"high Speed Thai" System

[Sebbemax]

I would like to share my thougts on the High speed thai course.

First i little background about me and my struggle to learn Thai

My enviroment to learn thai is as good as it can be

My girlfriend came to sweden when she was only 11 years old so she is fluent in both Thai and Swedish.

80% of my friends in Sweden are Thai people who also are fluent in both thai and swedish. (but they have a habbit of only speaking thai.)

We play alot of thai songs at home and my gilrfriend loves to watch thai tv shows and series.

we also travel to Thailand for at least 1 month every year

But even after 10 years of constantly being sourounded whit Thai people and the Thai language i still can only speak/understand basic thai.

I have gone through the Becker books but they where real boring and hard to learn from.

It felt like 50% of the words you where supposed to learn is not realy used in a normal day to day conversation

I have tried the rosseta stone course but it must have been the most worthless pice of crap i have ever come across totaly useless.

I had almost given up on learning Thai and came to the conclusion that i must be a real slow learner who is just unable to learn thai.

But a couple of months ago i felt i had to give the language one final try.

After looking around the internet for days i decided to order the High speed thai course.

Mostly beacuse of Vincent who seemed to realy care about his product and who was availible to answer alot of questions people had about the product in forums like this one.

I was a bit sceptical at first 140 USD felt like a lot of money to spend on an unknown course, and the only physical thing you get is 2 DVD´s

But i must say this course is so far the best Thai learning tool i have ever come across.( i am only at chapter 14)

First you are forced to learn how to read and how to identify the tones this may be a bit boring at first when al you want to do is to learn new words and how to use them.

But learning to read thai and the tones is realy a "must" if you want to be able to learn thai beyond the basic tourist thai.

Then the fun begins you are presented whit a list of words and there meaning but you are not forced to memorize them.

Insteed you are exposed to the words in alot of different situations over and over again, both in spoken and writen Thai untill you just cant avoid to understand what the words mean i how they are used.

Then the next lesson builds on the words you already learnt combined whit some new words so you are exposed to al the words again and again in alot of different contexts. i tell you if i can remember the words anyone can.

Since i already speak some thai alot of the words is already known to me but i set my mind to "forgett" everything i knew about the Thai languge and realy take it from the begining and that has been a good thing cause even when i knew the words i learnt completely new ways on how to use them.

On previous courses i felt that i MUST study everyday.

But now i feel like i WANT to study everyday cause it is real fun and i realy feel like i am improving everyday

and when something is fun it is alot easier to learn.

I have no problem sitting 2-4 hours a day.

Since i am anly at Chapter 14 of 40 i still have some months left whit this course but i realy hope Vincent realeses High speed thai part 2 someday it would be realy frustrating to stop when it is going so well.

Sorry for the long post it is realy hard for me to stop writing once i started :-) and the spelling errors (english is not my native language) but i hope you understood me anyway

[sante]

It's been 6 weeks since I began studying Thai with the High Speed course and can highly recommend it. I intend to retire to Chiang Mai in the spring, and beside monitoring ThaiVisa for the last few months, decided to try to learn the language. I'm a complete beginner. Here in California where I currently live, I don't know anyone who speaks or writes Thai but after studying every day, can actually pronounce correct sounds from symbols that were just meaningless squiggles a short time ago. I just finished the reading lessons, which concentrate on written language and tone pronunciation, and next are Thai numbers. It's a very thorough course, well worth the cost.

I also have the Thai-English Talking dictionary from Paiboon Publishing and like it very much too.

[SICHONSTEVE]

Dear Vincent,

The initial concerns that I harboured about not being able to learn to read Thai have all but now been suitably dispelled. The e-mail that you sent to me convincing me that I could conquer it if I adopted the right 'mind set', applied a positive attitude and had self-belief in my own learning capabilities has had the intended effect of boosting my confidence whilst laying the foundations in encouraging me to study ie: spurring me on in my efforts, and as a direct result has enabled me to accomplish this first step in my learning journey. Taking into account my relatively advanced age (I must surely be classed as a mature student at 53) I initially deemed it to be a pretty courageous (maybe foolhardy) step in attempting to learn a new (and seemingly complex language) at this juncture in my life. As it has turned out, it is a step that I'm now glad I took as the eventual outcome will hopefully prove to have made all the effort expended worthwhile. I have more than surprised myself at the progress I have made in a relatively short period of time to advance to this point in my studies. It has proved to be a relatively simple and seamless process to learn and memorise the plentiful consonants and vowels, plus the numerous, somewhat strange and (more than) occasional illogical rules that must be applied as well as learning and adopting the tone rules and pronunciation aspects thanks entirely to the excellent methods/aids employed in this course (ANKI, mnemonics (particularly useful), learning-repetition - designed to drive items from the short term memory into the long term one and chunking, of which I am aware of, but haven't actually experienced yet as this is primarily used for vocabulary expansion) NB: I had to google the word mnemonics to check the spelling..... I'm not embarrassed to admit this as it is such a strange word don't you think?!!! It did take quite a lot of effort and study time on my part though (not unexpectedly so in all truth, on account of my age) but this course has enabled me to achieve my first goal of learning to read Thai. My initial assessment of what I was letting myself in for was admittedly one of pure trepidation after having flicked through (metaphorically speaking) pages and pages of seemingly endless funny looking and over-complex symbols (in my mind) and numerous weird rules that I truly thought would be a 'nightmare to learn and remember, but having invested the requisite time and effort, I can say that I managed to achieve this with comparative ease!!! I have now mastered (much reading practise still required to attain acceptable speed) this aspect in my learning curve and it has given me added confidence in the next stage of my development ie: actually learning the language and being able to speak and communicate with native Thais.

