Some Good Tips For Those Pursuing Self-study Of Thai

[my benny rai]

The most obvious tip is DAILY practice of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Language resources such as books, software, etc. are important if you do not have a teacher or friend to guide you. (Check out the suggestions in the pinned language resources above.)

But I feel I have come to an end of these resources and there are not a lot of books or software out there for intermediate level speakers or at least for those who can successfully order food, direct a taxi driver, communicate in familiar situations, etc.

I have been in Thailand a long time and like learning the language. I hope to one day reach a Pratom 6 level.

Learn a few new words a day. I do that.

Practice reading, writing and speaking everyday. I do that too.

What are some things that you do to learn Thai once you have exhuasted the resources you can find in the bookstores and on the internet? Any tricks you want to share with us to help motivate and speed up the learning process once one has moved beyond the basics?

I have a few:

Carry your Thai book with you when you travel or go to work. Read it when you have the time and ask Thais questions if you don't understand anything.

Pracice everyday and in every opportunity. Talk to your partner in Thai for 10 minutes a day. Go for a long taxi ride and talk to the driver. Go get a massage at a legitimate establisment and chat away--practice and a two-hour massage for only 250-350 baht!

Anyone else have anything to add?

[rak sa_ngop]

I record the daily VOA news programs to disc and then transfer them to my mp3 player. Can go for long walks and listen to the mainly Thai interspersed with a bit of English international news. Helps if you have listened to the news on BBC/CNN first. The only downside is that you tend to mainly develop your 'formal language' skills, but still it all helps.

http://www.voanews.com/thai/webcasts.cfm

There are also some BBC English learning programs on the radio :AM 837 kHz at 8.00 a.m. mon - fri (not every week though). These BBC progs have a have large Thai language content so are useful for improving listening skills. Haven't been able to find these progs on FM yet.

Any other good Thai language radio programmes out there?

[garro]

One thing that has been a great help to me was getting rid of UBC 'pay to view' channels. I now only watch Thai TV. This was a big step for me to take but it definitely has improved my Thai. I now actually enjoy wathing it and the soaps can become quite addictive. The other great thing is that I previously felt guilty about wasting time watching TV but now I have an excuse.

In the beginning I used to ask a lot of questions about what was going on and I am sure it used to drive my girlfriend mad but I now need to ask less frequently. Another great thing about it is that I pick up catch phrases which really amuses the Thais when they recognise who you are imitating. I needed to return to my home country, Ireland, last year and actually ended up bringing a load of Thai soaps/comedies back with me. I reccomend ??????? as a good comedy. The soaps are harder to recommend as they change every few weeks.

[garro]

The comedy I was recommending was pen taw. For some reason my last message wouldn't print the Thai script.

[Dupont]

Once or twice a week, I select a theme from one of my wifes old English Grammar books *Murphys as it happens.

I tell her I want to practice all the Thai equivalents. EG, where is the salt, pepper, dog etc. Its ON the talbe, its IN the cupboard, its UNDER the table I try to work hard on a particular area with her and my staff whilst we are slaving away!! We always get side tracked but I find it best to master a small piece of language than slog away at the whole lot.

Always read a story at bedtime. First to myself looking at new words and pronunciation, then out loud. they are duel language for Thia kids to learn English, but they work just as well the other way round. Cost beteen 10 and 25 baht for a short picture story book. Buy loads, and buy the books that kids learn from so you develop a full vocabulary.

The tone application was the hardest but since I learned to read Thai, this is much easier. Really is worth going back to basics, learn the alphabet and tones etc.

Have a Thai script typing tutor which I use to copy out stories, text and my diary.

Learn the National Anthem, you get to hear it and read it twice a day on Television. This takes you well up in the rankings in the eyes of Thai people. Singing it, now theres a problem. Karaoke is great as well, I can't keep up reading it, but I can pick out a lot of the words and it gets better month on month.

Above all, use it at every opportunity. Its all around, signs, papers, books, busses and even car number plates have a few characters on them, which is great when you are first starting out and very personally rewarding. I read all the desk info signs out to the woman on the work permit desk last year and they always make a great deal of it when I go in these days. They send a none believer over with a newspaper or list etc to check I really can understand it. Smoothed the way no end.

Edited January 26, 2007 by Dupont

[Bryan in Isaan]

For the intermediate folks who have learned Thai script, I suggest kids textbooks. In most textbook stores there is a wealth of good quality books for anywhere from 40B to 90B. Start at about 2nd grade level and get a good Thai-English dictionary. Get a hardback, large print if you are an old guy like me. Plan to spend about 300B to 500B. Treat it gently. Bindings seems to fall apart if they are used a lot. I like SE-ED Thai-English because it includes the compound words.

With the kids books you can also choose a topic specialty, such as vocations, science, agriculture, etc. and get that subject.

