"thai Is An Easy Language ..." (part 1)

[coalminer]

(snipped for good behavior))

It annoys me that the Thai alphabet (at least, from ko kai to mo ma) rarely gets presented as a grid like a periodic table of the elements, with the high consonants and nasals (including the part-time nasal yo ying) lined up in their three columns. I appreciate its difficult to decide whether to line ko kai and cho chan up with bo baimai or po pla - phonetics argues for one way, letter shapes for another. The columns even have standard numbers - 1 to 5. Three columns are 2-elements wide, a bit like Group VIII in the periodic table. I'd also love to draw it so as to point out that the sequences so sala to so suea and yo yak to wo waen (excluding the syllabic liquid characters) are actually partial columns (which I'm tempted to number 2b - to go with kho khuat and fo fa - and 6), but I'm no artist.

Such an approach was already made by Benjawan Poomsan Becker in her book "Thai for beginners" on page 10 and 11.

But for an unknown reason she didn't continue with this approach.

Is it worth having a poll to establish the truth of Coalminer's claim that most of us found the tone rules very hard to learn?

I wasn't aware that there was a poll.

I think it isn't, and I suppose there is the possibility, as I took Coalminer to suggest, that those who found it hard have forgotten how hard it was.

Did you noticed "part 1" in the header?

I started this thread, not to disparage the members of this forum, but to show in a humoristic/caricatual manner the difficulties I had (and also others) in the learning Thai process and how they overcome this problem.

Regards

[farangSkowlund]

I've been living in Thailand (sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time) since 1982. I started to learn the language in 1986 with a tutor. I refused to learn to read & write because I felt it was a waste of time. After a while I got too advanced to use the books with transliterations, so, kicking & screaming I buckled down and learned to read & write. I'm very glad I did - sometimes the only logical thing I can find in this country is the alphabet! It's really a thing of beauty.

I'm now 55 and my 16 year old son is here with me. He's been studying beginning Thai at Unity Thai Language school. I'm also studying some advanced courses there to improve my vocabulary (and my spelling!) (Thai is pretty much phonetic - once you learn the rules you can read anything, but there are many ways to spell a word - so to write there's plenty of memorization involved.) (On the other hand, the vast majority of foreigners have no need to spell well.)

So now I'm my son's tutor, and I'm studying again. It's fun. I don't learn as quickly as I did in my 30's, but I still learn and get better. I would suggest to anyone who plans to spend some time here not to be put off by talk of how difficult it is to learn Thai, but to put as much effort and time into it as possible. It's worth it - and you will learn according to your ability and effort.

I know many foreigners who have lived here for decades and without exception those who learn the language have a better experience here.

FWIW

[Tod Daniels]

When I started learning thai I too was daunted by the tonal differences in similar words. Being American they all initially sounded the same to my ears which weren’t used to a tonal language for anything but emotional conveyance. I was also put off by vowel length or duration here as well. In English whether you say Hello, or Heeello or even Helloooo, it’s understood as the same word something that is definitely NOT the case in this language. Pronouncing a word wrong by vowel length or tone can derail a conversation quicker than anything else.

Teaching myself to read was the BEST investment in time I ever made. Every vowel sound is represented as its own. In English learning whether an ‘a’ is pronounced like ‘ate’, or ‘at’ or silent as in ‘each’ is something we learn not by grammar rules but by recognizing groups of letters represent words. Learn to read thai and you see all the ‘mai’ words (no, new, silk, wood, burn, etc) are spelled differently, just like all the ‘khao’ words (rice, news, white, enter, he/she, etc). Once you get the reading down to a degree you can pronounce words you have no idea of their meaning because of the consistency in their character representation. (I know this is a simplistic approach and I will not touch on ‘special’ words or character groupings).

The more vocabulary you learn in written thai the more proficient you are. I study new vocabulary words every day. I have a white board where I write down words I hear or read but don’t know, I read and say them until I can recognize them when I see them again. If I hear a word I don’t know I’ll try to get a thai to spell it for me, as often the way it is pronounced is deceptive especially with r’s and l’s, as well as n’s and ng’s. If it’s spelled out I can easier see how it would be pronounced in a ‘perfect world’.

I have found thai is a language made up of mostly small mono-syllabic words connected to form compound words or meanings. Learning the meaning of the small words gives you a heads up when trying to decipher the big ones.

Granted learning to read will NOT improve your speaking tonal distinction, nor your ability to understand the thais who are talking in ‘warp speed’ mode. I can read far better than I can speak because a person reads to himself, not out loud, so if a tone is off, no one knows it but me.

I have spent 3 to 4 hours a day, for almost the last year teaching myself to read, learning vocabulary, learning to type, and speak this language. Many times I was discouraged, took a break for a few days, but always came back to it. Was it easy; no.. Then again things that have real value seldom are. As I previously stated for a solid return on investment, learning this language was the best thing I’ve done here in the glorious “Land ‘O Thais”.

Good luck na. .. ..