This is a beginning book on the Thai Language that I wrote in the 1990s with the help of many Thai friends. I’m offering a free download of the book because it’s not available for sale as a published book. This is entirely legal, as the copyright is with the author upon cessation of publication.
My other book on the Thai language – Thai Reference Grammar, an intermediate/advanced level book – is also available for free on this website.
Essential Thai was a difficult book to get into print in the 1990s because it has a lot of boxes and columns. The layout was done by a Thai company on one of the old MacIntosh computers that were the first to do desktop publishing. A Laotian friend helped me design the visual tone markers on a font design program called “Fontographer”. I found a good Thai artist to do the illustrations. There are some anachronisms in an old book like this such as “Going to the Post Office”, which people hardly do now.
Essential Thai was first published by the Post Publishing Company, owners of the Bangkok Post, but their book division was phased out and Orchid Press took it over with a new cover and dictionary. It sold well for many years but Orchid Press has stopped distributing it because of the general decline in printed book sales and the rise of online courses and apps for language learning.
I hope you find the book useful and interesting to look at. Note that it can only be downloaded onto a computer, not a phone. (70 MB PDF file)