and for whatever reason it just wouldn’t display. Not sure if that’s an IPhone thing, or a my phone thing, but for myself I wish I had purchased the hard copy instead. Maybe I will, in case I need a refresher in the future.

TL;DR, apply yourself and this book will be very worth it.

[Red Deinla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice book. It approaches teaching the writing system differently than how Thai's might learn it. However, I found it incredibly amusing and helpful. I can basically read Thai now but I might approach it next with how Thai's learn how to read next to cement my skills.

[Daniel W · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very Good first Book. Although the title is patently false. After 10 days you can decipher Thai, not read.

[Shelby Nivi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ten days is a realistic expectation if you’re learning the alphabet full time. It took me about a month or two working only on weekends. But the method works! I can read Thai now

[Bai Bua · Rating 5 out of 5]

เป็นหนังสือที่ดีมาก อธิบายดีค่ะ

[Kai Ridenoure · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a godsend

[San · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you know absolutely nothing about thai, then this is the book where you begin!
It helped me so so much in the beginning and I really learned how to read thai quite fast. I really recommend it.

[Ka_nisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

อ่านเเล้วได้เทคนิคการจำหลักภาษาไทยใหม่ๆ ตามสไตล์ฝรั่ง