Thai for beginners

Designed for beginners and for those who want to improve their basic Thai, this guide book teaches the language skills of speaking, reading, and writing. The first part of each lesson teaches vocabulary and sentence structure. A vocabulary list with Thai spelling, transliteration and definitions in English appears at the beginning of each chapter. The second part of each lesson teaches basic reading and writing of the Thai language. It provides a guided step by step introduction to the consonants, vowels, tone rules, and other features of the language.

Includes index.

Lesson 1. Greetings; polite particles; yes-no questions; personal pronouns; cardinal and ordinal numbers; the Thai writing system; consonant classes; determining tones in written Thai; middle consonants; long vowels; tone marks -- Lesson 2. 'bpen'; 'yùu' (to be); more vowels; live and dead syllables; tone rules for middle consonants -- Lesson 3. Colors; 'jà' (future tense); 'dâai' (can); more vowels; complex vowels; final consonants; seven vowels that change their forms; tone rules for middle consonants (cont.) -- Lesson 4. Telling time; high consonants; tone rules for high consonants -- Lesson 5. Days of the week; months; tone marks with high consonants; low consonants introduced -- Lesson 6. 'ao', 'yàak' (to want); 'gamlang' (to be ... ing); tone rules for low consonants -- Lesson 7. 'dâi-yin' (to hear); 'jam' (to remember); (to fall asleep); (to look); tone rules for low consonants (cont.) -- Lesson 8. Body parts; everyday life -- Lesson 9. Family and kinship terms; occupations; animals; other features of written Thai -- Lesson 10. Comparison; adjectives; classifiers -- Appendix I. Summary of the Thai writing system -- Appendix II. Test and writing exercise answers.