One Guy's Effort To Learn Thai In 8 Weeks

[irishpolyglot]

OK, I got my answers! The fonts one was here: http://www.thai-language.com/ref/typographical-styles and is very useful.

The Chiang Mai differences are drastically wider than I had anticipated!! I really like this city... but I may have to move back to BKK and try to master the standard dialect before I come back here. It's such a pity, this is my kind of place... but I'm here to learn the language and I've already put all the work into tones and reading that would be applied quite differently here in the north.

[skydiver77]

@Leah - everyone in this forum has been extremely helpful, and most comments on my site are positive

However, I asked for advice on Lonely Planet's thorntree forum and got a wave of people tell me how arrogant I am. As well as that, I get discouraging reminder comments occassionally on the site and quite a few e-mails through my contact-me form. Obviously, never from Thais, just from farangs who themselves put years into learning who think everyone else should suffer the same or it isn't fair...

Glad you liked my suggestion for learning alphabetical order!

@handydog Sorry mate; I haven't learned any Welsh!! I'll be writing a few posts about Irish Gaelic just after I finish this Thai mission. Irish and Welsh are really different, but since they are in the same family, maybe something I'd say about Irish might help a wee bit!

In terms of my progress, I think I said everything pretty much on the site; I've only put a few hours into just pure reading since I was intentionally being a tourist in the south. I'm moving up to Chiang Mai tomorrow and will attempt to speak as much as possible (phrase-book in hand), and we'll see how much I can learn to converse in my final 4 weeks!

Thanks again for all the positivity here!!

Welsh is the most difficult language ever.

In 8 weeks you wouldn't be able to string even one sentence together. And understanding the responce?...Jeez.

I'm half Welsh, brought up in England and spending many weekends at Grandads place in Wales.

I was never into singing with the boyo's 'down in the valleys,' but did my stint as a sheep worrier and could have turned professional.

I have fond memories of sinking a few pots on Saturday nights with the lads, then with those still capable of motion, creeping over the border and ravishing the farmers 2 voluptuous and willing daughters, and interfering with their animals....

[Tod Daniels]

This is an interesting paper written about the various and sundry stylized thai fonts, how they came into existence and how to discern the letters. It is written by Doug Cooper. Unfortunately it is in Adobe Reader; PDF format, (but still of interest never the less).

It is also my experience having stayed in Chiang Mai many, many times, that every single thai national I ran into could speak, understand, and read Bangkok aka; Central Thai (ภาษากลาง) with a high degree of ability, even if their accent on some words clearly marked them as coming from the north.

I for one, wouldn't delve into the individual regional dialects until I'd ironed out “bankokian thai”.

Remember ภาษากลาง is currently the only “government approved” language here..

Hope the font paper helps.

Good luck

Thai_Font_Paper.pdf

[klons]

I just don't buy this idea that it is the tones that are the major obstacle. It is the stresses. Since they are not shown in the dictionaries they have to be heard. If you say a word 'tonedeaf' but with the right stress then a Thai will not even blink. Native English speakers stress the first syllable on a noun (usually) and the second syllable on a verb (a lot of the time), which means Issan dialect is often easier-- it tends to have a dropped stress on the noun.

It's learning the vocab that is staggeringly tedious. You need to get to 12,000 words, but just getting to the first 3,000 is very hard going because it is so dull. Once you get to 3,000, the World is your oyster since you can learn via movies, dramas, cartoons etc., learning idioms, odd grammar patterns.

Other than keeping up a personal vocabulary list of every word one has ever learned, is there a method used to make an estimation of the number of words in one's vocabulary?

[anchan42]

is there a method used to make an estimation of the number of words in one's vocabulary?

I know of one method. It involves ramdomly open an few pages of a dictionary, count how many words you know in each page and put the figure in a math formula. It is a very rough estimation. I cannot remember the formula but can look it up if you really want to know.

[klons]

is there a method used to make an estimation of the number of words in one's vocabulary?

I know of one method. It involves ramdomly open an few pages of a dictionary, count how many words you know in each page and put the figure in a math formula. It is a very rough estimation. I cannot remember the formula but can look it up if you really want to know.

Thank you for the offer. I don't really need to know. I was just curious.

[anchan42]

is there a method used to make an estimation of the number of words in one's vocabulary?