Learning to read is no substitute for having a teacher, conversation partner or other means to learn listening and speaking. Also, books might not cover much casual conversation (maybe comic books?) but I believe reading is a good base for learning vocab, grammar and proper word usage.

[jimbabe]

For the intermediate folks who have learned Thai script, I suggest kids textbooks. In most textbook stores there is a wealth of good quality books for anywhere from 40B to 90B. Start at about 2nd grade level and get a good Thai-English dictionary. Get a hardback, large print if you are an old guy like me. Plan to spend about 300B to 500B. Treat it gently. Bindings seems to fall apart if they are used a lot. I like SE-ED Thai-English because it includes the compound words.

With the kids books you can also choose a topic specialty, such as vocations, science, agriculture, etc. and get that subject.

Learning to read is no substitute for having a teacher, conversation partner or other means to learn listening and speaking. Also, books might not cover much casual conversation (maybe comic books?) but I believe reading is a good base for learning vocab, grammar and proper word usage.

I have a thai dictionary in a palmpilot pda and have benefitted greatly from a book-cd combination from benjawaan poomsan becker.

Ive looked at everything else and they dont compare. Also, my gf dont talk angit

[tgeezer]

For the intermediate folks who have learned Thai script, I suggest kids textbooks. In most textbook stores there is a wealth of good quality books for anywhere from 40B to 90B. Start at about 2nd grade level and get a good Thai-English dictionary. Get a hardback, large print if you are an old guy like me. Plan to spend about 300B to 500B. Treat it gently. Bindings seems to fall apart if they are used a lot. I like SE-ED Thai-English because it includes the compound words.

With the kids books you can also choose a topic specialty, such as vocations, science, agriculture, etc. and get that subject.

Learning to read is no substitute for having a teacher, conversation partner or other means to learn listening and speaking. Also, books might not cover much casual conversation (maybe comic books?) but I believe reading is a good base for learning vocab, grammar and proper word usage.

I agree with this 100% I have been learning for ages and have only now found the best books for me P3 ภาษา พาที sorry

Edited January 31, 2007 by tgeezer

[tgeezer]

For the intermediate folks who have learned Thai script, I suggest kids textbooks. In most textbook stores there is a wealth of good quality books for anywhere from 40B to 90B. Start at about 2nd grade level and get a good Thai-English dictionary. Get a hardback, large print if you are an old guy like me. Plan to spend about 300B to 500B. Treat it gently. Bindings seems to fall apart if they are used a lot. I like SE-ED Thai-English because it includes the compound words.

With the kids books you can also choose a topic specialty, such as vocations, science, agriculture, etc. and get that subject.

Learning to read is no substitute for having a teacher, conversation partner or other means to learn listening and speaking. Also, books might not cover much casual conversation (maybe comic books?) but I believe reading is a good base for learning vocab, grammar and proper word usage.

I agree with this 100% I have been learning for ages and have only now found the best books for me P3 ภาษา พาที sorry

God I wish I knew how these bl.**d+ things worked, it seems It took me so long to find the Thai to write the little I wrote that it got 'posted' but I digress; There is a great deal of dialogue in the stories and the language is simple. There is a vocabulary with Thai phonetics, and explanation of words, supplementary reading, vowels, everything you need. I have always bought kids books, สปช for instance, but found them a bit dry ,how to clean your teeth, organs of the body, good diet etc. From my latest purchase I learned the word for "syllable" from the context of the explanation of pronouncing words like อย่า and สมาน not being of an academic bent I was quite pleased with myself.

[rak sa_ngop]

For the intermediate folks who have learned Thai script, I suggest kids textbooks. In most textbook stores there is a wealth of good quality books for anywhere from 40B to 90B. Start at about 2nd grade level and get a good Thai-English dictionary. Get a hardback, large print if you are an old guy like me. Plan to spend about 300B to 500B. Treat it gently. Bindings seems to fall apart if they are used a lot. I like SE-ED Thai-English because it includes the compound words.

With the kids books you can also choose a topic specialty, such as vocations, science, agriculture, etc. and get that subject.

Learning to read is no substitute for having a teacher, conversation partner or other means to learn listening and speaking. Also, books might not cover much casual conversation (maybe comic books?) but I believe reading is a good base for learning vocab, grammar and proper word usage.

I agree with this 100% I have been learning for ages and have only now found the best books for me P3 ภาษา พาที sorry

There are a small number of 'young adult' story books published by Nation Egmont which have both English and Thai text.(e.g. Scooby-doo, at least 7 titles available). These are designed for Thai learners of English, but for some reason most books shops such as SE-ED, Central etc. hide these books among the young adult Thai books. I find them very useful because they use informal, casual language so it is possible to pick up many useful expressions.