Talking Thai <> English Dictionary for Windows PCs

Talking Thai <> English Dictionary

Talking Thai <> English Dictionary

for Windows PCs
for Windows PCs

Overview

Traveling to Thailand? Learning the Thai language? Imagine having instant access to 150,000+ English and Thai entries right on your Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 desktop or laptop computer, with high-quality sound recordings of a native speaker for every Thai word, and superb dictionary entries hand-crafted by Paiboon Publishing with the needs of native English speakers in mind. If you're not familiar with the Thai alphabet, you can look up Thai words by their sound, with an easy-to-use, English-like pronunciation guide. Perfect for the casual traveler or the dedicated Thai learner.

Key Features

Buy now and enjoy free lifetime upgrades (on same platform) as we continually expand our vocabulary and add new app features!

Buy with the confidence of our money-back guarantee.

NEWS FLASH: We are currently working on a massive 2.0 upgrade to the Windows dictionary app that has been more than three years in the making. The free 2.0 dictionary upgrade will include thousands of new Thai words suggested by dictionary users over the past three years, as well as all the features, categories, and vocabulary of our Thai Phrasebook app. That means you will get Full-Text Power Search, thousands of complete, ready-to-use customizable talking phrases divided into 250+ practical categories like "Hotel," "Ordering Food," "Renting a Place," and "Price Haggling," and a Favorites feature that lets you save and organize words and phrases you are learning. This release will also add to our Windows product many features which until now have only been available in our iOS and Android products, such as Find Words Inside and Explain Spelling. Note that unlike iOS and Android, we do not plan to release a separate phrasebook app for Windows. See our Thai phrasebook and dictionary app product comparison page.

Check out a sneak preview of our major 2.0 dictionary release!

Visual Tour

Visual guide to Thai <> English Dictionary

When you launch the dictionary on your computer, it's immediately ready to find a word for you. Use the menu at the top right to choose your dictionary section (English, Thai Sound, or Thai Script):

Choosing Section

and then type the word or phrase you are looking for into the text entry field at the top of the window:

Thai–English Windows Dictionary

The dictionary instantly jumps to the closest word as you type each letter. Usually you reach your desired word before you've even typed all its letters.

You can click the icon after any Thai word to hear a high-quality sound recording of a native Thai.

You can click the icon after any Thai word to see that word in a set of common real-world fonts (typefaces).

You can easily type Thai (and the special letters used by pronunciation guides) by bringing up our handy on-screen keyboard:

On-Screen Keyboard

You can use the on-screen keyboard in two ways:

  • You can click directly on the "keys" of the keyboard with your mouse.

  • You can use your keyboard, and as you press keys, the corresponding "keys" of the on-screen keyboard will flash. Using this tool you can rapidly teach your hands to touch-type the right keys.

Useful Vocabulary

Whether you are visiting Thailand for a short while or living there, you will find most of the vocabulary used in everyday life, including basic medical, cultural, political and scientific terms. Enjoy an astounding 150,000+ entries, plus an additional 28,000 place name entries (not counted above) that help you to pinpoint geographical locations in Thailand.

Talks for You with a Fluent Native Voice

You can touch any Thai word, phrase, or complete sentence in the dictionary to hear a high-quality sound recording of a native Thai speaker. Tap the buttons to hear some sample sounds:

The app includes more than 19 hours of studio-recorded sound!

Say goodbye to toneless, gravelly robot voices and limited sound sets: our comprehensive sounds set a new standard in the industry.

Use Without an Internet Connection

Works even when you're in a taxi or a countryside street market and not connected to the internet: all entries and sounds are stored right on your computer, and you will incur no data charges when you use the app.

For more details, see requirements.

You can even speak English words right into your computer to search the dictionary (see dictation requirements).

Big Text and Clear, Sensible Layout

Enjoy a clean layout that lets you scroll through multiple, complete entries on the screen at once. No need to tap to open each entry and tap back again.

Clean Layout

Best of all, you can make the Thai and English text (separately or together) as big as you want—no more reading glasses!

Choose any font size

Our software comes with a set of highly readable Thai fonts and lets you choose any fonts and colors you like.

Learn Real-World Thai Script

You've probably noticed that the Thai letters appearing on signs and menus in Thailand often look nothing like what you learned in textbooks. A unique new feature of our dictionary is that you can tap on any Thai word and see that word written in a set of real-world fonts that you are likely to see on signs, menus, documents, and even in Thai handwriting. It's an indispensable feature for getting around the country:

Real-World Fonts

Instant Search

As you type the word you're looking for, the dictionary instantly jumps to the nearest word. You can often find your word by typing only a few letters:

Instant Search

You can also choose the traditional Alphabetical Search mode seen in the 1.x verisons of our apps, which lets you search into and scroll through a full alphabetical list of all words in each section.