Admittedly, having a Thai wife that speaks a reasonable standard of English to assist me in my quest obviously helps (she finds some of the questions that I ask highly perplexing and often gives me quizzical looks on the reasons as to why I am asking some of them, but does eventually give me the answers I'm looking for no matter how irrelevant or pointless she perceives the questions to be)...after all, I'm a 'farang'.

If the actual language learning element in the course is as clear, concise and as well structured as "the learning to read" section of which I have no doubts now it will be incidentally, then I do not envisage there being any insurmountable obstacles lying in wait to prevent me from mastering this aspect too (eventually). I have already acquired a reasonable amount of vocabulary from various English/Thai dictionaries 'and the like' as well as listening to conversation (which I want to be part of sometime in the future) over the past two years of my living in Thailand, but this will clearly need to be expanded further, and then there's the grammar bit, which I have. from my limited experience of it, surmised to be vastly different to ours (English) both in content and in particular the comprised structure rules incorporated!!! Having now seen and appreciated first hand, the mechanics and methodology that you have employed in the design aspects of this course, I trust this will take me the "extra Furlong" in learning the different grammar peculiarities incumbent in the Thai language. Its basically up to me now as to how fast and to what extent I improve my language skills as I have all of the tools needed now with this excellent (and value for money course) to achieve my aim of conversation initiation/sharing in my adopted country.

I cannot recommend it over any other course, language learning books or CD's on the market however, as I was fortunate enough to 'hit upon' this course first time round. However, I can, and do, endorse the methods and means adopted in this course as they are well thought out and work very well in achieving their ultimate goals of enabling you to learn Thai in an enjoyable fashion (the importance of this cannot be emphasised enough) otherwise boredom or oft terminally "death nell" reluctance or failure to set aside enough study time can set in without you realising it, and in doing so it could well and truly thwart you in your mission for learning Thai should your interest wain and you find something else to do with your time.

Regards, and thanks.

Steve.

[tonybuak]

If you want to learn a few words for here and there then its not the one for you, it,s like an all or nothing course right from the different tones alphabet the whole nine yards, massive course, wether or not you can perservere and do the whole thing depends on you, but you will certainly never need to purchase anything else about the thai language

[chrissables]

A few comments about Vincent and High Speed Thai.

First a small history of my learning attempts.

I am live here in Thailand on a tight budget, and had in the past been to school and used different courses available. I built up some vocabulary and basic knowledge, but just could not progress.

I had the Pimsleur course, which I found very good. But when it finished, it still left a hole, and they do not have a follow up course as they do for many languages.

Do to know money and plenty of time I decided to write the Pimsleur course in Thai. This took a long time, but by default I learnt to write and type Thai. BUT not really understand too much.

I contacted Vincent with a few questions, which he responded to quickly and favorably. I decided to buy the course.

I was sent to me online, and I had a few problems initially, but that was dues to my not understanding computers, not with the course. Never the less, Vincent came online and helped me, spending a large amount of time and effort which he did not need to do.

Once I started, I could not stop! With the Anki cards and the course in general, I was on a roll. There were issues with the tones, but once I had learnt the rules, I can see a word now and tell what tone it should be. I do sometimes get it wrong, but before I had no idea. Of course the speaking and listening are another thing. But three times this month I have had people I talked to on the phone say “why is your Thai so good now” Of course it’s not but better.

The problems living here and learning are frustrating at times. I do tend to get a bit angry when they don’t understand sometimes. Similar story regarding the nails, posted earlier. But I really think that they are listening for an English word, and you have to repeat the word a few times, then usually they understand.

Another plus for Vincent is his explanation of a phrase, with examples. I have lived here seven years, and herd this expression countless time. “khun gin khao rue yang” This means, have you eaten or not. I never understood why the negative, “yang” which means yet, could mean “no”! But now I know it’s an abbreviation of “yang mai dai gin” “yet I have not eaten”. It’s things like this that make it a pleasure to learn with.

I can recommend to anyone who is serious about learning the Thai language, and who understands to learn you must be able to read and write Thai also, to consider buying the High Speed Thai course.

It is by far the best I have come across.

By the way, I don’t know Vincent, and there is no benefit to me to praise this course!

