How difficult is Thai to learn

[soundman]

3. Thai pronunciation (at least current spoken Thai) retains the correlation with the original characters, but not with the sounds. For example, as best I can tell there are no aspirated consonants remaining in spoken Thai,

Wrong. Varga positions 2, 3 and 4 (of 5) are all unvoiced aspirated consonants in Siamese. (I'm not counting the fricatives that you might assign to positions '2a' and '3a'.)

Could you possibly put all that in layman's terms Richard.

Thanx,

Soundman.

[meadish_sweetball]

I think Richard means there actually IS a sound type to letter correspondence preserved from Sanskrit into the Siamese alphabet, ie Central Thai writing.

This sound type "unvoiced aspirated consonant" are consonant sounds which a.) end in a puff of air (aspirated), but b.) have no added buzz from the vocal cords.

You can check voiced from unvoiced sounds by touching your Adam's apple. If it vibrates, the sound is voiced, if it does not, the sound is unvoiced. All vowel sounds are voiced. Consonant sounds can be voiced or unvoiced.

Using an English example, it's the difference in quality between the initial sound in 'zinge' (voiced) as opposed to 'singe' (unvoiced).

As for 'varga' and the respective position numbers, I don't know exactly but believes it has to do with the mapping chart of Sanskrit, which divides letters into groups according to their articulation.

[Khon Baan Nok]

3. Thai pronunciation (at least current spoken Thai) retains the correlation with the original characters, but not with the sounds. For example, as best I can tell there are no aspirated consonants remaining in spoken Thai,

Wrong. Varga positions 2, 3 and 4 (of 5) are all unvoiced aspirated consonants in Siamese. (I'm not counting the fricatives that you might assign to positions '2a' and '3a'.)

Could you possibly put all that in layman's terms Richard.

Thanx,

Soundman.

Not correct, sir. The aspirated consononants for all vargas are in positions 2 and 4, not 3. Position 5 is nasal, while positions 1 and 3 are unaspirated. I have no idea what you are referring to with positions "2a" and "3a". If you'll give the Devanagiri characters to which you refer, it'll help.

And in any case it is academic because, as I said, though the Thai characters correspond to the CHARACTERS, they do NOT use the the original SOUND.

For example, the second character in the Thai alphabet, ข (kaw khai) corresponds to the DevanagirI ख, which is a heavily aspirated "k" sound. There are no consonant sounds in spoken Thai, notwithstanding their mapping to an aspirated Devanagiri counterpart, that SOUND aspirated. Which was my original point.

I absolutely concede the direct character-to-character mapping - I have the maps, as I indicated earlier. The mappings don't mean much, however, as Thai does not aspirate consonants so there's not real pronunciation value in having, for example, all of the "t" characters. The only one that sounds different from the rest is ต, which ironically sounds closest to an aspirated "th" consonant but maps to an unaspirated one (position 1).

Khun Meadish's point about voiced/unvoiced holds true, though this arcane conversation is addressing the issue of aspiration/non-aspiration.

Hopefully all this hair-splitting just illustrates to those of you who have read this far, and are shaking your heads in disgust or dismay, that the Thai language is incredibly interesting on just about any level you'd want to study it...

[Richard W]

3. Thai pronunciation (at least current spoken Thai) retains the correlation with the original characters, but not with the sounds. For example, as best I can tell there are no aspirated consonants remaining in spoken Thai,

Wrong. Varga positions 2, 3 and 4 (of 5) are all unvoiced aspirated consonants in Siamese. (I'm not counting the fricatives that you might assign to positions '2a' and '3a'.)

Could you possibly put all that in layman's terms Richard.

The first 25 consonants of the Devanagari script, as used for Sanskrit and Pali, and the first thirty three of the Thai alphabet, can be arranged in five 'vargas' (Thai วรรค). These vargas correspond to impeding the airflow at different positions in the mouth - the velars (ก to ง) (literally 'throat' sounds in the Indian grammatical tradition), the palatals (จ to ญ), the retroflexes or 'cerebrals' (ฎ to ณ), the dentals (ด to น) and the labials (บ to ม). Thai has never distinguished the dentals and retroflexes, and the retroflexes are in principle restricted to words of Indic origin.

