5 Good applications for learning Thai on your iPhone
As you know I don't have an iPhone mostly because if I did I would never get offline. But I know many of you do and luckily one good reader sent me in this list of apps you can buy and download to your iPhone that help you to learn Thai. Now I wasn't sure how to buy these iPhone apps but then MadCat sent me through the links, thanks mate.
Learn Thai Podcast - $197
The Learn Thai Podcast program is pretty good my mate bought it and showed it to me. It's not exactly the way I learned Thai but still it might just suit you. I don't think one program can suit everyone anyway. There is like 800 videos and if you work on it everyday is probably a year program to get you to speak Thai well.
Reading Thai - $4.99
Good reference and starting point in learning the letters, best feature is a good overview page of all consonants and their classes that you can refer while using other apps.
Talking Thai - $24.99
If you're starting out, this will be the best 25 bucks you can spend. In this app you can look up words by Thai, English or by phonetic sound marks. Moreover, the app has high-quality voice recordings of all the words so you can listen to the word as many times as you want. It also has 'spelling assistant', which breaks down the spelling of the word, explains how the tone of each syllable is defined, lets you search words-within-words (many complex words in Thai are made up of simpler words). It has a huge help section that covers Thai grammar rules and much more. If you have an i-Device, get this app instead of a language book and you can start deciphering Thai signs, text message girls and more just using this app.
ClickThai VocTrainer - $14.99
When you get serious about improving your Thai vocabulary and have a basic feel for how the Thai script works, this app will teach you over 5000 words in a game-like environment which will make you want to come back to it on every moment. Essentially, it asks random words from a pool of 100 words and presents you with multiple-choice options for answers. It can ask in either English (text), Thai (script) or Thai (audio). You need to answer the same word correct 12 times to show you've learned the word, then it gets replaced with a different word. It's very addictive and you'll have so much fun playing with this you won't even notice the time flying past and you mastering the language.
Thai for Beginners - $24.99
The book by the same title is considered one of the best Thai language books on the market and has been updated regularly; the app lives up to the reputation of the name. This app focuses more on conversation, phrases, full sentences and dialogue. As with ClickThai VocTrainer, this app has full voice-overs of all its content and multiple-choice test mode, including specialized tests to train you to hear the tones properly as well as tests on the alphabet itself which none of the other apps offer. For test modes, it offers 'Reading and Listening (Thai)' and 'Reading Only (Thai)' only, missing the 'Read English, pick correct Thai word' mode which ClickThai VocTrainer has.
You should do the same with webapps 🙂
I, myself, recently started to use memrise.com (http://www.memrise.com/topic/thai/)
What about Android?