I know of one method. It involves ramdomly open an few pages of a dictionary, count how many words you know in each page and put the figure in a math formula. It is a very rough estimation. I cannot remember the formula but can look it up if you really want to know.

Thank you for the offer. I don't really need to know. I was just curious.

I think linguists have more accurate methods but it would involve and special designed tests and lengthy interview.

Defining what “knowing a word” mean would post many complicated questions to start with.

[NearestTheTee]

irishpolyglot

Just interested to know roughly what % of your studying is reading/writing vs conversation. And, with regards to practising your conversation is it mostly with people who you have never met and are not familiar with your accent/pronounciation i.e. taxi drivers, waiters, hotel staff etc.

Following your progress with interest.

Good luck to you

[tjansen]

irishpolyglot

Just interested to know roughly what % of your studying is reading/writing vs conversation. And, with regards to practising your conversation is it mostly with people who you have never met and are not familiar with your accent/pronounciation i.e. taxi drivers, waiters, hotel staff etc.

Following your progress with interest.

Good luck to you

I am new to this thread. I have been using its4thai.com for about 8 months and I like it. I am considering also starting to use High Speed Thai because of Vincent's persuasive sales pitch. Does anyone here have experience with it and any recommendations concerning it?

Tom

[tjansen]

irishpolyglot

Just interested to know roughly what % of your studying is reading/writing vs conversation. And, with regards to practising your conversation is it mostly with people who you have never met and are not familiar with your accent/pronounciation i.e. taxi drivers, waiters, hotel staff etc.

Following your progress with interest.

Good luck to you

I am new to this thread. I have been using its4thai.com for about 8 months and I like it. I am considering also starting to use High Speed Thai because of Vincent's persuasive sales pitch. Does anyone here have experience with it and any recommendations concerning it?

Tom

Just ordered HST.

[tombkk]

I am attempting to learn to read and write Thai in a fairly concentrated 13 week course, 10 hours a week. Only one week gone and I'm surprised how much I have learned. Long way to go, but so far I have about 180 consonant / vowel combinations learned. I make mistakes, and read very slowly. I am getting the sounds right first, then add the meanings. I'm told this is the best way. When I embarked on the course last weekend I was very apprehensive and very confused, but I am beginning to get my confidence that at 64 years of age I can probably do it. Tonight we start the next 24 consonants!

P&M

Good luck. I never put myself under time pressure, but by now, I am studying for my PhD in a Thai-language program. I wouldn't have attempted that after 8 weeks, but 20 years seems more relaxed.

As far as Asian languages go, I do business in Thai, but my Chinese (Mandarin) is basic. I do conduct business in four European languages over here (BKK) though.

The difficulties of learning Thai in my personal experience:

1. The tones. It took me months to first hear the difference, and then actually use the correct tone. For example, I knew I was supposed to use a rising tone but my tone-making physiology didn't produce that sound, and it required quite some training. Other people might consider this a minor obstacle and have easier access to producing tones.

2. The way of thinking. You can call it grammar, but using counters instead of plurals, and time indicators instead of tenses, and several other things made me study Thai culture in order to understand Thai grammar.

3. Vocabulary. If you speak several romance languages it is easy to learn another, and if you speak several slavic languages it is easy to learn another. Thai is out of that scope,so every word is a new word.

[tombkk]

"so many quirks and idiomatic expressions"

EVERY language has this. Open endedness and vagueness in languages is also something I've come across before. I'm sorry but even if these are hard, they are still not unique to Thai. That's part of the difficulty in learning any language, even if the workload is greater in Thai due to the greater number of differences (both cultural and linguistic), I still don't see why the same learning techniques can't be applied.

Note that I'm not aiming for perfect "correct interpretation" in 8 weeks. I don't ever aim for perfection - I will make mistakes and I'm cool with that. I don't think that the impossibility of (anyone) to learn a language perfectly should hold us back from giving a pretty dam_n good stab at doing it well

I've already come across some words that are untranslatable, but seeing them in context a few times helps fine for "getting" them. Once again plenty of languages have plenty of quirks. There will be lots of things I will never understand in Thai, even if I decided to live here. That's not something I'm trying to disprove. Everything you mentioned is something to concern people aiming for professional level Thai. This is the very problem I have with the academic approach (perfectionism), which contrasts with how I've learned other languages.

Looking forward to hearing the opinions of the other regulars!

