Thai "Talking Dictionary"?
My Thai boyfriend has a "Talking Dictionary". It's an electronic gadget which opens up to be a bit smaller than a paper back book. He can type in words in Thai or English and it will translate them on screen and speak them in English. Although we can usually communicate with no problem the device has been very useful for telephone calls. As he's been so ill and I've been anxious to get as much information as possible the device has been excellent for him to translate medical names and terms etc which he just wouldn't know the English for. He can also type in whole phrases in Thai which the Dictionary will translate and he can then copy from the screen and send as a text message. The result can be a bit garbled but I can usually get the gist.
It's been a great help but it only speaks English. I'd love an equivalent device that would allow me to hear Thai translations of words spoken. Does anybody know if such a thing exists?
I can imagine that an electronic voice might not be ideal for a tonal language like Thai so perhaps it's not been done.
I do have a CD ROM that has a section in a language course where you can click on symbols and hear words spoken by a native Thai speaker but the range of words is very limited and it's of little use.
My Thai just doesn't improve much when I'm not in Thailand. Unfortunately my boyfriend is not very good at teaching me as, like many Thais, he doesn't fully understand what it is about words that Farang find so tricky i.e. the tones. He's just not aware of them any more than a Western speaker is aware of the use of intonation in English. Teaching him English is fun and he continues to improve but I usually find that at the end of a visit I've not learned much more Thai at all.
