looking for specific language learning tool // reading

[tgw]

I am looking for a Thai language learning tool, I hope someone knows one which checks the boxes :

 

goal : reading Thai

 

- not based on learning individual letters/sounds similar to what Thai children do. I can't learn that way. of course the information about Thai vowels and consonants and special cases pronounced differently (like the Thai double rr) should be available, but should not be the basis for learning.

- use of short sentences frequently used in daily life, signs seen on roads, skytrain, etc.

- display of Thai script as used on road signs / administrative documents (and an option to see the "trendy" font variants would be nice too)

- reading of the sentence in very clear Thai, with an extra slow option
- display of English translation using literal translation, for example, "khun chue arai" will translate into "you name what" , grammatically correct English translation is optional

 

I learn best when I can associate script with the sounds of full sentences.

[Foxx]

https://thai-notes.com/ would probably be a good place to start.

 

There's the reading course over 40 levels with lots of opportunity to practise what you learn in each level.

 

https://thai-notes.com/reading/index.html

 

Practising reading sentences there's a reader which can be in either a traditional Thai font or a modern one:

https://thai-notes.com/reading/thaireader.html

 

There are also four articles about modern fonts which are worth a read:

 

• Anatomy of a Thai character
• Telling characters apart
• Thai Character Relationships
• Additional Notes
   

https://thai-notes.com/notes/index.html

 

[tgw]

4 hours ago, Foxx said:

https://thai-notes.com/ would probably be a good place to start.

 

There's the reading course over 40 levels with lots of opportunity to practise what you learn in each level.

 

https://thai-notes.com/reading/index.html

 

Practising reading sentences there's a reader which can be in either a traditional Thai font or a modern one:

https://thai-notes.com/reading/thaireader.html

 

There are also four articles about modern fonts which are worth a read:

 

• Anatomy of a Thai character
• Telling characters apart
• Thai Character Relationships
• Additional Notes
   

https://thai-notes.com/notes/index.html

 

thank you for trying to help, but that site doesn't seem to work:

https://thai-notes.com/reading/lesson22.html

 

(I tried with Edge, Firefox and Chrome)

[Tom89]

1 hour ago, tgw said:

 

thank you for trying to help, but that site doesn't seem to work:

https://thai-notes.com/reading/lesson22.html

 

(I tried with Edge, Firefox and Chrome)

Edited July 15 by Tom89
New information

[tgw]

10 minutes ago, Tom89 said:

I just tried it. I had no problem accessing the site. I'm using Chrome on Win 11. 

accessing is possible, but the relevant content doesn't appear

 

https://thai-notes.com/reading/sentences.html

 

[ThaiNotes]

Temporary glitch.  Should be working now.  Sorry about that.

 

 

Edited July 15 by ThaiNotes

[tgw]

there is something wrong with the page - some script doesn't load properly, and then it throws a JS error about an object being empty.

[tgw]

1 minute ago, ThaiNotes said:

Temporary glitch.  Should be working now.  Sorry about that.

 

 

still no luck on my side.

[tgw]

BTW, if this relies on google translate API, you do know that free use was discontinued by google and now costs a fortune ?

[tgw]

[ThaiNotes]

Not sure what's changed.  It's not immediately apparent what the problem is.  I'll look into it.

[No Forwarding Address]

12 minutes ago, tgw said:

BTW, if this relies on google translate API, you do know that free use was discontinued by google and now costs a fortune ?

I use Google Translate every day and it doesn't cost me a cent...........??  Don't know what yo are on about.

[Freddy42OZ]

Have you tried Anki? 

https://apps.ankiweb.net/

 

[tgw]

8 minutes ago, No Forwarding Address said:

I use Google Translate every day and it doesn't cost me a cent...........??  Don't know what yo are on about.

 

API - when the webserver requests an automated translation.

[tgw]

I am now playing with this:

 

https://thai-notes.com/games/freethai.html

 

it took several CTRL+F5 to get it working, maybe there's a problem with Cloudfare or caching.

 

but I got it working and it's quite nice, I like it !

 

one thing that is missing is a transliteration of the Thai pronunciation. I often have difficulties hearing the first consonant correctly, a transliteration would help. Maybe make it appear with the correct answer, if possible ?

 

for example, for หลัง , I hear "nang". of course there clearly is something wrong with my ears, but it could help if somewhere it said it's actually "hlang".

your site is impressive !

many thanks !

Edited July 15 by tgw

[ThaiNotes]

The problem with the "Reading Sentences" pages in the Reading Course is now fixed.  However, you may need to do a hard reload on the page with the "Read" buttons (not on the page that is opened when you click "Read" button).  That's Ctrl+F5 in Chrome, Opera and Firefox and Option + Command + E in Safari.

