Thai dictionaries have come a long way since the time when I first started learning Thai about seventeen years ago. Back then, most Thai/English dictionaries in the shops were for Thai students. Not much good if you couldn’t read Thai. Luckily for us, there were a few dictionaries that also had romanization of the Thai words. However, they each used a different system of reading and also they weren’t very comprehensive. In addition, as Thai is a tonal language, there wasn’t any foolproof method of knowing whether you were pronouncing the words correctly or not. Since then, we have seen the release of a few talking dictionaries for the computer. Some better than others. Last year saw what I consider to be the best talking dictionary. And their free upgrade this week just made it even better.
The Three-Way Thai-English English-Thai Talking Dictionary can be used on both the PC Desktop and also the iPhone/iPad. I have been using copies of both. I particularly like the iPhone version as it means that you can easily look up new words while you are out and about. As it is a three way dictionary you can enter the words in English, Thai or even how the word sounds using English letters. Click on the Thai word to hear a native speaker. If you don’t like the Romanization system used by Paiboon (publisher of the popular Thai for Beginners series) then you have a choice of 11 other systems. The software is very versatile as you can do things like change the font size to make it bigger. They have even just done a major upgrade which takes the number of words from 40,000 to over 100,000.
Click here for more information about the PC Desktop version. Or visit my iPhone Blog for information on the iPhone/iPad version. Paiboon have just brought out an iPhone version of Thai for Beginners which I will be reviewing next week.