You say "I don't ever aim for perfection". This is a fundamental difference between you and me. I might never reach perfection, but I certainly aim for it.

There are many words or expressions in Thai that are untranslatable. Try "mai pen rai" or "graeng jai" (sorry my keyboard doesn't type Thai) for good measure. I have seen academic papers 8-12 pages long trying to explain these expressions in English. There is no way you can master the Thai language without understanding the culture!

OK, I am talking on an academic level. It is of course possible to speak conversational Thai without going into the intricate details of the culture. Don't give up, soo soo!

[SiangDeeMahk]

So far, I can already read aloud most signs without relying on romanisation. I've put in a total of about 5 hours study since I got here

I know first-hand that its not that difficult to learn the symbols and phonetic rules to be able to say out loud what you read - eight weeks is surely enough.

Wow. I'm sorry, but I just can't let this one go.. After working on learning Thai language at my own comfortable pace for 5 years (a bit longer than 5 hours).. I just HAVE to protest.

Yes, Rikker, "8 weeks", maybe. But after only (according to irishpolyglot) a mere 5 hours of study? To be able to "read" 44 consonants, and 32 vowels, with all the associated rules of written grammar pertaining to tone via sonorants, open or closed vowels (sometimes inherent or implied, and which can appear before, after, above and below the consonants), the 3 consonant classes, in conjunction with further modifying tone markings, etc etc), as coherent words, and knowing where the words/sounds should be separated (Thai is rarely written with spaces between words)...in 5 hours???

Yeah.. ok.. RIGHT. And if this is all within the claim of selling an "instant" language-learning system? Then I'll just start pitching a 45 minute course that will allow you to buy any bridge of your choosing, anywhere in the world (with no visible funds, credit, or capital). Who's ready to buy my course??

5 hours, huh? Unbelievable.

Trust me, ANYONE who tells you that they can correctly pronounce written Sanskrit words (not just mumbling through some phonetic sounds, but FULL words, read right off of printed signs), in a tonal language, with no prior exposure to either tonal or non-romanized languages, IS SIMPLY NOT TELLING THE FULL TRUTH.

Memorize all the little squiggly letters, the marks, and every single applicable rule (and exception) of Thai written grammar? In 5 hours?

99.999 percent impossible.

And to understand how to make heads or tails of non-broken Thai text, (as it's normally written in one long line) as individually pronounceable words (with no vocabulary pool)... And acquire the ability to orally pronounce vowel sounds (and consonant combinations) at varying lengths and tonal patterns, that essentially don't even exist in the languages that you know, and that you've never heard or attempted to produce yourself... ? In just 5 hours of language study???

No way! 100% impossible.

No. No. And No.

Look, I'm all for learning new things, and I wish everyone good luck with success in their studies of Thai, (and I do think it's possible to "crash-course" yourself into some fairly reasonable comprehension of Thai with special memorizing tricks and study plans, even in just 8 weeks), but I'm not gonna stand around and let someone make a statement about how they learned to read and pronounce Thai words in 5 hours out of one side of their mouth, while also mentioning that they are selling an "ultra-fast" language learning system out of the other side.

If I'm comprehending irishpolyglot's statements wrong, then please, someone point out how so, but if not, I'll just say that I get enough oil in the food and the massage shops here (in Thailand); so I surely don't need this guy's Snake-Oil.

Buyer beware.

Edited February 13, 2010 by SiangDeeMahk

[DavidHouston]

I am attempting to learn to read and write Thai in a fairly concentrated 13 week course, 10 hours a week. Only one week gone and I'm surprised how much I have learned. Long way to go, but so far I have about 180 consonant / vowel combinations learned. I make mistakes, and read very slowly. I am getting the sounds right first, then add the meanings. I'm told this is the best way. When I embarked on the course last weekend I was very apprehensive and very confused, but I am beginning to get my confidence that at 64 years of age I can probably do it. Tonight we start the next 24 consonants!

P&M

Good luck. I never put myself under time pressure, but by now, I am studying for my PhD in a Thai-language program. I wouldn't have attempted that after 8 weeks, but 20 years seems more relaxed.

As far as Asian languages go, I do business in Thai, but my Chinese (Mandarin) is basic. I do conduct business in four European languages over here (BKK) though.

