This is the main menu; the picture changes each time you run the program.

The chilis to the left of the buttons represent the level of difficulty.

There is a language button in the main menu that allows you to specify a European language as your preferred language. At the moment, menus and messages stay in English, but Speak Easy Thai will show the Thai dictionary word translated into your language, if that dictionary is present on your system, and if the word is in the dictionary; if not, it reverts to English.

By pressing the Subjects button on the main screen, you are presented with a screen that allows you to select words by subject (animals, automobile, military, travel, etc.). Many words in the dictionary are categorised by subject; there are more than 30 subjects at present.

When you change the selection, a different image is presented, related to that subject. Here, Medical words are selected.

When you have made your selection, words are chosen from the dictionary randomly, according to your selection criteria, and then displayed on the Review screen as shown at the right.

If the word has a picture, it is displayed in the picture frame.

If the word has a sound file, you will hear the word spoken.

By pressing the blue button, the word will be spelled in Thai.

By pressing the speaker button, the word will be spoken again.

The subject area is shown in a small image above the buttons.

When you have reviewed a number of words, you can then test yourself.

The Drill screen is a simple test. Each word that you reviewed is presented, one by one, either in Thai or in English. A timer ticks down in one second intervals. You must click in the other box (English or Thai) and type the word within the time limit.

Short Thai words (10 characters or less) must be entered in 15 seconds or less; longer words must be entered in 30 seconds.

Initially, you will likely prefer to display the picture and hear the word spoken, but as you become more proficient, you can turn off those things to make the test a bit harder.

To increase the tension (everyone needs a little excitement in their lives!), you can play a rhythmic background beat, but if you find that annoying, you can simply untick it and turn it off.

By pressing the Scenarios button on the main screen, you are presented with a screen that allows you to select one of several common scenarios or situations.

This allows you to learn words in that particular area.

Each scenario is a cartoon showing things that are all related.

As you move the cursor around, the Thai word of the object under the cursor is displayed, along with the approximate phonetics and English meaning.

In this screen capture, the cursor is over the hairspray. By clicking, you will hear the word spoken in Thai.

OK, so you've mastered the alphabet, and you've learned some basic vocabulary, now it's time to move on to something more sophisticated.

Like many Asian languages, Thai builds words by using "root words", which are basically building blocks upon which modifiers are hung to make a new word.

For example, "rong" means "place". "Rong rot" means "place motor"; we would say "garage". "Rong ree-yan" means "place learn"; we would say "school". "Rong pay-a-ban" means "place nurse"; can you say "hospital"?

Here, we've selected the root word "bird", and you can see that there are 91 words in the dictionary that start with "bird". Ready to learn them all now?

South East Asian languages are tonal. In this exercise, you are presented with a pair of words that sound alike (homonyms), but have different tones and different meanings.

Each pair of words is spoken carefully by a native speaker, so you can hear the difference. Didn't quite get it? Press the speaker button and hear it again.

From the main menu, you can also invoke the Thai grammar book, Fundamentals of the Thai Language. This is a complete reference in HTML format which can be read in your browser.

Children learn a language by imitating adults, but we big people like to know the rules. Here they are.