[tgw]

2 minutes ago, ThaiNotes said:

The problem with the "Reading Sentences" pages in the Reading Course is now fixed.  However, you may need to do a hard reload on the page with the "Read" buttons (not on the page that is opened when you click "Read" button).  That's Ctrl+F5 in Chrome, Opera and Firefox and Option + Command + E in Safari.

 

Thank you !

[ThaiNotes]

35 minutes ago, tgw said:

BTW, if this relies on google translate API, you do know that free use was discontinued by google and now costs a fortune ?

 

It doesn't.  It uses the web interface which is why it is opened in a new page.  The text to be translated is part of the URL.  Thanks for your concern.

[CygnusX1]

4 hours ago, tgw said:

for example, for หลัง , I hear "nang". of course there clearly is something wrong with my ears, but it could help if somewhere it said it's actually "hlang".

The ห character here is not pronounced, but is used as a sort of marker that changes the class of the ล character, so it’s pronounced something like “‘lung”, but with a rising tone instead of a flat tone. The website thai-language.com explains it all under the “‘reference” section.

It all sounds very daunting, but I’ve found it way easier to learn to read Thai than to learn to speak it, which I can do only at the most basic level. When I had my air con installed, I spoke with the technician in English, as his English was much better than my Thai. However, I impressed the hell out of him when he gave me the manual, apologising it was only in Thai, and I began to read it out to him.

 

 

 

[tgw]

2 hours ago, CygnusX1 said:

The ห character here is not pronounced, but is used as a sort of marker that changes the class of the ล character, so it’s pronounced something like “‘lung”, but with a rising tone instead of a flat tone. The website thai-language.com explains it all under the “‘reference” section.

It all sounds very daunting, but I’ve found it way easier to learn to read Thai than to learn to speak it, which I can do only at the most basic level. When I had my air con installed, I spoke with the technician in English, as his English was much better than my Thai. However, I impressed the hell out of him when he gave me the manual, apologising it was only in Thai, and I began to read it out to him.

 

I didn't mean the sound/pronounciation but the transliteration.

My brain needs something to tell me that this is a special case where my ear will hear nang, but it also could be hlang. I will remember it when reading it and it will then also imprint on my listening comprehension.

I can't do much with general "references", but I'm very good at remembering individual words and forms of their their usage.

It's like in German - most native speakers who speak it without mistakes won't know much about its grammar. After a while, meaning when reaching school age, things just "sound right", no need for grammar courses.

That's how my brain works and that's how I want to learn Thai.

I suspect one's first mothertongue has a significant influence on hoe one's brain learns.

[CygnusX1]

I might not be understanding you correctly, but I think most people would say that learning Thai through transliteration is not a good idea. There are so many different transliteration schemes, and the official Thai Govt one is frequently crazy. Take their transliteration “Suvanaphumi”, (สุวรรณภูมิ) as in Bangkok’s international airport, pronounced something like suwanapoom. Why use a ‘v’ instead of a ‘w’? Why use ‘i’ to indicate a vowel that’s silent in the Thai anyway? They use ‘ph’ instead of ‘p’ to show that it’s an aspirated consonant, but English speakers will naturally pronounce it as ‘f’, as in the notorious ‘Phuket’.

I suppose the best scheme would be to use the international phonetic alphabet, but you might as well learn the Thai characters if you don’t know that already.

 

[tgw]

1 hour ago, CygnusX1 said:

I might not be understanding you correctly, but I think most people would say that learning Thai through transliteration is not a good idea. There are so many different transliteration schemes, and the official Thai Govt one is frequently crazy. Take their transliteration “Suvanaphumi”, (สุวรรณภูมิ) as in Bangkok’s international airport, pronounced something like suwanapoom. Why use a ‘v’ instead of a ‘w’? Why use ‘i’ to indicate a vowel that’s silent in the Thai anyway? They use ‘ph’ instead of ‘p’ to show that it’s an aspirated consonant, but English speakers will naturally pronounce it as ‘f’, as in the notorious ‘Phuket’.

I suppose the best scheme would be to use the international phonetic alphabet, but you might as well learn the Thai characters if you don’t know that already.

 

nono... I will memorize the sound I hear, I won't learn the sound from the transliteration, the transliteration only serves as a cue to differentiate things from each other in my head, like "oh, that's the "nang" which in fact is "hlang" but one doesn't hear much of L. it's like different memory boxes, just a way to remember things, not a basis for pronounciation, which will come from the actual sound.

I know it sounds like a hysteric mess, but Thai is my 5th language, I know what I'm doing :)

[CygnusX1]

Sounds like you have heaps more natural talent for learning languages than I have. Only way I can learn a language is by intensive study of text - combined with recordings of course, but I’m memorising the vocab and grammar from the text, not the sound.

[n8sail]

@ThaiNotes Are the "Reading / Play" pages still a work in progress?  I've tried Chrome and Edge, Ctrl+F5 many times, no luck, the words to click on don't load.  The HTML text is loading, spaced out what looks to be correctly, but what I assume are Javascript portions are not loading.  Latest stable Chrome version on fully updated Win11.