The difficulties of learning Thai in my personal experience:

1. The tones. It took me months to first hear the difference, and then actually use the correct tone. For example, I knew I was supposed to use a rising tone but my tone-making physiology didn't produce that sound, and it required quite some training. Other people might consider this a minor obstacle and have easier access to producing tones.

2. The way of thinking. You can call it grammar, but using counters instead of plurals, and time indicators instead of tenses, and several other things made me study Thai culture in order to understand Thai grammar.

3. Vocabulary. If you speak several romance languages it is easy to learn another, and if you speak several slavic languages it is easy to learn another. Thai is out of that scope,so every word is a new word.

Sir,

That brief resume is very impressive and I wish you the best of luck in your PhD program. I do hope that you will continue to post here at ThaiVisa and provide assistance for time to time to those of us who are learning Thai at the more relaxed pace that you mention.

Let me ask you: did you learn Chinese before or after you learned Thai? And, is the relationship between the Thai tones and Chinese tones analogous to the vocabulary associations you noted within the group of the Romance languages?

Thanks again for your insights.

[tombkk]

I am attempting to learn to read and write Thai in a fairly concentrated 13 week course, 10 hours a week. Only one week gone and I'm surprised how much I have learned. Long way to go, but so far I have about 180 consonant / vowel combinations learned. I make mistakes, and read very slowly. I am getting the sounds right first, then add the meanings. I'm told this is the best way. When I embarked on the course last weekend I was very apprehensive and very confused, but I am beginning to get my confidence that at 64 years of age I can probably do it. Tonight we start the next 24 consonants!

P&M

Good luck. I never put myself under time pressure, but by now, I am studying for my PhD in a Thai-language program. I wouldn't have attempted that after 8 weeks, but 20 years seems more relaxed.

As far as Asian languages go, I do business in Thai, but my Chinese (Mandarin) is basic. I do conduct business in four European languages over here (BKK) though.

The difficulties of learning Thai in my personal experience:

1. The tones. It took me months to first hear the difference, and then actually use the correct tone. For example, I knew I was supposed to use a rising tone but my tone-making physiology didn't produce that sound, and it required quite some training. Other people might consider this a minor obstacle and have easier access to producing tones.

2. The way of thinking. You can call it grammar, but using counters instead of plurals, and time indicators instead of tenses, and several other things made me study Thai culture in order to understand Thai grammar.

3. Vocabulary. If you speak several romance languages it is easy to learn another, and if you speak several slavic languages it is easy to learn another. Thai is out of that scope,so every word is a new word.

Sir,

That brief resume is very impressive and I wish you the best of luck in your PhD program. I do hope that you will continue to post here at ThaiVisa and provide assistance for time to time to those of us who are learning Thai at the more relaxed pace that you mention.

Let me ask you: did you learn Chinese before or after you learned Thai? And, is the relationship between the Thai tones and Chinese tones analogous to the vocabulary associations you noted within the group of the Romance languages?

Thanks again for your insights.

I learned Chinese after I learned Thai. The four tones in Mandarin are not exactly the same as four of the five tones of Thai, but it helped me learn the Chinese tones, after I had already learned the concept of tones when I learned Thai. So, there is a simiarily in a way, the rising tone is pretty much the same.

It also helped me understand using classifiers rather than plural, the concept is the same between Thai and Chinese, but the word order is different.

I could not find any similarity between the vocabulary, as you have with the romance languages.

[irishpolyglot]

@NearestTheTee Up to this week, all of my work has been study and reading and not so much speaking (apart from basic pleasantries, which I always say in Thai), since speaking fluently was never the purpose of my visit (it was to investigate how hard it would be to read an Asian language and get an ok grip on tones). In future visits I will aim for fluency in a short number of months, now that I have seen for myself that there is no need to be intimidated by the differences between Asian and European languages.

I've only got just over 2 weeks left in Thailand, but I'll attempt to at least have some basic conversation for ordering food (reading the original Thai from menus, recognising things I like to order) and asking taxis how much to certain places etc., and of course understanding and getting the gist of responses. Hardly impressive, but I decided that this is all I wanted; I will be working a lot this month and am happy to socialise in English a little bit for once (normally, my approach is 100% linguistic immersion), since I won't be speaking any English for the rest of the year for upcoming language missions.

