great for spoken Thai
This is a very good book/set that focuses on the spoken language rather than the written. Therefore it is not a good book to use if you want to learn how to read/write Thai, but that is not its purpose either. Language snobs tend to critique books written in romanization eventhough they could actually help alot of people speak better Thai or continue learning Thai instead of giving up because they can't manage script, grammar and pronunciation at the same time. This book is the best by far for developing good grammar and spoken skills because it has such an abundance of exercises, more than Becker's Thai and Teach Yourself combined ! ! Each chapter has three longer dialogues with audio and there are usually one or two audio exercises as well in each chapter, this is alot more audio material than in both Becker's Thai and Teach Yourself. If you want to speak Thai with confidence then you should get Colloquial Thai, afterwards you should get a cheap 2nd-hand editon of Becker's 'Thai for Beginner's' or Smyth's 'Teach Yourself Thai' and learn the script from them, at the same time you will revise your grammar and learn a few new words. As in any other country there are different dialects in Thailand so no romanization or pronunciation will be 100% correct all of the time. Just follow the audio to your best abilities and you'll be fine, Thais are very forgiving when it comes to foreigners learning their language. [I do recommend you get the 2nd edition (2005) rather than this edition because there are typos in this first edition, which have been corrected in the 2nd ed.] Finally: make sure you get the audio too !!