Learning Thai

[Denim]

14 minutes ago, 1FinickyOne said:

mee kon kermoy nungseu... que lastima!

 

Exactamundo.

[rumak]

On 5/25/2021 at 7:27 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

Find an innocent Thai girl who knows no English. And then meet her and talk to her. ???? 

that's how i learnt .   But it was a few more than one Thai girl.   And for the most part they

were not innocent. 

 

as some others have suggested,  gotta learn vocabulary    duhhh

then gotta use it in real life,  preferably without the wife around.   at the market, at the park, somewhere .   listen listen listen    

 

and the kicker :   don't worry about TONES.    sure,  i will get flack from some telling me what an idiot i am.    I am always complimented on how good my speaking is.   The more you use it the more your brain adjusts to what you hear ( like a child learns) 

 

just say sentences.    simple ones.   listen to sentences.   simple ones .  say good morning, what is for breakfast,   ask questions  WITH THE WIFE   ........ though girlfriends always work better it seems   ????

[rumak]

58 minutes ago, Denim said:

I learnt Thai using this book and using a Thai person to read everything into a tape recorder so I would hear it all spoken. I then practiced repeating it all trying to get the same inflection as the speaker. 

If you apply yourself and work through each lesson you will be pretty fluent by the end. 

Every lesson is simple to understand and it starts of with the most common words and a short sentence to illustrate the syntax.

 

Somebody stole my copy which was a shame. 

 

 

 

I do believe THIS IS the book that in the beginning somewhere it says " Don't worry about the tones "  ................ 

 

using phonetics definitely helped me at first.   later i did learn the thai alphabet which DOES HELP   a lot ...... especially with the many vowel sounds.   Also the dtor dtow  ,  Ngor NGu,  BPor BPlah   consonants  are sounds not used in Latin alphabet .  Need to be practiced ,  and seeing the word in Thai helps one to understand the correct pronunciation.

[ozimoron]

54 minutes ago, 1FinickyOne said:

mee kon kermoy nungseu... que lastima!

 

mee kon kamoy nangseu..

 

que lastima? ano ba yon?

[Damrongsak]

1 hour ago, 1FinickyOne said:

mee kon kermoy nungseu... que lastima!

Lo siento. 

 

On 6/4/2021 at 6:23 AM, BKKBike09 said:

Learning to read is a very good idea. I'll show my age here and throw in Gordon Allison's 'Easy Thai' as another possible starting point. Mary Haas's classic Thai-English Students Dictionary is well worth having but is hard to find these days. 

 

Being able to read means that someone might write down for you the word for 'chew' (เคี้ยว) and then if you look it up you can see what it might mean if you pronounce it wrong (eg เคียว เคี่ยว). 

 

Plus, if you can read, then when you use the 'speech to text' function in Thai on Line / WhatsApp etc you can see if what comes out makes sense before you send it. This function is also a good way of checking your pronunciation / tones because if you don't speak clearly, then what gets typed will show that ...

 

 

 

 

The Mary Haas dictionary was standard issue when I was in the Peace Corps in 1977.  Good book. My wife used it to help learn English.  Then she took it back to Thailand on a visit and left it at our house.  Thief.

 

Speaking of wrong word, I once invited some co-workers to go eat noodles.  But I used the Isaan word "fuhh" (fur), I thought.  But I said "fahng" - Do you want to go eat straw?

 

I just found a used Haas dictionary for $7 that I'm going to order.  And a Fundamentals of Thai Language for $13. 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Damrongsak

[ozimoron]

3 minutes ago, rumak said:

 

I do believe THIS IS the book that in the beginning somewhere it says " Don't worry about the tones "  ................ 

 

using phonetics definitely helped me at first.   later i did learn the thai alphabet which DOES HELP   a lot ...... especially with the many vowel sounds.   Also the dtor dtow  ,  Ngor NGu,  BPor BPlah   consonants  are sounds not used in Latin alphabet .  Need to be practiced ,  and seeing the word in Thai helps one to understand the correct pronunciation.

 

Indeed. When I first started to learn Thai, I just learned by ear. Then when I started to read I had to unlearn half of what I thought I knew so it was counter productive. I always advise people to learn to read first. It isn't hard, the Thais only have 76 letters in their alphabet and only commonly use about half of them.

[Damrongsak]

Keep the good suggestions coming.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Damrongsak

[rumak]

Just now, ozimoron said:

 

Indeed. When I first started to learn Thai, I just learned by ear. Then when I started to read I had to unlearn half of what I thought I knew so it was counter productive. I always advise people to learn to read first. It isn't hard, the Thais only have 76 letters in their alphabet and only commonly use about half of them.

 

i agree.... for people who are dedicated from the get go.    MOST  of us just fart around for a while ,  with varying degrees of success.   I did not start out reading...... but it did help me get to the next step ( when i was ready to take it )

[Denim]

27 minutes ago, rumak said:

just say sentences.    simple ones.   