@tombkk "If you speak several romance languages it is easy to learn another, and if you speak several slavic languages it is easy to learn another." Yes, but learning Slavic languages from Romance languages also involves starting with next to no vocabulary. But this is totally doable. Going from any major linguistic family to another has this issue. I've also got Irish Gaelic which I can't think of any words as being the same in English.

With some efficient memory techniques, new vocabulary can be learned quickly. From what I can see, the difficulty level in learning new vocabulary is pretty much the same for Romance-Slavic and Romance-Asian languages. Thai has tones and unfamiliar vocabulary, whereas European languages have several genders, multi-syllabic words (correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that Thai tends to simply combine short words in a somewhat logical way) and more. Any list of reasons why Thai is hard, I could give you a similarly long list of reasons why Czech or Italian etc. is hard. I prefer to focus on the positive

@SiangDeeMahk Thanks for all of your silly smileys... but honestly I think you need a more open mind. Just because it took you years, doesn't mean the rest of us have to use the same inefficient and boring approach I discussed the method I used to both read without romanisation and to more efficiently apply Thai tone and reading rules. Yes, I did this in a few short hours. I don't see what the problem is.

You are so cynical, where did I say I was selling a course?? I'm sharing my language journey on my blog and sharing all of my progress and tips openly with people. I don't earn any money from the blog at the moment apart from people occasionally donating €3 to buy me an orange juice. I find it sad when I see people who throw around the word "impossible" as much as you do. Some of us don't live in that boring world

@tod-daniels Thanks so much for that PDF!!! It's bit a huge help in being able to get a hold of other fonts

Edited February 14, 2010 by irishpolyglot

[tombkk]

@tombkk "If you speak several romance languages it is easy to learn another, and if you speak several slavic languages it is easy to learn another." Yes, but learning Slavic languages from Romance languages also involves starting with next to no vocabulary. But this is totally doable. Going from any major linguistic family to another has this issue. I've also got Irish Gaelic which I can't think of any words as being the same in English.

With some efficient memory techniques, new vocabulary can be learned quickly. From what I can see, the difficulty level in learning new vocabulary is pretty much the same for Romance-Slavic and Romance-Asian languages. Thai has tones and unfamiliar vocabulary, whereas European languages have several genders, multi-syllabic words (correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that Thai tends to simply combine short words in a somewhat logical way) and more. Any list of reasons why Thai is hard, I could give you a similarly long list of reasons why Czech or Italian etc. is hard. I prefer to focus on the positive

Learning languages with many genders is not akin to learning languages with several tones. And unlike Chinese, Thai is indeed a multi-syllable language.

Good luck with your endeavour, and let us know how your fared by the time your project is over.

[anchan42]

I could not find any similarity between the vocabulary, as you have with the romance languages.

You have to look hard.

ส่ง 送 send

หมอย 毛 hair

เยี่ยว 尿 pee

เปลี่ยน 变 change

กี่ 几 how many

มั้ย 吗 question particle?

just to list a few out. There probably are hundreds of them if not thousands. Well... if you look into different Chinese dialects other then Mandarin, there will be definitely more.

An interesting word is the word หนู which Thais use to call themselves when they are taking to older or higher social status people. The direct translation for หนู is rat. Some books explain that the word is used that way because rat is small and dirty hence suitably to represent lower social status member. I strongly believe that the explanation is wrong. The word must come from Chinese 奴家 nu2jia1 which mean slave or servant. In the old day, Chinese also use that word to represent themselves in the same way as Thais use หนู now.

Sorry to be off topic again.

I am waiting for the polyglot to post something on youtube in Thai.

[desi]

I am waiting for the polyglot to post something on youtube in Thai.

Here...

I haven't watched it yet (it's Monday morning... busy)

[Naam]

I met him last night. Really nice, personable guy and fun to talk to. I agree, Gaccha, that it's an achievable goal. The really astonishing thing is how many people don't speak or read after living here for years and years!

once you have crossed a certain age, master five languages and can make yourself understood in another half a dozen languages the problem adding another language is exponentially huge. i tried to learn thai five years ago with a private teacher, changed teacher but gave up after two months.

when i was half my present age i added two rather difficult languages, speaking, reading and writing (non-latin script) in just over one year. with advanced age (60+) another problem arises as one starts mixing up related languages (e.g. spanish / italian / portuguese and arabic / urdu / farsi).