[Jeremyofseven]

Hi all,

I just wanted to add in my two cents... Regarding HST, I have learned more from this program than I ever did studying at a Thai temple. I kind of feel like Thai people put the information in the wrong order, and then they try to cram the tones down your throat... whereas, HST has tones for the same words cleverly spread out through multiple lessons. So, you learn the different tones, but you don't realize that's what's happening while it's going on. (I should point out that I have made it to Lesson 20 in the Vocab section.) Anyways, the program has been great. I really struggled to stay on top of it the first couple of months, but then I found a rhythm that has been really working for me. I am following the author's directions, but I also write out each vocab section randomly onto a sheet of paper and then memorize the words in kind of a flash card kind of manner.. I do that before I go through the reading sections and it has really sped up my progress. Here's a fun story for you... Last week one of my Thai friends had a phone conversation with his boss on speakerphone. When he got of the phone I told him that I understood most of his conversation... he said "No way!" so, I repeated most it back to him in English (maybe 70%). Anyways, his jaw dropped.. he is now a believer in this program. Also, I should admit that I was at a loss with the speaking excercises for the first couple of months... Spawning the words out of thin air (or the sequence) was almost impossible. However, I have gone back to those excercises and now I am flying through them... it seems it just took some time for some of these things (especially the grammar of a sentence) to seep in where I could quickly recall them. That said, I think the program is brilliant. I can't imagine how many hours it took to put all this together. In the past, I have studied with a tutor, taken a class at a temple (twice), and tried the Orange books (Boomswan I think?) and none of those came any where near to what I have gotten out of HST.

Also, I just wanted to throw in that despite the program's name (high speed) it's really quite comprehensive. The program recommends spending 1 hour a day on the course, but there's easily enough material and interactive excercises that you could spend 3 to 4 hours a day on this. I should note that it has taken me about 7 months to get to Chapter 20... that may seem like a long time, but it has been well worth it when I compare my progress to all the other alternative methods I have tried.

One last thing to point out that makes HST better than other systems.. the last excercise in a chapter is a speaking section where an audio file will ask you how to say something, like "how do you say I found this bag in the cupboard?" (I just made that one up.) Anyways, the brilliance here is that the questions you will be asked are not questions or statements that are previously taught in the lesson. Meaning you have to have a real comprehension of the words taught so that you can then construct a complete sentence/thought yourself. I think this is key to having a two way dialogue with a Thai person. Tourism books love to teach you phrases to memorize, but there's no way you could memorize a 1000 phrases and then hope to apply those phrases in real time with Thai people. It's just unrealistic. This program builds up your vocabulary, and then asks you to use it to compile thoughts. It's really well done...

Hope this helps!

Jeremy

[seniorbro]

I just wanted to add a few comments on the HST course in case anyone is thinking of buying it. My advice would be to go for it. I've been using it now at a leisurely pace for about five months and have really enjoyed it. For me it's just a hobby, as I don't have any real need to speak Thai, but it's nice to be able to read and make sense of the things you see every day in the street, and speak a bit with the locals. I'm about halfway through the course now, at lesson 20, and feel I've got a sound grasp of the structure of the language that I can build on as I complete the rest at whatever pace suits me. The material is very comprehensive, and covers all the main aspects of language learning (speaking, reading, listening) and for someone who wants to go faster there's enough depth in the material to allow that. You can listen to the sound files as often as you like, and I like to loop them while I'm doing odd jobs around the house. This is much better than in a language school, where if you don't catch something in class first time you've probably lost it. Your vocabulary builds up quite nicely, since the course includes new material in a progressive way so you don't forget what went before. Before deciding on HST I looked around at some of the popular books for learning Thai but they were very old-fashioned pedagogically, and I doubt I would have stuck with them for long. I know I'm making some progress now and felt very happy the other day when a Thai friend said with some surprise 'You speak Thai well, not like farang, how you learn?'

-SB

[Hagginwood]

About a week ago I completed the reading section of the HST course. I started the reading around the middle of March. If it weren't for some work related issues in April and early May, I'm sure that I could have completed the reading lessons in about 6 weeks. As of now, I am just starting the vocabulary section. I don't have much to say in the way of critism about the methods used in teaching the alphabet and the tone marks. Most of the mnemonics provided to learn the alphabet were very helpful. In the few situations where they were not, I took Vincent's advice and created my own. Using the Anki program was the key factor in cementing the alphbet and tone marks in my mind. I know that I am still in the early stages of the vocabulary, but knowing how to read a word or a sentence in Thai seems to really aid in understanding and remembering the words and phrases.

As for recommending the course, what can I say? Since I've lived in Thailand (over 4 years) I've looked at various programs featured on internet websites. I've taken courses at four different Thai language schools. I've bought countless CDs, tapes, and books--and nothing, and I mean NOTHING, even comes close to HST. HST is easy to use and understand, the lessons are logically arranged, and there is a vast amount of practice material. If you believe that practice is the primary element in learning Thai, you will find the Anki program to be a great asset. Finally, if you are serious abut learning Thai, I doubt that you will find a better method than HST.