Yup...agree. Learn to say simple four or five word sentences. Then ....learn a few simple conjunctions to join your simple sentences and make longer ones. Sounds very impressive .

 

Example : Because / But

 

I like this restaurant because the food is delicious.

 

I'd like to live there but it is too expensive.

 

I like Thailand because it is so interesting but its too hot sometimes

 

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Denim

[Surelynot]

Took my wife a fortnight to teach me how to say "stupid"

[ozimoron]

Just now, Surelynot said:

Took my wife a fortnight to teach me how to say "stupid"

 

Because you're a rambutan?

[Surelynot]

Just now, ozimoron said:

 

Because you're a rambutan?

Sweet though a little prickly?

[rumak]

1 minute ago, Denim said:

Yup...agree. Learn to say simple four or five word sentences. Then ....learn a few simple conjunctions to join your simple sentences and make longer ones. Sounds very impressive .

 

Example : Because / But

 

I like this restaurant because the food is delicious.

 

I'd like to live there but it is too expensive.

 

I like Thailand because it is so interesting but its too hot sometimes

 

 

Phom chawp Noi  praw  wahhhh  kow suai maaahk ......dteh wahhh,  bang krang phom

pai ha  Nit ....... Nit mai pang 

[rumak]

Just now, Surelynot said:

Took my wife a fortnight to teach me how to say "stupid"

 

i just call mine     KWAI     ????

[1FinickyOne]

10 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

Took my wife a fortnight to teach me how to say "stupid"

sure, that is a tough one.... 

[Damrongsak]

15 minutes ago, rumak said:

Phom chawp Noi  praw  wahhhh  kow suai maaahk ......dteh wahhh,  bang krang phom

pai ha  Nit ....... Nit mai pang 

Tee la Nit, tee la Noi. 

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, Denim said:

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I often think I have repeated a word the same way a Thai person pronounces it.

But then they look at me like: which word was that supposed to be? ???? 

 

Fortunately ,when used in a sentence even

 a mispronounced word is easier to understand.

Yes, easier. But I am still sometimes surprised that Thais have to think what I mean when for me the pronunciation might not sound perfect but pretty good. For them it seems like a totally different thing. 

[Denim]

19 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Yes, easier. But I am still sometimes surprised that Thais have to think what I mean when for me the pronunciation might not sound perfect but pretty good. For them it seems like a totally different thing. 

 

Reminds me of a friend in Japan who speaks fluent Japanese.

 

He told me that when he used to buy a train ticket , everything was understood if the seller was busy with something else and not looking at him. He got his ticket.

 

If however, the ticket person looked him in the face then no matter what he said he would not be understood. All he would get was ' no engrish , no engrish '  with a lot of hand waving.

 

Again, when I was in Taiwan trying to order khao moo deng , no matter how I pronounced ' tsar chier fun ' all I got was puzzled looks.

Then a waitress walked past with it and I pointed and nodded enthusiastically.

The penny dropped

' Ahh ....

 tsar chier fun '  said the waiter.

 

Sounded the same as made no difference to me but who knows.

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

12 hours ago, youreavinalaff said:

Transliteration of Thai to English is so difficult

ahanchau = breakfast

ahanklangwan = lunch

ahanyen = dinner

ahanmaew = cat food

ahanma = dog food

ahanfarang = Western food

ahanthai = Thai food

ahanyipun = Japanese food

ahangauri = Korean food

ahanangrit = "Oy, wot's a bloke gotta do to get some bloody bangers 'round 'ere, aye?" ????

Edited June 6, 2021 by CrunchWrapSupreme

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

10 hours ago, Denim said:

tsar chier fun '  said the waiter.

Same with me and my wife. I'll say something in Thai, and get puzzled looks. My wife repeats what sounds like the same, and then they get it. The tones are often so subtle.

[bunnydrops]

An online site I found recently Lingopolo https://lingopolo.org/ has a Thai learning section. Its free, they ask for donations. Lots of sentences spoken by Thai. Real Thai, lazy pronunciations, dropped Rs and all

[youreavinalaff]

2 hours ago, CrunchWrapSupreme said:

ahanchau = breakfast

ahanklangwan = lunch

ahanyen = dinner

ahanmaew = cat food

ahanma = dog food

ahanfarang = Western food

ahanthai = Thai food

ahanyipun = Japanese food

ahangauri = Korean food

ahanangrit = "Oy, wot's a bloke gotta do to get some bloody bangers 'round 'ere, aye?" ????

Not sure why you quoted my post there but, once again you have proved my point. I would transliterate all of those examples differently.

[BKKBike09]

22 hours ago, Damrongsak said:

I just found a used Haas dictionary for $7 that I'm going to order.  

Bargain!

 

I suspect few people these days use physical dictionaries. I think that's a shame because one of the pleasures of a dictionary (I must admit not a sentence that I employ with any regularity) is looking up something and then seeing another interesting word just above / below / on the next page etc. Or randomly opening and seeing what you find on that page.