Edited February 15, 2010 by Naam

[irishpolyglot]

@anchan42 I'd definitely like to post a video of me speaking at least basic Thai with locals here in Bangkok, just before I leave. Hopefully it should work out! The video desi linked to is actually in English, I'm just discussing my interpretation of tones (2 weeks into the project)

@tombkk Thanks for the good luck wishes! Could you give me some examples of multi-syllable unique words in Thai? I really don't think it could compare with European languages - I mean Thai seems to prefer compound words like all the ones with ใจ (heart) for example that are absolutely unique words in European languages. Maybe most of the language doesn't do this, but a lot of vocabulary I've come across so far seems to be just single or double syllables or compound words.

I've only got just over 2 weeks left in the project. I'll share my conclusions on the blog of course. I have to warn people convinced that Thai is harder than European languages, that I'll be optimistic about the ease of future progress and generally positive about how I view Thai compared to how difficult I had perceived it to be before coming. This will involve some extrapolation as I won't have reached the stage of actually speaking it at an intermediate or higher level, but all news of what's ahead doesn't seem that daunting. I honestly think the hardest part is universal for all languages; not feeling embarrassed to make mistakes, keeping up progress, not getting intimidated by learning new ways of speaking or the amount of new vocabulary to learn etc. Just needs a bit of work and practice, and most importantly, a positive attitude

Hopefully the couple of articles I've written have shown people that there are shortcuts and other ways of looking at this "difficult" task

[Tod Daniels]

Reading a thai word clearly with the appropriate tone and actually knowing what that word means (in your native language and it's appropriate meaning in thai) are WORLDS apart. I know MANY students of thai who can look at a thai word and parrot out the sound with near perfect inflection, yet when pressed on the meaning get a "deer in the headlights" glazed eye look.

For me learning thai was hours of memorizing thai vocabulary. I means HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of words along with their stand alone meaning, the possibly that it had a different meaning when compounded with other words, and their idiomatic or slang meaning as well. It has taken a LONG time to get to where when I saw or heard a word it was hard coded in my brain to recognize the meaning by the context of what was said or written and I am far from as proficient as I'd like to be.

While I admire your "stick-to-it-tive-ness” in learning this language, I believe you're over simplifying things a little to say you learned to "read" as quickly as you did. Pronounce words with a high degree of accuracy; POSSIBLY but tying the pronunciation into the meaning of what you just read, hmmmm a stretch I believe.

Here’s an example of idiomatic or slang getting in the way of what one might think is straightforward thai;

Say you’re in a coffee shop, and you ask the waitress if there is milk มีนมไหม. Now that is an example of an all too well known idiomatic expression which while appearing innocuous carries the implied sexual connotation to nearly every thai that hears it. Another example is; say the waitress brings a pitcher of milk and motions to add it to your coffee; now a person in english might say, "That's not necessary, I'll help myself. BUT saying the same thing thai ไม่ต้อง จะช่วยตัวเอง and again you're "off to the races" with the idiomatic and/or sexual slang area of thai. This is one area which makes the thai language so rich in subtleties and sub-context. BTW; those were two examples off the top if my head and granted poor ones at that. I only use them to show reading is NOT just about pronunciation, but ability to know the meaning of words both as stand alone entities and idiomatically.

I just believe reading without understanding the meaning of what you're reading isn't really reading at all. I know all too many thais who can pick up and english language paper and read a coherent sentence with a pretty accurate representation of english pronunciation; yet have abso-tively posit-lutely NO clue meaning wise about what they just read.

Still I give you credit for trying, and even more credit for posting your experiences here and on your site as well.

I completely concur with your statement making headway in this language is getting over the reticence in speaking wrong, letting native speakers correct you and trying again to get it right (something I struggle with on a daily basis )

.

As the thais say ผิดเป็นครู and as the famous thai singer น้อย วงพรู (son of กมลา สุโกศล) says in the song he sings of hers; อยู่ที่เรียนรู้ ยู่ที่ยอมรับมัน "live and learn".

Good luck in your future endeavors and just a little FYI: next time you buy any of those B/S souvenir thai shirts, get one at least 2 sizes larger than you think will fit you; (first off they are asian sized, and you don’t appear asian , and secondly they will shrink when washed/dried)

(edited TWICE due to internet disconnectz )

Edited February 15, 2010 by tod-daniels

[RickBradford]

irishpolyglot,

The majority of words in Thai related to government, business, science, morality, sprituality etc are words that came into Thai from Pali, Sanskrit or Khmer, and these are genuine polysyllabic words.