Not correct, sir. The aspirated consononants for all vargas are in positions 2 and 4, not 3. Position 5 is nasal, while positions 1 and 3 are unaspirated. I have no idea what you are referring to with positions "2a" and "3a".

...

For example, the second character in the Thai alphabet, ข (kaw khai) corresponds to the DevanagirI ख, which is a heavily aspirated "k" sound. There are no consonant sounds in spoken Thai, notwithstanding their mapping to an aspirated Devanagiri counterpart, that SOUND aspirated. Which was my original point.

In Sanskrit and Pali there are five ways of modifying the airflow at each position, and these positions are numbered 1 to 5 in the gramattical tradition. Thai has eight such manners, best exemplified in the labials, the most complete series. (There are 7 gaps in Thai, due to various causes.)

In position 1, Devangari has the letter PA (प), a voiceless unaspirated consonant. In Thai, the unmodified letter form is bo baimai (บ) (voiced with a tendency to be implosive), modified to po pla (ป) for the plain voiceless consonant. Similar splits have occurred in the dental and retroflex vargas. This probably reflects the old form of Khmer, in which implosive consonants before vowels corresponded to voiceless consonants before consonants. I am never sure whether to line the voiceless stops without voiced partners, ko kai (ก) and cho chan (จ), up with the other voiceless stops or with the unmodified letters.

In position 2, Devanagari has the letter PHA (फ), a voiceless aspirated consonant corresponding to Thai pho phueng (ผ), also a voiceless aspirated consonants. When Thai was first written, it was well endowed with fricatives, and the letter was modified to produce fo fa (ฝ), in what I have dubbed position 2a, being between the consonants in positions 2 and 3 in alphabetical order. In much the same way, Devanagari has the letter FA (फ़), made with a dot rather than by stretching or denting.

In position 3, Devanagari has the letter BA (ब), a voiced unaspirated consonant corresponding to Thai pho phan (พ). Thai lost the old contrast between voiced and voiceless aspirates, but preserved the contrast as breathiness on the vowel. In Southern Thai, Central Thai, North Eastern Thai and Lao, but not in Northern Thai, this breathiness was re-interpreted as aspiration, but with a difference in pitch from the original voiceless aspirates, so now we have a contrast between the high tone class voiceless aspirates in position 2 and the low tone class voiceless aspirates in position 3.

It seems that when Thai was first written, it had three voiced fricatives. These are written with fo fan (ฟ), a modification of pho phan (พ), so so (ซ), a modification of cho chang (ช) and kho khon (ฅ), a modification of kho khwai (ค). While Devanagari has nothing corresponding to fo fan, it does have ZA (ज़) corresponding to so so and GHHA (ग़) corresponding to kho khon. These three consonants may be regarded as occupying position 3a, as they come between the consonants corresponding to traditional positions 3 and 4.

In position 4, Devanagari has the letter BHA (भ), a voiced aspirated consonant corresponding to Thai pho samphao (ภ), a voiceless aspirated consonant.

In position 5 we have the nasals. e.g. Devanagari MA (म) and Thai mo ma (ม).

Sound changes since Thai was first written have made the Thai arrangement a bit less clear. The phonetic distinctions between kho khai (= Devanagari KHA ख) and kho khuat (= Devanagari KHHA ख़), between kho khon and kho rakhang (= Devanagari GHA घ) and, in initial position, between yo yak (= Devanagari YA य) and yo ying (= Devanagari NYA ञ) have been lost in the Thai and Lao languages and dialects.

[fabianfred]

A friend of mine worked here for six months about ten years ago, and then Vietnam for five years. He still remembers more Thai than Vietnamese, and considers that a much more difficult language than Thai.

G

Thai has five tones... Vietnamese has seven!

[sabaijai]

... Thai does not aspirate consonants so there's not real pronunciation value in having, for example, all of the "t" characters. The only one that sounds different from the rest is ต, which ironically sounds closest to an aspirated "th" consonant but maps to an unaspirated one (position 1).

ต is not aspirated and is not close to aspirated /th/ -- in fact it not only maps to unaspirated, it is unaspirated.

Thai does aspirate consonants, eg, ผ ค ช ท etc.

[mangkorn]

qual ... what sound for an absent vowel ......... no spaces between words etc .... crazy writing ....

but once you get it ... you mostly get it!

