Linguaphone

[whitespider 1]

Does anyone have the up to date Thai Linguaphone course? I would like to buy or borrow/hire one

 

I am looking for the CD NEW version (tonal one).

 

The current CD course price is around £279 and the cassette version around £230 - although for anyone interested, Linguaphone have an e-shop on ebay (uk) where they sell the cassette version for £140.

 

If anyone does have a CD version surplus to requirements please let me know by PM.

 

Also any comments about how useful it was would be appreciated.

 

 

 

Thanks

[kesam1 0]

Would be interested in this aswell I am currently doing the linguaphone pdq course but would like to take it further.

Edited September 15, 2006 by kesam1

[PhillipUK 0]

Guys

 

I bought PDQ before my first trip to Thailand and thought i had nailed it PDG (pretty darn good). However on arrival and speaking to Thai people I was getting some POL (pretty odd looks) and no one seem to understand what the hell I was on about. I played the CDs for my TG and she just laughed and stated that Thai poeple do not talk like that and that is why no one could understand me. Grammatically it's correct but it's almost too correct!!

 

There are better and cheaper courses.

 

You could try

 

Thai for beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker.

 

She is one of Thailand's leading teachers and currently I am about 2/3 of the way through this course. It teaches the language the correct way by focusing on reading and writing as well as speaking the language. Much more realistic than Linguaphone. It comes with CD's of the text. I think I paid just over 3000 baht in Asia books or maybe the bookstore on the 7th floor MBK, one of the two.

 

If you don't want to learn to read and write, there is a shareware course online

 

Thai Trainer by Wattana

 

Link Thai Trainer

 

Open the Webpage ; click on Applications/utilities and then scroll down to Thai trainer. Click on the download and this will take you to the download page. Click on the english flag and then download Thai 1.exe and try it out!

 

This is by far the best course I have ever used to learn to speak Thai. There are 90 lessons and if you go through them all you will be able to hold your own in a conversation. Cost of this as I recall is about £47.20. The first 5 lessons are free as well for you to try it before you buy.

 

This is the one I used first and I am yet to find one better.

 

As you can see both are much cheaper than Linguaphone and in my opinion are far superior in content. They teach you to speak as the Thai's speak and not as an english speaking tourist would.

 

I have to stress that I do not receive any form of payment for advertising either of these courses. They are just the ones that I have found most useful and am happy to recommend. I speak Thai fairly well now and that is thanks to these two courses.

 

get a better course at a cheaper price. Thats what I would recommend.

 

Cheers

Phillip

Edited September 20, 2006 by PhillipUK

[whitespider 1]

Hi Phillip

 

Thanks for great info. I had heard this elsewhere but had been told that the "latest" linguaphone course WAS correctly spoken in that they had added several different dialect/tonal examples inot the CDs.

 

Was the one you played to your GF the new one or the old one - if you know?

 

Thanks

Andy

[PhillipUK 0]

Was the one you played to your GF the new one or the old one - if you know?

 

Thanks

Andy

 

Hi Andy

 

I think the one I played to her was the old version. However it's not the tonal element she was laughing at. It was the emphasis on correct grammer. Using too many words when a couple would do.

 

I wouldn't have thought that they had changed this element of the course that much, but not knowing the new version I cant say.

 

I would be reluctant to spend that knid of money though on an unknown product, when there are cheaper and in my opinion and my TGs opinion better options available.

 

However if you do get hold of the Linguaphone new version, let us know how you get on!

 

Cheers

Phillip

[kesam1 0]

I have to say that working through the PDQ I was thinking this is different to the little bit of what I learned in Pattaya. And you have hit the nail on the head. Its just to correct and way to polite. Trying the Rossetta Stone version now that seems a little better but the Thai Trainer software does look good.

Anybody else got opinions on Rossetta programme

[whitespider 1]

Phillip

 

Thanks for everything - I have tried the Tha Trainer and it seems really good at the price.

 

Andy

[MrMango 667]

Has anyone seen this software for sale at Tukcom? I might want to try it out.

[avz349 0]

have to say that working through the PDQ I was thinking this is different to the little bit of what I learned in Pattaya. And you have hit the nail on the head. Its just to correct and way to polite. Trying the Rossetta Stone version now that seems a little better but the Thai Trainer software does look good.

Anybody else got opinions on Rossetta programm

e

 

The Rossetta Stone program is OK at best. It is probably better if you know some Thai already. It does not have a translation of what you are learning which I found confusing. If you are a decent test taker you can easily pass the quizzes but still won't be able to speak worth a damn. In addition it is expensive.

 

I have found Becker's book to be the most helpful although it has some faults too.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

Allen

Edited September 23, 2006 by avz349

[PhillipUK 0]

I have found Becker's book to be the most helpful although it has some faults too.

Regards,

Allen

 

I agree Allen and it is handy if you already know a bit of Thai before starting on Beckers book. Thats why for those just wanting to have conversations in Thai, "Thai trainer" in my opinion is the best place to start. And it's cheap!!

[hybrid 1]

not that i condone any form of piracy .. (how many video was it i bought on beach road on my last trip )

but being thailand no one seems to care about copyright all that much

 

 

if you were to do a bit torrent search on

http://www.torrentspy.com/search?query=linguaphone

there are links to 2 versions on it for you ..

Edited September 29, 2006 by hybrid