Simple ones include กรรมการ = a committee, or อุบัติเหตุ= an accident, อัตโนมัติ = automatic, ศาสตราจารย์ = professor, and while you could argue to what extent these are compound words, they are no less true words similar to the English 'intermission', which could equally be seen as a compound.

There are a great many of these words in Thai -- an expert could give you an approximate proportion of the vocabulary, I'm sure.

Best of luck with your project.

[irishpolyglot]

@RickBradford Thanks for those answers! Interesting to hear that more technical words are polysyllabic; that would make sense why I haven't seen any since I'm only learning basic vocabulary.

@tod-daniels For your milk example, I'm sorry but that really is universal. All languages have expressions. Saying "Buona fortuna" in Italian for example (a word-for-word translation of "good luck") would not be received well at all, and the idiomatic "in bocca al lupo" (in the mouth of the wolf) is necessary. I remember jokingly say "I could just eat you up!!" when talking about a cute girl in Brazil, which is ok in English, but comer has pure sexual notations when not literally talking about eating in Portuguese. I was being very offensive without knowing it. Off the top of my head I could give you dozens of examples instantly in languages that I'm familiar with. Literal translations don't work in any language. Even similar words have subtle differences.

This is why I keep coming back with retorts; learning Thai is not necessarily harder than learning European languages. People always seem to feel that their task is the hardest one. Learning ANY language is hard, but if you look at with my "stick-to-it-iveness" attitude, it's doable and I have achieved fluency in other languages thanks to that attitude (and not thanks to natural talent). I still don't see why it wouldn't be as hard and as easy in Thai.

You are totally right that my current level of reading with next to zero comprehension is not actually that impressive or even useful. However, I wasn't aiming for that in this trip; just being able to "read" in my current superficial manner to prove that it isn't that hard. Learning vocabulary is pretty much the big gap I have with Thai and why I can't speak it, but I don't mind that for the purposes of this project. I'm still hoping people will appreciate that I've tried to focus on what's different in Thai. I would see the rest as just applying the same principles as in European languages.

Sorry if this sounds like I'm belittling Thai's difficulty, but I'm actually trying to encourage more people to speak the language by being consistent in saying how it isn't that bad. It makes me sad to see how many English speakers living permanently in Thailand have nothing more than a few words because of believing that it's just too hard to learn for them. If I can convince just a few of those people to try again with a different approach, I'd feel like I would have achieved something important, even if I didn't end up speaking Thai itself

Thanks for the continued discussion and especially for the encouragement, despite any disagreements! I really like the positive feedback (nearly) all of you have been giving here. Hopefully you all see where I'm coming from. You can keep telling me how hard aspects of Thai I don't know are, and I'll keep coming back unconvinced. I'm just that stubborn after hearing it all several times already for other languages

[simon43]

Slightly OT, but that paper by Doug Cooper ('How Do Thais Tell Letters Apart'?) has to be one of the most useful articles on written Thai and reading Thai fonts that I have read.

Simon

[TheGhostWithin]

Edited because I changed my mind about what I had to say.

Edited February 15, 2010 by TheGhostWithin

[Rikker]

I could not find any similarity between the vocabulary, as you have with the romance languages.

You have to look hard.

[Disclaimer: I know this is off topic, but it's fun to discuss, and we've probably said what we can say about Benny's efforts for now.]

You don't have to look that hard. But it helps to know that recent influence of Chinese on Thai is from immigrants who came to Siam by sea in the last few hundred years, who virtually all came from the south -- mostly Guangdong (especially Suatow) and Hainan. So the loanwords will be a lot more obvious if you're looking at Chinese languages from that area. Teochew (แต้จิ๋ว) is the ancestral tongue of most Chinese Thais. This is also why Thai uses the southern Chinese pronunciations of place names in China -- ปักกิ่ง for Beijing and ไหหลำ for Hainan, for example.

The more recent Chinese loans are the ones that still "feel" Chinese to Thais (just like "croissant" and "debutante" still "feel" French to an English speaker, because they are recent loans from French).

