My Thai Is Embarassingly Bad

[girlx]

my thai is embarassingly bad. i can understand most of it but i can't really speak it at all. i sound so retarded that i am afraid to even try to speak it, and now most of the village i live in thinks i am hopelessly stupid! is there anyone who can give thai lessons a few times a week, maybe in thong nai pan? i can't find anyone myself thus far.

[Pattaya_Fox]

The topic title has been adjusted and the obscene term for feces removed.

[JimmyTheMook]

my thai is embarassingly bad. i can understand most of it but i can't really speak it at all. i sound so retarded that i am afraid to even try to speak it, and now most of the village i live in thinks i am hopelessly stupid! is there anyone who can give thai lessons a few times a week, maybe in thong nai pan? i can't find anyone myself thus far.

Make sure you learn central Thai if you want to be able to communicate with the rest of Thailand.

[SamuiJens]

my thai is embarassingly bad. i can understand most of it but i can't really speak it at all. i sound so retarded that i am afraid to even try to speak it, and now most of the village i live in thinks i am hopelessly stupid! is there anyone who can give thai lessons a few times a week, maybe in thong nai pan? i can't find anyone myself thus far.

Saw someone wanting students on this forum about 3-5 weeks ago, may have been removed, but check back, might still be there, if you don't get any answers that is. Good Luck, X! BUT I think it was on samui, not sure.

Edited June 3, 2007 by SamuiJens

[girlx]

The topic title has been adjusted and the obscene term for feces removed.

hey i purposely didn't use *the* bad word for feces! at least in america the word i used is considered more polite.

p.s. i do understand central thai pretty well... but i live now in the south, and find southern thai hard to pick up and speak.

Edited June 3, 2007 by girlx

[seville]

Hey Girlx,

Do you have any of the books with CD's? I found the Thai for Beginners to be really helpful. That's a good start and they have a lot of add ons to the original course. I just picked up the first to volumes of their Speak like a Thai series. It's all slang and more contemporary.

The next thing I would suggest is asking at some of the internet shops. Maybe ask Ann or Om at Honey internet. I bet Om would get into it. Do you know them? Om's about 17 now and is a little shy at first, but warms up pretty quick. I think she would get a kick out of being paid to be a teacher.

Also try to write down things you hear often and ask what they mean. Since everyone on TNP for the most part is speaking Phangan Thai, you will want to try and get some of that down and you won't be able to look any of that up in a phrase book.

The interesting thing that I learned this last time was that Southern Thai is not all the same. My boyfriend is from Nakkon Si Thamarat and he often will give me choices, like on this Island they say this. It's a little maddening on Had Tien because we have Issan, Burmise, Phangan and Central Thai being spoken. It's pretty fun, but sometimes makes you a little nuts when you have different friends trying to teach you their dialect.

[stonybonytony]

I learn Thai from a guy in Thong Sala, Visan, he's the only person I've found on the island. He is based in the 'church' opposite the paintball place, if you went down the road towards the hospital and took the first left he's the first building on the left, has a sign for 'the most attractive plots' outside, as he's trying to sell some land as well.

He's not the best Thai teacher I've seen, but he might be the best available locally!, I sometimes struggle to understand some of the subtleties of Thai, but I find going somewhere for an hour to concentrate on learning helps me focus more than just trying to pick it up as I go along. And as mentioned above, I learn something off the staff working here and I learn one thing from one chap, and then try it on someone who comes from a different region, they don't understand me at all and then teach me their local version. At least Visan tells me when he's teaching me Bangkok Thai and when it's Southern Thai, or Phangan Thai.

And any clarification I need I get from the Thai Language section of this forum, some very clever and helpful people there.

[girlx]

yeah i have seen the sign for that guy but i have avoided looking him up as he is affiliated with a christian church... i just don't deal well with religious folk... but i will take the other tips into consideration. my boyfriend tries to teach me southern thai but he gets so frustrated with me because apparently i say everything completely wrong (american accent)...

[Boo]

girlx, don't let your bf teach you if you want to keep the relationship going. I used to have at least one row a week with hubby over learning thai & when we both gave up trying we had a much happier relationship

I used the attached link & scroll down to free downloads, there is a link to the fundamentals of thai language, which I used to learn reading & writing until I got my own hard copy off of amazon, it really is the best resource I have found to learn the mechanics of the language as well as vocab & grammar ( and I have all the tapes & books!) as it teaches you thai from the beginning.

