Learning Thai Characters First.

[ray23]

You know I am tone deft, so many times being able to recognize the constanent and vowels and the sound they make really helps me to understand. I think trying to get the tones correct at first just makes it to complicated for my feeble mind. I know I did not learn English at my current level in six weeks and I don't expect to learn Thai that quickly eihter.

I think this is going to be a very long road, doesn't mean it can't be fun

[Lithobid]

I've been here a little over eighteen months now and, frankly, my grasp of Thai is pretty pathetic. Lets be even more frank; it's non-existent! Ok, I can count, say hello/goodbye, thank you and ask for a few basic things but I'm pretty ashamed of myself.

I put this down to two things:

1. My Thai wife is an English teacher and actually does speak bloody good English. This has made me very lazy, I'm afraid.

2. With other languages, I've always picked them up reasonably well as I tend to "collect" words as I walk/cycle/drive around from shop signs, road signs, advertisment hoardings, etc. I would then ask someone or just look them up and discover their meaning.

This last point got me thinking; as I cannot learn words visually due to their being in Thai script, would it be a good idea to learn Thai script right at the start? I've floated this idea with a couple of long-term expats and both of them learned to read Thai before they could speak much. I would be very interested to hear others' views and experiences on this and if anyone could recommend a good book to teach myself Thai script, alphabet etc.

I understand your situation, to a point, as I am a young traveler who came to Thailand to get some worldly experience. Thought after talking to many posters on this site, "5tash" "DavidHoustin" "Meadish" "and the rest I am grateful to" I would say that writing and reading are the start of learning. I've been here about two years now, and hired a private teacher, thanks David! and my teacher and I saw things on the same level from the begining. Learn to read, and write, and vocab come natural. That's the way it's been for me, I know many people learn in different ways, but had I not studied the Thai script I would be miles away from where I am. Granted, I've had this private tutor for 6 months now, and my speaking has improved minimaly, but, and I will say again BUT, my understanding of how the language works, and how things are said contextualy, has improved incredibly, which in my mind is almost as imortant as getting the words right out of your mouth. Learn to read, learn to write, don't become a F### authour of a book, but get some basics down, to the point where the newz paper doesen't dissapoint you anymore, if you do that, then it will act as a spring board for your communication capabilities! Hope these words are helpful, and I wish you luck. I've recently become so posessed that I've quit my nice paying job in Phuket and am going to attend Payap university in Chiang mai to study further. There's no straight answer, but if I were to pick a side of the fence, I would get all reading and writing down. Hope that helps and for all good luck!

Cheers and good luck

Lithobid

[Richard W]

I agree with you completely: in first learning a language, "why" is an invalid question; the only question which should be allowed is "how."

I disagree. It helps to have a rationalisation of what is going on. Of course, a just so story will do. A possible example is why some consonants are double acting. For example:

Q: Why is the ล in ผลไม้ [R]phon [H]la [H]maai double-acting?

A: If it wasn't, how would people know you knew it was spelt with ล?

My mnemonics for the Kedmanee keyboard layout are full of false rationalisations.

[ray23]

I will add that having instructor was needed in my case, I actually worked on speaking at the same time. I took a five month break and am in review again, to start clases again in a few weeks. So I'm in the process of review. It is amazing how much I have forgotten. Being retired and enjoying the classes, really no big deal. But, if you needed it for work I think it would take a much more serious approach. Just like English there are lots of rules to learn, in the reading and writing system. I think there are guys out there that can do that with just the book. But I'm not one of them.

[Hobgoblin]

Learning the Thai alphabet and how to read (tone rules, stops, vowels, etc) is highly recommended if you seriously want to learn Thai. I came across these videos on YouTube that may be of use: http://www.youtube.com/ashoka10

[seedoubleyou]

Ipod or any other type of device that allows you to hear the word again and again. You start to mimic the speaker regardless of you being tone deaf or no (I am of the wailing cat category of musical skills).

I posted most of this on a the "Thai Flash Cards" thread but I think it's put to better use here for people like Micksterbs. Pardon the double post but I realized too late that this was the better topic thread for it.

I have been in and out of Thailand for a few years, when I first arrived I spent two-three weeks studying the language which at least allowed me to say some basic things. In other words I butchered the language for quite a while. What was frustrating was I couldn't keep the sounds in my head for long. I also couldn't seem to remember what the backward ee sounded like. Eventually I picked up Benjawan Beckers series and dropped them onto my ipod and after hearing tones again and things improved, it sometimes got me in trouble as I had phrases that I spoke too clearly for my level. I haven't spent as much time in recent years there and things have slipped, 8 months ago I found myself forgetting very basic words and having to think twice about right and left, but with few Thai people in Toronto I was speaking less and less.

Then I watched Mah nakorn by Wisit Sasanatieng and I laughed and remembered so many quirky things I liked about Bangkok. The subtitles helped bring back some of what I had forgotten. So I decided it was time to get some of the language back and to push further. It's time to learn to read and write.

I cut this flip book to help me,thinking I'd watch it when riding the bus etc and it helped but mostly through hearing the letter name three times, but I couldn't break the code so to speak. So I have started sitting down with Thai for Beginners again and this time doing the written component. It's amazing how well this has dovetailed and now after the 3rd chapter things are starting to make sense. It was always frustrating not remembering the vowel lengths and tones but now I can see the word and know. I highly recommend getting an ipod or using the one you have for learning thai, it helps even the most un-musical of us ( you don't see me in a karoke bar for a reason)

http://rapidshare.com/files/113797845/Thai_flip2.mp4.html

(first time I've used rapidshare so let me know if it's not working)

The flip book is a 16 mb mp4 file. The pics are from learningthai.com and the voice is from Thai for beginners. It's only one piece of what you need to learn, to my mind the key piece is time in the saddle. How did you learn to throw a baseball? By throwing it again and again. Watch a kid learn to throw and how many times does it go backwards rather than forwards, well that's how my thai sounds sometimes ; ) But sometimes it goes a good distance and I can feel the right words/tones are there. Those times keep me going.

Props to Meadish and Withnail, Neeranam amoung others for setting an example, I have rarely posted but have followed this site for a few years now. Perhaps this works well with what OliverKlozerof posted

[WujouMao]

wow, this is great. iv been looking at it on VLC media player. is there anymore like this, like numbers, and other useful words

[seedoubleyou]

wow, this is great. iv been looking at it on VLC media player. is there anymore like this, like numbers, and other useful words

If I can find the time I may do the vowels and the complex vowels, because they are coming slowly. If I do I'll add the numbers as well. I find hearing it again and again helps, then the sounds just come when you see the letter. I've been watching Movies on youtube and reading car plates. Hey small victories ; )

I've been pulling in many different sources, cross-training so to speak, so as to keep myself from getting bored. I practice writing, then I watch something or listen to something, then go back to writing, today I started trying to properly translate a song I liked by writing out the karoke myself. I watched "Cherm" the other night then googled Woranut Wongsawan and Petchtai Wongkamlao which led me to their other projects.

Among other things I ended up power watching a Lakorn, Rahut Rissaya. I got alot of more from it than I thought, if you look at it a more than entertainment. I missed a lot without the confirmation of subtitles but there was much more there. It shows some of the tensions and inside jokes of the country, similar to say a Harold & Kumar movie or the way US films villains change nationalities ever 2 years or so, and I get the local beauty standard a little more now (I shoot fashion for a living) and these programs mostly reinforce them. The Lakorn also showed how to Wai and you can see how the levels operate, politely or not. What you have is a very long example of the language in use and by the end I found myself mimicking the actors patterns and the common phrases.