I must say that the most difficult things that I had to suss out were those absent vowels in many first short syllables - which is a very short /a/ or /u/ sound - vis-a-vis the normally absent short /o/ vowel between two consonants.

How to know which vowel sounds should be where when you're looking at a very long string of consonants?

I figured it out finally, when I learned that the absent sound at the beginning of those syllables isn't actually a vowel: it's just a natural sound that occurs in speech (just like how most Spanish speakers cannot pronounce the /s/ at the beginning of a word the same way that English speakers do; it comes out as an /es/ sound), and, if that sound at the start of those Thai syllables were considered to be a vowel, that would also change the tone of the rest of the word).

I didn't know all of that yet, but when I complained to a friend about why that damned vowel isn't written, she explained simply that it's because there is no vowel to write: even though I do hear it very clearly as a short vowel, Thais don't consider it to be a vowel. And then it made sense, but it sure took me a long time to get there.

You are right, though: once you get, you do get it.

Whew...

Edited June 9, 2007 by mangkorn

[CSS]

qual ... what sound for an absent vowel ......... no spaces between words etc .... crazy writing ....

but once you get it ... you mostly get it!

I must say that the most difficult things that I had to suss out were those absent vowels in many first short syllables - which is a very short /a/ or /u/ sound - vis-a-vis the normally absent short /o/ vowel between two consonants.

How to know which vowel sounds should be where when you're looking at a very long string of consonants?

I figured it out finally, when I learned that the absent sound at the beginning of those syllables isn't actually a vowel: it's just a natural sound that occurs in speech (just like how most Spanish speakers cannot pronounce the /s/ at the beginning of a word the same way that English speakers do; it comes out as an /es/ sound), and, if that sound at the start of those Thai syllables were considered to be a vowel, that would also change the tone of the rest of the word).

I didn't know all of that yet, but when I complained to a friend about why that damned vowel isn't written, she explained simply that it's because there is no vowel to write: even though I do hear it very clearly as a short vowel, Thais don't consider it to be a vowel. And then it made sense, but it sure took me a long time to get there.

You are right, though: once you get, you do get it.

Whew...

I have a funny (embarrassing) story involving absent vowels. When I was about 3 months into learning Thai and just starting to teach myself writing rules and use a dictionary with only thai writing, I wanted to look up the word for season. At the site in Nongkhai where I was working people loved to ask me about what the seasons were like in America and I wanted to be able to say that we had a hot season (summer), fall, a cold season (winter), and spring. So I looked up season in my dictionary and found ฤดู. It was a new word for me so I had to figure out how to say it, I knew of words like ตลาด (ตะ ลาด) and ตลอด (ตะ ลอด) --some of you must be able to see where this is going--so I assumed ฤดู was pronounced ระ ดู and happily went about telling everyone I met about the ระ ดู ร้อน and the ระ ดู หนาว that we have in America. Little did I know (and apparently everyone I met was too respectful to correct me) that the correct pronunciation was รึ ดู not ระ ดู and that ระดู actually means menstruation. So I had been telling everyone how in American we have hot menstruations and cold menstruations (not to mention mestruations with falling leaves and menstruations with budding leaves) as you can imagine I was a little หน้าแดง when someone finally let me in on my mistake (after more than a month I might add).

ฤ is a tricky one as it sometimes becomes รึ, sometimes เรอ, and sometimes ริ but not ระ.

On the subject of learning Thai I've found it a good practice to take new words I learn or have started to hear more frequently and just throw them into conversation. If they return the reaction that I was hoping for then I use them again in the same way, if they don't I modify it and try again. I've learned a lot by doing this but it also makes me susceptible to mistakes like the one above.

[meadish_sweetball]

So I had been telling everyone how in American we have hot menstruations and cold menstruations (not to mention mestruations with falling leaves and menstruations with budding leaves) as you can imagine I was a little หน้าแดง when someone finally let me in on my mistake (after more than a month I might add).

Excellent story CSS - I think we all have made similar mistakes. Along the same lines, a friend of mine who did an exchange year here, used โพด instead of พูด for 'speak' for about a month before somebody told him he was pronouncing it wrong...

