Smyth's book teaches the structure of Thai sentences by analysing common conversations. It also teaches the Thai alphabet and penmanship. The result is that the reader obtains an understanding of how to build Thai sentences, rather than just presenting a few tourist phrases, as some tape series do. On a 3-week trip to Thailand last year, I found Smyth's instructions to be very useful. His choice of lessons were close matches to situations I found myself in.