Pronunciation Guides

Every single Thai word is accompanied by an easy-to-read, English-like Thai Sound pronunciation guide (also known as "Transliteration" or "Phonetics"), so you can learn to speak and recognize Thai words immediately, without needing to learn Thai script. Our pronunciation guides give you the tones and everything else you need to understand and to be understood.

We even let you choose which pronunciation guide system you want to use from a list of 12 popular systems.

With a single touch in our app settings screen, all pronunciation guides throughout the app transform into your chosen system, and you can even look up Thai words by sound using your chosen system.

We Go Three Ways

This dictionary goes three ways!

Three-Way Design

Most dictionary and phrasebook apps let you look up English words, and some also let you look up Thai words using Thai script. But Paiboon's revolutionary three-way design bridges the gap for English speakers by introducing a third option where you can Search-by-Sound™: you can look up Thai words that you hear by their sound using the same easy-to-read pronunciation guide. Hear someone say "sa nuk?" Type "sa nuk" to find out what it means:

Thai Sound section

Search-by-Sound™ has been a hallmark of all Paiboon dictionary and phrasebook products since Paiboon's first Thai products in 2002.

For more information on Search-by-Sound™ and why it's so useful for Thai, see this section.

Multiple Pronunciation Systems

In addition to our signature Paiboon+ pronunciation guide system, the same system used in all Thai learning materials from Paiboon Publishing, this software lets you choose from 11 other pronunciation guide systems:

Pronunciation Guide Systems

With a single touch in our app settings screen, all pronunciation guides transform into your chosen system, and you can even look up Thai words by sound using your chosen system.

Introduction to Thai

Our app includes a comprehensive, interactive introduction to the Thai language, including a "Speaking and Understanding" section with clickable sounds, and a "Reading and Writing" section with examples of Thai letters in multiple, real-world fonts.

Sample Topics:

  • Speaking and Listening: Consonant Sounds, Vowel Sounds, Tones, Practice Similar Sounds, Stress, Parts of Speech, Classifiers, Word Register, Telling Time and Date.

  • Pronunciation Guide Systems: detailed charts fully explaining each system.

  • Reading and Writing: Thai Consonants, Thai Vowels, Thai Tone Rules, Dictionary Order.

  • Useful Word Groups: Colors, Numbers, Months, Days, Thai Provinces, Thai Classifiers.

You can download our free, limited trial version to get a more detailed taste of what is covered in our comprehensive introduction.

Designed for English Speakers

Unlike typical dictionaries and phrasebooks based on free, often low-quality data meant for Thai natives, our superb Paiboon Publishing dictionary entries are hand-crafted by a team of Thai- and English-native editors with your needs in mind.

Entries are richly annotated for native English speakers so you know the exact meaning of each Thai word and phrase you use (for example, the entry for "glass" clarifies "drinking glass" vs "pane of glass," which translate differently in Thai) including slang and formal variants.

Designed for English Speakers

No more Google Translate gibberish!

Classifiers

Classifiers are a critical part of Thai grammar, needed for even basic usage. Our dictionary provides crucial classifiers for more than 15,000 noun entries—a first in the industry. Our language introduction tells you how and when to use them.

Convenient Navigation

As you are reading any dictionary entry, you can tap on any Thai or English word in that entry to search for that word or activate a wide range of other amazing features. This can be a great way to explore different shades of meaning and learn new, related words.

Also, you can tap on any part of speech or other symbol to go directly to the relevant section of our language guide to learn more.

As you look up words, help pages, or use the other special features of our app, you can always touch the back button to get back where you were, just like a web browser.

Convenient Navigation

You can bring up a history screen showing the last 25 places you have been, and (version 2.0 and above) clear your history for privacy.

Customize Keyboards

With our dictionary, you can choose either system keyboards (Microsoft keyboards or third-party keyboards like Swype), or you can choose the built-in specialized, custom Paiboon keyboard, which is exclusive to our app. The Paiboon Keyboard features large, readable key labels and only presents the keys you need for searching in the dictionary.

Our Paiboon Thai Script keyboard's large, clear labels are a dream come true:

Thai Script keyboard

The Paiboon keyboard frees you from typical Thai keyboards that have tiny labels that are nearly impossible for non-Thais to read, and include several obsolete "decoy" letters not used for any word in modern Thai (especially ฃ ฅ) that look almost exactly like common letters (ข ช ซ ค ด ต) and often lead to failed searches (for more see this FAQ item).