[Nouveau]

My point is, however: I don't think Thai is an easy language to learn to speak well. ...the tones are a big challenge if you are coming from a non-tonal background, ...Thai is quite easy to learn to an acceptable standard, certainly easier than english.

From the Economist

Words in codeMay 31st 2007

From The Economist print edition

The speakers of tonal and non-tonal languages have genetic differences

FIVE years ago three well-known academics, including Noam Chomsky, wrote that the half-century old "interdisciplinary marriage" between biology and linguistics "has not yet been fully consummated." That same year other scientists described the molecular evolution of a gene called FOXP2 which, when mutated, seems to cause people severe difficulty with grammar and articulation.

Another genetic condition that could shed light on the biology of linguistics is microcephaly (sometimes rudely called "pin-headedness"). It is linked to six genes, a spanner in the works of any of which leads the human brain to grow to only two-thirds of a pint in adults. That is less than a third of its normal volume. Those genes are alluring objects for studying the evolution of language because brain size has ballooned in people since their line split with that of their closest relatives. Even though birds sing and bees dance, nothing in nature matches a human's richly complicated system of vocal communication. In short, language makes humans unique and genes active in the developing brain make language possible.

Dan Dediu and Robert Ladd, of the University of Edinburgh, are helping biology and linguistics become intimate at the genetic level. In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences they describe a statistical analysis of two of the genes that cause microcephaly when they go wrong. Like many genes, both exist in different functional versions, called alleles, which are spread unevenly among human populations.

First, Dr Dediu and Dr Ladd checked that their two genes of interest really are unusual. They combined a database of 983 alleles that are known to vary across human groups with another enumerating how 26 discrete linguistic features (such as whether consonants aggregate at the beginnings and ends of words) are either used or not used in conversation by 49 populations. Picking apart a thicket of possible correlations, Dr Dediu and Dr Ladd found no general links between human genetic and linguistic characters.

But one feature—whether a language uses pitch as well as vowels and consonants to convey word meanings—stood apart. Those, such as Chinese, that encipher meaning in pitch are called "tonal languages". Those that do not, like English, are "non-tonal". And it was versions of Dr Dediu's and Dr Ladd's two microcephaly-related genes that matched the 49 populations along tonal and non-tonal lines.

Dr Dediu and Dr Ladd believe the evolution of tonal and non-tonal languages interacted with the evolution of these genes. Certain alleles could have predisposed people to a tonal-language structure. That tonal language, if used by individuals with whom communicating well is particularly helpful, could then reinforce selection for those alleles. Probably not coincidentally, the two alleles that are associated with non-tonal languages evolved recently in human history (some 5,800 and 37,000 years ago) and show signs of being strongly beneficial to their carriers.

Correlations such as these can shift the balance of evidence, but it is demonstrating causation in addition to correlation that forms the glue of the scientific method. Here the marriage between language and genetics hits a problem. No suspicious-looking gene can be added or eliminated in an experimental mouse in order to discover its effects on language, since mice cannot speak. At best, researchers can try to fill in gaps between molecular biology and behaviour.

In March, Narly Golestani and her colleagues at University College, London, showed that people who are fast at learning the sounds of foreign speech have more densely packed white matter in a part of the brain called the left Heschl gyrus. Patrick Wong and his colleagues at the University of Texas, Austin, recently found that adult English speakers fall into two groups, according to their ability to learn tonal distinctions. The more successful also had bigger left Heschl gyruses. The next task is to see if genetic differences can be pinned on the two groups—and, if so, exactly which genes are involved.

[ray23]

I hadn't check this for some time after reading the last few postings, I suppose the original poster now realizes just how easy Thai is

[Tippaporn]

Interesting reading, all. I'm a bit amazed at the amount of study put into the Thai language by so many. And I'm somewhat loathe to interrupt the flow of discourse but . . .

I've been living in Thailand for close to five years now and am ashamed that my Thai is not anywhere near a simple conversation level. I intend on staying in Thailand indefinitely so I know that for very practical purposes I must eventually master this language. I speak, read and write both English and German so I'm not unfamiliar with learning another language. I have some basic questions, though.

1) For those of us who prefer to be self-taught and yet are not born teachers I find it's a bit difficult to map out a logical and optimal curriculum. Where to best start? Learning the alphabet? Is it more advantageous to study reading and writing concurrently with speaking? In other words, would that help me to more easily learn to speak and shorten the time to become verbally proficient? Or should I simply begin to learn to speak first?

