Cracking Thai Fundamentals: A Thai Operating System for your Mind

Cons: First off, yes this book could have used a little "fine touch" editing, from a few sentence rewrites to a little better organization. Also note that this is not, and is not meant to be, your only Thai learner's book. You still need a more traditional source of some sort, along with vocal lessons. Other than that...Pros: This book delivers. It is an explosion of information on Thai and related eastern languages. The author will have you rethinking your native language, its pronunciation, and its orthography (spelling) in order to soften you up to learning Thai for what it really is, and not just trying to translate in your head.I speak three western languages but only one natively. I have significantly improved my non-native western languages by reading this book! And I'm not even half way done! The "lessons learned" are just so universal: Think about how a language really works and stop worrying so much about translation.There is no magic shortcut to learning a language. But this book can expand your horizons and enjoyment of the process enough to make it feel like a shortcut. I mean, who cares if the path is long if the scenery is really nice?Some who have been taught will less traditional approaches in the first place may find the book to be a little less enlightening. But I come from an old-school grammar and drill background, and I think anyone with that kind of background will agree on how much this book's "meta grammar" and practical prioritization can really help.You probably should look up Stuart Jay Raj's YouTube channel, etc., but I have not felt like the book "really goes with an online course". It stands well on its own.

This book is like a classroom lecture, which was refreshing. It's not like other Thai language books I've ordered; different, better in ways, but doesn't seem as well edited. This book feels like it could have been 50-100 pages shorter. That doesn't affect my 5-star rating. It's great for an Advanced Beginner (like myself) and I would consider it a good investment for almost any learner. $30 is a good price to get you some very valuable tips on learning Thai. It also got me to focus on learning Thai, which is worth a few dollars. I thought the organization was a little off, but, again, in the big scheme of things that means nothing. I'm not sure I would recommend this for someone with zero Thai knowledge; however, I would still say order the book and use with with another reference. The great thing about Stuart is he will get you to think linguistically, which was great. He can do things that my previous Thai teachers failed to grasp. Again, easily worth $30. For a backpacker, it's not the smallest book, and I might actually have to rip out about 50 pages when I travel instead of putting this book in my backpack. Nonetheless, it's so important to touch base on mouth position that anyone frustrated about speaking Thai needs to give this book a shot.

Very interesting book that have a different approach to understand the development and reason of the Thai ( and other Asian ) languages. I enjoy it though without the digital version you dont have the pronunciation so it might be better to get the digital copy, I wrote to the author a few days ago about it, asking if there's a way to find the audio files on line or to add the digital version for a discounted price so I may have an answer soon... This book will not teach you vocabulary so you need to learn from other sources along with it.

This book is very technical and lots of information. Since i'm in love with the language, i found this book very useful. the examples are easy to understand plus i do know how to use the IPA. this is really helpful for me.

This book was fascinating. Granted, I didn't always follow all of the details on the history of how a sound morphs over time, but the whole mouth map was very eye opening. I've never paid so much attention to the movements of my lips, tongue and throat before. I will definitely be rereading many parts of this book. A great addition to my resources while trying to learn Thai.

I bought this, despite the many negative reviews, because the author's YouTube videos seemed pretty informative in some ways. However, the book is a real piece of junk. As another reviewer put it, "desperately in need of an editor". I would add, "desperately in need of a writer".The writing in not only disorganized, but is full of really glaring problems like incomplete sentences that just stop, without even a period at the end. Lots of sentences also just jump from one line of thought to a completely different one in seemingly random order. So, reading this is a lot like talking to someone with a bad case of ADD.In one section certain key information is given only in Chinese! I happen to read a bit of Chinese, but even so the section was so weird conceptually that I had no idea what the author was really trying to say. Something about waving your hands the right way would make Thai easier to understand? WTF?If you watch enough of this author's videos you also realize that they are mostly infomercials for some sort of "mind training" course that costs a thousand dollars a pop. These videos do have some interesting things about Thai, but, like the book, it's all a bit slapdash - combined with an incessant hard sell for his expensive course.So, all in all, I can't really be that surprised at how bad the book is. There may be some useful information in there, but if there is, it is buried under a mountain of junky writing. There are lots of other references on the Thai language, and this one is a waste of time.In short, save your money for something that is actually useful.

Revolutionary