Sadly with a full time job & now a baby my study has been put on hold but I learned loads of new thai from this on top of what I learned from living with thais & got a thrill out of recognising to read easy words in thai too.

[PaulAllen]

It seems impossible to me that you can understand what they are saying (which shows you have a very good grasp of the Thai language already) but cannot repeat it. Especially because Thai's speak rapidly and you have to have sharp ears to dissect it and understand it.

It sounds the same to me as if you can read well but cannot spell at all.

But, what do I know?

[girlx]

yeah you would think eh... i can hear it right in my head but i just can't seem to say it right out loud! especially if i am on the spot in front of a thai person... i don't know quite so much of the southern dialect as central thai though, so even more vocab would help. i do have that 'fundamentals of thai language' you mentioned boo, and it is great, however i think i learn better when i can converse with a thai.

[seville]

Sounds like your problem is with tone. If you have a good musical ear that part is a lot easier, if not, then it is clearly more difficult. If I'm not sure I always ask.

It again gets tricky because the southerners will use different tones for words then in central

I just sing the tones in my head: mai, mai, mai, mai, mai and say it out loud if I'm trying to get help with a word.

Also, the vowels; long or short and knowing some of the names of them so you can ask if it's sa ra "a" or sa ra "aah" I ask people to spell words in Thai to me if I can't seem to get it and that helps a lot. You know like is the word Rah Rua or La Ling.

Little things like that helped me a long. I'm not fluent by any means, but it starts to click after awhile.

[RakSamui]

yeah you would think eh... i can hear it right in my head but i just can't seem to say it right out loud! especially if i am on the spot in front of a thai person... i don't know quite so much of the southern dialect as central thai though, so even more vocab would help. i do have that 'fundamentals of thai language' you mentioned boo, and it is great, however i think i learn better when i can converse with a thai.

i learnt off the girlfriend, started off learning a word a day then started stringing sentences together. if you do not have a Thai partner then it will be tough. Unlike Boo me and the misses never had a row about it. i remeber a few years ago one of my mates said i speak the worsed Thai he had ever heard. i stuck with it and now its reasonable. just stick with it do not give up using it and maybe consider Thai partner!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BambinA]

Dear Girlx,

Being a Thai, I learn my English from internet.It is not that great but I think my Eng is ok.

However, i have no idea about TH teacher at Koh Pha ngan.

You can try to study TH by yourself from internet .

http://www.mua.go.th/users/inter/Publicati...nguage/Info.htm

You need to practise you TH in real life later anyway,TH language is funny. When the tone changes, the meaning is changed

[sbk]

The only official teacher I know of is the Christian guy, which I have foregone for reasons similar to girlx.

Not everyone is a good teacher, as Boo attests But, Seville has a good point, look for someone you know who speaks reasonably good english that can tutor you. And if they turn out to be not such a good teacher, move on until you find someone you click with that you feel helps your Thai improve.

And as for the idea of learning Central Thai, well, unless you plan on staying in Koh Phangan forever, that is probably your best bet.

[BambinA]

but i can't really speak it at all. i sound so retarded that i am afraid to even try to speak it, and now most of the village i live in thinks i am hopelessly stupid!

Oh dear...Do not think like that. You just speak TH even you think it is silly. But please believe me,we Thai love it and we try to understand your pidgin TH. I confidently speak , 99% of TH will never think you are a retard.Yes, we laugh and smile sometimes.But believe me, it 's from you are adorable when we speak like that.

No Lie!!

[stonybonytony]

Christian guy (Visan) has never tried to convert me, (not yet anyhow) I try to see it as an interesting local culture, in the same way as I am interested in the local Buddhist beliefs or the spirit house and amulets stuff without necessarily believing any of it.

But if you do find someone in TNP, please let me know as it is a long drive in to Thong Sala.

And even if you stay on Koh Phangan for ever, I think central Thai still most useful as so many people come to work here from all over, on Bottle Beach I think only the owners are from Phangan, virtually everyone else has come here to find work.