Our keyboard also features large key labels that match your chosen entry font exactly, making it easier to find the letter you want.

Try Before You Buy

On this website, you can download a free, limited trial version that allows you to experience the look and feel of the program (its fonts, features, and sound quality). The limited trial version has around 150 words per section.

Try Now

Search-by-Sound™

Search-by-Sound™ is what puts Paiboon Publishing's dictionaries and phrasebooks so far ahead of the competition, and now this indispensable capability is available on your computer.

The Problem

As you may know, Thai has its own alphabet which is nothing like English and takes a long time to learn. And even if you know the Thai alphabet, there are multiple ways of writing the same sound. For example, there are 4 letters that sound like an "s," 5 letters that sound like a "k," and 6 letters that sound like a "t"! So, looking up a Thai word that you hear is difficult even for a seasoned scholar.

The Solution: Search-by-Sound™

What if you could simply look up what you hear? Search-by-Sound™, a hallmark of all Paiboon dictionaries and phrasebooks since Paiboon's first Thai product in 2002, lets you do just this.

It all starts with pronunciation guide systems. Paiboon Publishing has developed an easy-to-use pronunciation guide system called "Paiboon+," which spells out Thai words using English-like letters. With Paiboon+, there is just one simple way to write each sound. There are other pronunciation guide systems too, and if you're already familiar with another system, our app lets you choose from amongst 12 different systems in use today.

Every Thai word in our dictionary is written with the Thai alphabet and also with your chosen pronunciation guide systems. But Search-by-Sound™ takes that one step further: you can look up a Thai word by its pronunciation guide.

For example, if you hear someone say "sa nuk," you just type "sa nuk:"

Search-by-Sound

The app provides you with the exact pronunciation, the word written using Thai script, the definition, and you can even touch to hear a high quality sound recording of a native Thai speaking that word.

Conquer Those Terrible Tones

Thai is a tonal language: in addition to having particular vowels and consonants, each syllable has a particular pitch contour (middle, low, falling, high, or rising). When you listen, you must recognize those tones to fully understand. When you speak, you must use the tones to be understood. Needless to say, this is often hard for native English speakers.

Search-by-Sound™ makes this much easier by allowing you to search for a word without needing to know its tones. You can then look at all the possibilities and choose the correct meaning from context.

Throughout our app, Thai words are always shown in both Thai script and using a pronunciation guide. So, if you look up an English word, you can rely on the pronunciation guide to help you pronounce the word correctly and be understood.

Paiboon Publishing

Paiboon Publishing The Talking Thai <> English Dictionary was developed by Paiboon Publishing and Word in the Hand™ Inc.

Paiboon Publishing is the world's leading producer of South-East Asian language learning materials, including the famous Thai for Beginners and the Thai for Beginners App. There's even an audio companion to the learning books, a guide to pronunciation, and a multi-volume series on how to Speak Like a Thai. Paiboon Publishing also created leading offerings for the Burmese, Vietnamese, Lao, and Cambodian languages.

Paiboon Publishing has recently expanded into the Chinese language learning space with disruptive apps full of industry-first innovations, such as the Talking Chinese–English–Chinese Phrasebook and Survival Chinese for English Speakers.

The Talking Thai <> English Dictionary and Paiboon's other Thai language materials, both printed and electronic, work perfectly together because they share a common teaching method and a common set of pronunciation guide systems (for more detail on pronunciation guide systems, see Search-by-Sound™).

If you have a mobile device, don't miss out on this indispensable Thai learning app from Paiboon Publishing:

Paiboon Publishing

Thai for Beginners App

Thai for Beginners App

by Benjawan Poomsan Becker
and Dominique Mayrand

Buy Now for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch from the Apple iTunes App Store

Buy Now for Android from the Google Play Store

Learn Thai from Thai language expert Benjawan Becker

Version 2.0 features include: Increase text size: small, medium, large; autoplay an entire lesson; show or hide English text; added English voice, which can be turned on or off. Teaches speaking, listening and reading Thai with a native speaker and over 3,000 clearly recorded words and phrases. Follows the format of the best selling Thai for Beginners book. Provides examples of the five tones in Thai. Test your knowledge with build in exercises. Detailed Help section within the app. After downloading it works without an Internet connection: no data charges.

For more info on Paiboon Publishing products, see www.paiboonpublishing.com. Here are just some of the titles:

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