these are quite fun…

Loads more here

So I’m currently learning to read and speak Thai, and while it’s certainly not easy it’s not actually as hard as I thought it would be. I guess it helps that I actually want to learn it, unlike French which was shoved down my neck for 4 years in school and yet I can still only understand the basics.

I’ve been building a list of resources and links for Thai learning and thought it might be helpful to brain dump it all here, please add any others you know of in the comments…

http://www.learningthai.com/ - a massive site with a lot of really good learning resources. The nice thing here is that a lot of it seems to be aimed at a younger age level, which makes it great for beginners! There’s also lots of familiar texts (Aesops fables, Winnie the Pooh) translated into Thai to practice with. Good forums with mp3 downloads etc.

http://www.learningthai.com/books/manee/index.html - part of the learningthai.com site but worth a mention all on it’s own, this is an online version of a popular early school book used from the 70’s until recently in Thai schools (a bit like the old Tricolore books everyone my age learnt French with). It’s got a great learning curve, loads of mini tests, and even features narration at ’slow’ and ‘normal’ speeds.

http://www.learningthai.com/photoalbum/index.php - another section worth a mention of its own, a large collection of pictures of Thai road signs, products and advertising. A very useful resource as, much like English, the designers can get quite creative with the letter forms!

http://www.thai-language.com/ - a massive (and a little shambolic) site… lessons, dictionary, reference, if it’s not on here it’s probably not Thai! Good forums also.

http://learn-thai-podcast.com/ - does what it says on the tin

http://www.flashcardexchange.com/tag/thai - a whole load of free online Thai flashcards.

http://slice-of-thai.com/language/ - interesting collection of resources, flashcards, fonts and links. Even has a free downloadable spectrogram for you to practice your tones with!

http://www.learnthaionline.com/ - has some nice examples of real Thai signs to practice reading, and a windows only app that uses a novel (but odd) way of learning the letters through funny illustrations (e.g apparently ค looks like someone carrying a cactus?).

http://langhub.com/en-th/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/ - a great site full of video and audio content for learners.

http://www.teachthai.com/ - the official site from the Thai Ministry of Education… and the only site here that requires you to signup to use it, so I’ve not bothered. Aren’t governments great!

Thai 101 - a blog about Thai language, media and culture.

http://www.thai2english.com/ - online Dictionary and English<->Thai translation engine. They’ve also got a new standalone Windows app coming out that looks handy, even lets you type in transliteration and it converts it to Thai script on the fly!

http://www.thailanguage.org - small site, not much there but few interesting sections on Thai slang, sign language etc.

http://www.thai-blogs.com/ - not really a learning resource, but a whole load of blogs written by farangs (westerners) living in Thailand, some interesting stuff.

http://www.bangkokscams.com/- again not a language resource but worth a read if you’re visiting.

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Utter coincidence, but I’ve just found out it’s H.M. Queen Sirikit of Thailand (Somdet Phra Nang Chao Sirikit Phra Borommarachininat) birthday today. Happy Birthday! (She reads my blog all the time

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At first I thought this was just one of those tongue in cheek mini sites designers do when they’re bored (it’s that cheesy), but no, it’s a real site for a real themepark (3 infact!) where you can let your kids loose in JCB’s… brilliant!

http://www.diggerland.com/index.htm

So I came across this small tutorial on the Reg entitled ‘Build a Silverlight media player’. Now I’m far from an expert on this stuff (hell I’m on Ubuntu, can’t even see the demo), but there were a few things in there that seemed odd, be interesting to hear feeback from someone that knows more…

* First of they say…

“Rather than work with Adobe’s Photoshop, let’s encourage the designer to use the new Microsoft Expression.”

… now I guess by that they mean ‘MS Expression Design’…. HAHAHA! (Please imagine a demented Tom Cruise type laugh there!) Every creative I’ve ever worked (i.e. many of the UK’s best) with would rather poke out their eyes with rusty nails than drop photoshop for some new untested tool, let alone one that comes from MS and doesn’t run on their Mac. I know (hope?) this isn’t the only way of getting your artwork in there, but surely you’ve failed at the first hurdle if you really expect this to happen. (Hmm, I wonder, can Design open PSD’s?)

* It’s not really covered in depth but they seem to do the actual layout design in Blend. Having been quite excited about Blend before it’s launch and in turn quite disappointed with it when I tried the first release, this seems to sum up the problem. Designers will not use Blend as a design tool, period, end of story. It’s an odd bastard child that sits somewhere between being too geeky for designers (loads of panels and event lists) and not geeky enough for developers (no code??)… it’s rather like the old days of clunky flash components and seems to me to be good for one thing, filling in and ticking little boxes to join the code and design up… an important task no doubt but who’s the tool intended for?

* Next there’s a little C# added in VS to hook the events up, all simple enough and easy to read from an AS perspective. I’m assuming here using ‘rootElement’ isn’t the cardinal sin ‘_root’ is in Flash?

* Then they use the timeline to animate the slideshow. Now I know this is a simple demo, but surely you’d want to show how to load images dynamically rather than embed them all, that’s just bad practice, no?

* On a side note, if I remember rightly the Blend timeline works more like coded Tweens in Flash, ie it’s all about the end points of the animation and not where the objects are starting from… this I like!

* They sum up with the statement…

“Traditionally graphic designers use a tool like Photoshop then “throw their design over the wall” to developers who are responsible for cutting the graphics into the application. The design very rarely works exactly as intended and considerable rework is required if the design changes. The combination of Expression and Visual Studio offers a way to close the gap between the two camps.”

..well I’d say designs and functionality will always change, and if you work in that way you’re always going to have problems. We (I?) work in a design led, technology based field and if your designers and developers don’t work hand in hand from the initial brainstorm through to delivery no amount of new tools are going to improve your end result. Surely better teamwork, understanding and communication would help close the gap?

So anyway, I’m not trying to bash the article, the authors or even Silverlight, I don’t know enough about it to do so, would instead welcome your thoughts and comments…

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

[plenty more of the same at the main site]