 

Technical problems aside, this is going to be an amazing resource, many thanks to you and the others that have made this possible.

[ThaiNotes]

Not work in progress.  They've been around for a few years.

 

What I've done (and I should have done yesterday) is update the version number.  When the page loads it's displayed briefly in the bottom left of the screen.  (It's also written to the console log.) If this is displaying as 1.3.0, then I think everything should be working OK.  (At least it works OK for me on the four browsers I've tested.)  If it's less than this, then there's a problem with your browser cache.  (Cloudflare is caching the correct version.  I've checked.)

 

As for "thanks to you and the others that have made this possible", the entire site (with the exception of the FSI language course) is all my own work.

[n8sail]

2 hours ago, ThaiNotes said:

Not work in progress.  They've been around for a few years.

 

What I've done (and I should have done yesterday) is update the version number.  When the page loads it's displayed briefly in the bottom left of the screen.  (It's also written to the console log.) If this is displaying as 1.3.0, then I think everything should be working OK.  (At least it works OK for me on the four browsers I've tested.)  If it's less than this, then there's a problem with your browser cache.  (Cloudflare is caching the correct version.  I've checked.)

 

As for "thanks to you and the others that have made this possible", the entire site (with the exception of the FSI language course) is all my own work.

In that case, a massive thanks to you!  Cheers mate.

It appears an error is being thrown in the console.  I doubt it's cache-related as I only browse the web in Incognito mode.  Closed and reloaded that, still no go.  Tried in normal mode as well just in case Incognito caused the problems, and that threw the exact same error.  My setup is pretty standard.  I'll try and boot into Linux next and see what happens there.

[ThaiNotes]

16 minutes ago, n8sail said:

It appears an error is being thrown in the console

 

Could you please post the console log for the first page, https://thai-notes.com/reading/lesson22.html  That's where I believe the problem was.  (That page passes data to the second page.  It was the passing of data that had stopped working.  The error on the second page which you've provided talks about "read properties of null".  The data are null because they weren't passed from the first page.  The log should look like this:
 

ResponsiveVoice r1.8.3
responsivevoice.js?key=vh25OFgw:340 isHidden: false
responsivevoice.js?key=vh25OFgw:341 Prerender: false
responsivevoice.js?key=vh25OFgw:402 Configuring
readloader-0.js:243 Version 1.3.0
responsivevoice.js?key=vh25OFgw:144 RV: Voice support read

 

The key text is "Version 1.3.0".  If it's missing, it's definitely a caching problem - either with your browser (most probable) or with your ISP (pretty unlikely, but possible).

Incidentally, Incognito Mode does use caching, but the cache is cleared when you end the Incognito Mode session.  May be worth closing your browser, reopening it and start another Incognito Mode session and trying again.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

[n8sail]

Currently running in a lubuntu usb disk boot with clean Chrome install, just to get ALL the potential windows problems out of the way. Well aware of how the caching works and indeed restarting incognito was the very first thing I did after CTRL+F5.

The "lesson22" page from your link above does indeed load correctly for me on this OS and browser and shows 1.3.0, and the "Read" buttons open a new tab and work correctly.  However, the page I was referring to above does not, though it does display v 1.3.0 on loading.   The page not working for me is accessed by clicking "Reading Course", "1.Consonants ร, น, ก, ง. Long Vowels า, อ", and then "Play" in the "Notes" section of that page.  The game that loads in the new tab is what is not working, it is just blank between each text area, the buttons on top and bottom of the page are not responsive, and the Console is showing the error I pasted the screen shot of above.

 

So it looks like the main "1.Consonants ร, น, ก, ง. Long Vowels า, อ" page of the Reading course (and indeed some random others I tried) are not passing data to the relevant "Play" page as well?

 

This is happening in lubuntu as well.

 

Anyways, no big issue.  I can use other sections of the site no problem.  Just trying to help troubleshoot where I can, not trying to be annoying krub.  🙂

[tgw]

12 hours ago, CygnusX1 said:

Sounds like you have heaps more natural talent for learning languages than I have. Only way I can learn a language is by intensive study of text - combined with recordings of course, but I’m memorising the vocab and grammar from the text, not the sound.

yes, I do have a very special rapport with languages.

but I'm very bad at memorizing things.

As a child, I won prizes in both French (in France, "La dictée de Pivot") and German in nationwide competitions dictation/spelling but I scored awfully in both for grammar which distressed my teachers, haha.
things just "sound right" for me, don't need to know any rules.

[CygnusX1]

8 hours ago, ThaiNotes said:

As for "thanks to you and the others that have made this possible", the entire site (with the exception of the FSI language course) is all my own work.

You’ve done an amazing job, highly professional, thanks! Will inspire me to brush up a bit on my extremely limited Thai. All seems to work fine on my iPad, including sounds and the FreeThai game.