Jim Damico, 126 TCCS

You just got to site and are not sure where to continue with your Thai lessons. Or its been a year and you’ve kind of slipped a little down with your Thai fluency because you’re speaking English all the time. The IRC (Information Resource Center), or more commonly known as the ‘lounge’ at PC in Bangkok has a ton of great resources any PCV can use. And you don’t even have to come to Bangkok to get them (PC staff can mail them to you). But if you’re down here, you should definitely check it out.

Probably the top of my Thai book list is “Thai for Beginners” by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. The IRC has both the books and the CDs that go with them. There are even three levels, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Other good books for those wishing to continue your Thai studies are “Learning Thai: a short-cut to mastering Thai” by Thanapol Chadchaidee and Sam Sackett. and “Teach Yourself Thai” by David Smyth who also wrote “Thai: An Essential Grammar”.

For those wanting to dive into learning to read and write Thai, the IRC has got a lot of useful items there too. I just started using “Reading and Writing Thai” by Somsonge Burusphat. And you know all those follow-the-dots handwriting books you see at the market, well the IRC has a ton of them you could copy so don’t buy any.

Besides all the Peace Corps Thailand workbooks you heard about in PST, there are few others in the IRC that might come in handy like the “Language Workbook in Technical CBC – AIDS”, the “Environmental Dictionary” and the “Dictionary for Agricultural Volunteers”.

For those looking for even more, there is an English-Hmong “Picture Dictionary” and a book on learning Lao (with CDs).

For all of these resources, there is a “Thai Language” section near the top on the back wall.

If you’re looking for more “online” resources, be sure to check out the Language Resources on the wiki: 

https://sites.google.com/site/pcthailandwiki2/thailand-info/thai-language/online-learning-resources