Thai Pronunciation - School Or Tutor Recommendation

[foolforlove]

ผมรู้จักคำมเยอะแล้ว

และก็คนไทยบอกผมบ่อยว่า คุณพูดไทยชัด ด้วยนะครับ

แต่ผมรู้ว่าผมออกเสียงไม่ถูกทั้งหมด

ดังนั้นผมหาโรงเรียนหรือครูที่สามารถแก้ไขสำเนียงครับ

ขอบคุณครับ

[Tod Daniels]

FWIW: I have found thais some of the most OVER complementary people on the face of the planet when it comes to foreigners speaking their language. Even if you barely get the words out, thais will inevitably say, "พูดภาษาไทยเก่งมาก". Unfortunately once you walk away you'll often hear them say to one another, ไม่รู้เรื่อง. I take compliments from thais concerning my ability to speak thai with a grain of salt. For the most part they're not worth even an acknowledgment, no matter how high up the food-chain the person handing out the compliment is.

Realize as a foreign speaker of thai you're likely to ALWAYS have a สำเนียงต่างชาติ, just deal with it. I can count on one hand (with fingers left over) the number of foreigners I’ve heard speaking thai who if they were standing behind me could possibly be confused for a native speaker. Most of the time listening to foreigners speaking thai, one can quickly ascertain they are NOT native speakers from their word order, pronunciation mistakes or repeating frozen phrases. Not that this is good or bad, only that it is easily identified.

I think most foreigners also overestimate their real ability in speaking thai due to the constant often unwarranted compliments from thais they receive. When eavesdropping on their thai conversations in various places I can tell right away their real level is far below what they think it might be. (Don't get me wrong, I have no illusion of my ability in spoken thai, and know I speak it with a foreign accent, wrong word order, etc. I just accept it, as I accept poorly accented engrish here in S/E Asia as the norm rather than the exception.)

To me, once you have a fairly good working vocabulary, are able to pronounce most troublesome words clearly; the main thing to concentrate on is sentence structure and word order. I cannot stress this too much, structure and word order is everything in getting thais to understand what you're trying to say right out of the gate, without having to repeat yourself or play charades to mime out what you're saying.

It is true, thais may understand a poorly constructed sentence, if they think about it, and especially so if they already know the context of what you're talking about. (just as I can understand a hideously constructed engrish sentence from a thai) However, they immediately understand one with correct word order, even if the context isn't understood because you are using their language ordering rules to construct your sentences.

If, as you say, you have what you think is a good vocabulary I'd look for a tutor who will drill you in structure. Most thai questions are sentences which use simple substitution for the question word to give the correct answer. Questions about time, duration, age, location, and the like are all similarly structured in their answers. If you pound them again and again with a tutor, you can quite quickly get correct sentence order for the majority of things you’re likely to be asked or ever ask about here.

One last thing you have to constantly be on guard against is "mother language interference" and/or "bleed-over". It has been a constant thorn in my side trying to learn thai.

I don't know if you created your post yourself, had someone else write it for you, or used a translation program. While it was understandable; I believe it is not correct in either structure or context, (not a dig against your thai ability, just an observation).

Good luck, and if you want the numbers of some qualified private thai tutors I know P/M me.