2) What are the best teaching materials available and where can printed material be purchased? Which on-line sources are the best?

3) How many hours per day might be required for study?

4) Tips and suggestions. What did you find essential to do, or not do, in your experience in learning Thai? To share an anecdote, I was once sitting in the Labour Department with a Thai friend and happened to overhear a phone conversation a farang was having behind me. While I couldn't understand the conversation it did strike me that he was speaking extremely fluently; no ahs, erms, or hesitations of any sort. I pointed this out to my friend who, after listening herself, told me that he was 99% that of a native Thai speaker.

After his conversation ended I questioned him briefly. Living in Thailand for 18 years . . . suggested a book from the '60s which he found to be the best in explaining all aspects of the Thai language (unfortunately I don't recall the title or Thai author) . . . and told me what he personally considered to be the secret in learning Thai was to think in Thai. Is there a general concensus on this opinion?

Again, what do people here find to be the most important habits to adopt, and which ones need to be dropped?

Thanks,

Tip

[ray23]

Yes learning the 42 constants and 32 vowels, the five tone markers will help you a lot.

There are flash card available for that.

Thai for beginners is a good book at least for me, By Bejawan Pomsan Becker. shoud be easy to find. I undertand that ther is a CD v avilabkl le with it to hear the words. That is very important.

That being said I attend Thai class at AUA in Udon, my understand is they faclities in other cities as ewll. For me it's better, hard to ask a book a question. But I'm sure there are other great schools.

To be hinest it s long term project, but it can be enjoyable as well

[meadish_sweetball]

Interesting reading, all. I'm a bit amazed at the amount of study put into the Thai language by so many. And I'm somewhat loathe to interrupt the flow of discourse but . . .

I've been living in Thailand for close to five years now and am ashamed that my Thai is not anywhere near a simple conversation level. I intend on staying in Thailand indefinitely so I know that for very practical purposes I must eventually master this language. I speak, read and write both English and German so I'm not unfamiliar with learning another language. I have some basic questions, though.

1) For those of us who prefer to be self-taught and yet are not born teachers I find it's a bit difficult to map out a logical and optimal curriculum. Where to best start? Learning the alphabet? Is it more advantageous to study reading and writing concurrently with speaking? In other words, would that help me to more easily learn to speak and shorten the time to become verbally proficient? Or should I simply begin to learn to speak first?

2) What are the best teaching materials available and where can printed material be purchased? Which on-line sources are the best?

3) How many hours per day might be required for study?

4) Tips and suggestions. What did you find essential to do, or not do, in your experience in learning Thai? To share an anecdote, I was once sitting in the Labour Department with a Thai friend and happened to overhear a phone conversation a farang was having behind me. While I couldn't understand the conversation it did strike me that he was speaking extremely fluently; no ahs, erms, or hesitations of any sort. I pointed this out to my friend who, after listening herself, told me that he was 99% that of a native Thai speaker.

After his conversation ended I questioned him briefly. Living in Thailand for 18 years . . . suggested a book from the '60s which he found to be the best in explaining all aspects of the Thai language (unfortunately I don't recall the title or Thai author) . . . and told me what he personally considered to be the secret in learning Thai was to think in Thai. Is there a general concensus on this opinion?

Again, what do people here find to be the most important habits to adopt, and which ones need to be dropped?

Thanks,

Tip

Hi Tip,

My tip is that you start out by joining a structured course after all. If you are in Bangkok, Piammitr, Union and Unity (and some others I may have forgotten) seem to be the best organized. Avoid AUA as they use a different approach that does not seem to make people progress to the same extent.

Once you have learned how to read basic Thai (which involves being able to pronounce it or at least understand the theory behind it), then you can try to continue on your own if you think it would suit you better. This will most likely be the fastest way to get somewhere. Learning German well is no mean feat considering the grammar, but the difficulties presented by Thai are very different, and you will have a million questions, which are best answered by a qualified teacher.

For self study, Teach Yourself Thai and the Becker books are good introductions into conversational Thai. There is a link list at the top of the Thai language forum explaining this.

1) For those of us who prefer to be self-taught and yet are not born teachers I find it's a bit difficult to map out a logical and optimal curriculum. Where to best start? Learning the alphabet? Is it more advantageous to study reading and writing concurrently with speaking? In other words, would that help me to more easily learn to speak and shorten the time to become verbally proficient? Or should I simply begin to learn to speak first?

I think learning to read and write at the same time as speaking is the best way to go - you need to learn to distinguish between the possible sounds in Thai (and be taught what sounds you must work on, the sounds you don't have in your own language), and learning the alphabet with an experienced teacher can help you with that.

2) What are the best teaching materials available and where can printed material be purchased? Which on-line sources are the best?

This is a matter of preference. People tend to prefer the things they used themselves, since most never try two or more different ones. For online sources, check the top of the forum. Asia Books will have the more popular courses. You can also try the Chulalongkorn University bookstore.

How many hours per day might be required for study?

As many as you can spare and feel comfortable with. To progress quickly, I think at least 3-5 hours per day is necessary, but that being said, the most important thing in studying a language is perseverence and regularity - so 1 hour per day, every day, is much better than 5 hours once a week (our minds have limited capacity for receiving large chunks of information effectively). Still, if you can keep yourself motivated and have exercises varied enough, try to do more than 1 hour.

4) Tips and suggestions. What did you find essential to do, or not do, in your experience in learning Thai?

Keep at it and don't give up. A formal learning situation forces you to go every week and works as a whip/carrot. To motivate yourself can be a lot more tricky.

Thinking in Thai I would say is an effect of learning it well, that comes naturally, not something you actively do, so I was a bit surprised at what the guy you met said.

[sabaijai]

My point is, however: I don't think Thai is an easy language to learn to speak well. ...the tones are a big challenge if you are coming from a non-tonal background, ...Thai is quite easy to learn to an acceptable standard, certainly easier than english.

From the Economist

Words in codeMay 31st 2007

From The Economist print edition

The speakers of tonal and non-tonal languages have genetic differences

FIVE years ago three well-known academics, including Noam Chomsky, wrote that the half-century old "interdisciplinary marriage" between biology and linguistics "has not yet been fully consummated." That same year other scientists described the molecular evolution of a gene called FOXP2 which, when mutated, seems to cause people severe difficulty with grammar and articulation.

Another genetic condition that could shed light on the biology of linguistics is microcephaly (sometimes rudely called "pin-headedness"). It is linked to six genes, a spanner in the works of any of which leads the human brain to grow to only two-thirds of a pint in adults. That is less than a third of its normal volume. Those genes are alluring objects for studying the evolution of language because brain size has ballooned in people since their line split with that of their closest relatives. Even though birds sing and bees dance, nothing in nature matches a human's richly complicated system of vocal communication. In short, language makes humans unique and genes active in the developing brain make language possible.

Dan Dediu and Robert Ladd, of the University of Edinburgh, are helping biology and linguistics become intimate at the genetic level. In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences they describe a statistical analysis of two of the genes that cause microcephaly when they go wrong. Like many genes, both exist in different functional versions, called alleles, which are spread unevenly among human populations.

First, Dr Dediu and Dr Ladd checked that their two genes of interest really are unusual. They combined a database of 983 alleles that are known to vary across human groups with another enumerating how 26 discrete linguistic features (such as whether consonants aggregate at the beginnings and ends of words) are either used or not used in conversation by 49 populations. Picking apart a thicket of possible correlations, Dr Dediu and Dr Ladd found no general links between human genetic and linguistic characters.

But one feature—whether a language uses pitch as well as vowels and consonants to convey word meanings—stood apart. Those, such as Chinese, that encipher meaning in pitch are called "tonal languages". Those that do not, like English, are "non-tonal". And it was versions of Dr Dediu's and Dr Ladd's two microcephaly-related genes that matched the 49 populations along tonal and non-tonal lines.

Dr Dediu and Dr Ladd believe the evolution of tonal and non-tonal languages interacted with the evolution of these genes. Certain alleles could have predisposed people to a tonal-language structure. That tonal language, if used by individuals with whom communicating well is particularly helpful, could then reinforce selection for those alleles. Probably not coincidentally, the two alleles that are associated with non-tonal languages evolved recently in human history (some 5,800 and 37,000 years ago) and show signs of being strongly beneficial to their carriers.

Correlations such as these can shift the balance of evidence, but it is demonstrating causation in addition to correlation that forms the glue of the scientific method. Here the marriage between language and genetics hits a problem. No suspicious-looking gene can be added or eliminated in an experimental mouse in order to discover its effects on language, since mice cannot speak. At best, researchers can try to fill in gaps between molecular biology and behaviour.

In March, Narly Golestani and her colleagues at University College, London, showed that people who are fast at learning the sounds of foreign speech have more densely packed white matter in a part of the brain called the left Heschl gyrus. Patrick Wong and his colleagues at the University of Texas, Austin, recently found that adult English speakers fall into two groups, according to their ability to learn tonal distinctions. The more successful also had bigger left Heschl gyruses. The next task is to see if genetic differences can be pinned on the two groups—and, if so, exactly which genes are involved.

Interesting, wonder what Chomsky would say as this finding goes against his theory of 'hardwired grammar', etc.

[Tippaporn]

[snip] Keep at it and don't give up. [snip]

Thanks for the reply and encouragement, Meadish. As of now I'm almost through the Thai alphabet (three consecutive days). My GF is a great help as she never wearies of repeating sounds when I don't vocalize them properly. Vowels next. I break it up with basic reading about the Thai language.

My goal is to one day (soon) be of some useful help in this forum.

Thanks again ,

Tip

[meadish_sweetball]

That's excellent Tip, very quick!

What books are you using?

[Tippaporn]

No books yet. I started using the basic poster-type alphabet chart (including Thai spellings for each letter's representation) in conjunction with LearningThai.com for audio and my GF for pronunciation feedback. As I go along with listening and speaking I'm writing out the alphabet and each letter's representative word, which also helps me to at least begin reading. The LearningThai site I find to be excellent.

I also picked up the "Learning Thai: Thai Interactive & Thai Script" software at our local IT mall. A great two-in-one program that consists of 1) "Thai Writing System" and 2) simply titled "Thai." The writing system program offers random choice exercises for the alphabet and vowels. These are spoken and your task is to identify the character. It also covers final consanants, vowels that change, tones, tone rules, character animation, and a very simple to understand tone table. Exercises include determining tones and creating syllables.

The "Thai" program consists of 30 chapters for listening, reading, multiple choice, multiple choice phrases, sentence scrambler, telling time (both military and colloquial), numbers. Inlcuded are an assortment of games, such as memory, true/false, and matching. There's an entire reference section which includes a glossary, pronunciation guide, grammar notes, quick search, etc. Too much to list.

My opinion is that this program is very excellent and for ฿120 I think it is more than well worth it.

I've also been perusing this forum and while some of the threads, though highly interesting, are beyond my current understanding they are providing me hints of what is yet to come. My hat's off to all of you for a very fine job.

My goal is to become as proficient in Thai as I am in English. The farang I met at the Labour dept. has unknowingly served as the catalyst. Aim high! , wherever you are.

BTW, Meadish, I know you're Swedish but your command of the English language is superior to most native speakers I know. A natural born linguist?

If I may offer my two satang regarding the difficulty of the Thai language it is this: It is easy . . . it is difficult. Each is a true statement. I believe it's more of a choice that's up to each to determine for themselves.

From a psychological standpoint it's not a good idea to keep giving oneself the suggestion that something is difficult, and even worse to argue in favour of limitations. That is enough to begin creating very real and practical mental blocks within oneself. If others can do it so can you. A much better mantra to recite, just as true as the inverse, and it will produce benefical effects.

Just my words of encouragement to others.

Edited June 16, 2007 by Tippaporn

[meadish_sweetball]

Sounds like you've got it covered for a while. Don't hesitate to start a new topic here if/when you run into something confusing.

Thanks for the compliment on my English, although I still think there is plenty of room for improvement.

[ray23]

Thanks Tippaporn excllent site although I take foprmal lessons, given with the books listed on the site.It has additional phrase that we haven't used. As well as good practise for waht we have elarned. I'll pass it on the other students in our class. Great source.

[Tippaporn]

You're welcome, Ray. Well, I'll chalk that up as my first contribution to this forum. Do check out the software I mentioned if available in your neck of the woods. The random testing on the alphabet made it very easy . . . for me.