These more recent Chinese loans include a lot of food and cultural terms (but not just those)

หมวย, ตี๋, เจ๊, ก๋ง, ก๋วยเตี๋ยว, ก๋วยจั๊บ, ปาท่องโก๋, ปอเปี๊ยะ, เกี๊ยว, เฉาก๊วย, ซีอิ๊ว, ฮวงจุ้ย, เฮง, อั่งเปา, แต๊ะเอีย, แป๊ะเจี๊ยะ, เก้าอี้, etc. etc.

Older Chinese loanwords have been in Thai much longer, probably since before the ancestors of modern Thais migrated over land from Southern China between 800-1000 years ago. These words have often lost their Chinese "feel" and have become assimilated into the language as regular words (similar to English and its older French loans like "beef" and "pork", etc.). Sometimes the true origin of these words is debated, but they are very similar to Chinese words, thus a connection is posited. The certainty of the etymology depends on the particular words.

เอ็ด ยี่/สอง สาม สี่ ห้า หก เจ็ด แปด เก้า (the numbers -- หนึ่ง seems to be the exception), ม้า, กว้้าง, แล้ว, จับ, แจ้ง, ปู (to spread out, like a mat), อ้วก, เอว, etc. (That's a thoroughly random sample of words I recall reading a claimed Chinese origin for.)

It's still the conventional wisdom in China that Thai is related to Chinese genetically, but outside China few linguists still believe this. This was the conventional wisdom in Thailand for a long time, too, but that's also fading out as more and more Thai linguists get western-style educations (and then come back and teach Thai students here).

[Rikker]

There are a great many of these words in Thai -- an expert could give you an approximate proportion of the vocabulary, I'm sure.

I don't consider myself an expert, but I do know that approximately 25% of Thai dictionary words (purely by the numbers) are of Pali or Sanskrit origin. A minority of those are monosyllabic. In actual frequency of usage the percentage may be higher. I've never calculated that, but it's an interesting question. I'll see about finding time to do that.

[anchan42]

[Disclaimer: I know this is off topic, but it's fun to discuss, and we've probably said what we can say about Benny's efforts for now.]

You don't have to look that hard. But it helps to know that recent influence of Chinese on Thai is from immigrants who came to Siam by sea in the last few hundred years, who virtually all came from the south -- mostly Guangdong (especially Suatow) and Hainan. So the loanwords will be a lot more obvious if you're looking at Chinese languages from that area. Teochew (แต้จิ๋ว) is the ancestral tongue of most Chinese Thais. This is also why Thai uses the southern Chinese pronunciations of place names in China -- ปักกิ่ง for Beijing and ไหหลำ for Hainan, for example.

The more recent Chinese loans are the ones that still "feel" Chinese to Thais (just like "croissant" and "debutante" still "feel" French to an English speaker, because they are recent loans from French).

These more recent Chinese loans include a lot of food and cultural terms (but not just those)

หมวย, ตี๋, เจ๊, ก๋ง, ก๋วยเตี๋ยว, ก๋วยจั๊บ, ปาท่องโก๋, ปอเปี๊ยะ, เกี๊ยว, เฉาก๊วย, ซีอิ๊ว, ฮวงจุ้ย, เฮง, อั่งเปา, แต๊ะเอีย, แป๊ะเจี๊ยะ, เก้าอี้, etc. etc.

Older Chinese loanwords have been in Thai much longer, probably since before the ancestors of modern Thais migrated over land from Southern China between 800-1000 years ago. These words have often lost their Chinese "feel" and have become assimilated into the language as regular words (similar to English and its older French loans like "beef" and "pork", etc.). Sometimes the true origin of these words is debated, but they are very similar to Chinese words, thus a connection is posited. The certainty of the etymology depends on the particular words.

เอ็ด ยี่/สอง สาม สี่ ห้า หก เจ็ด แปด เก้า (the numbers -- หนึ่ง seems to be the exception), ม้า, กว้้าง, แล้ว, จับ, แจ้ง, ปู (to spread out, like a mat), อ้วก, เอว, etc. (That's a thoroughly random sample of words I recall reading a claimed Chinese origin for.)

It's still the conventional wisdom in China that Thai is related to Chinese genetically, but outside China few linguists still believe this. This was the conventional wisdom in Thailand for a long time, too, but that's also fading out as more and more Thai linguists get western-style educations (and then come back and teach Thai students here).

Yeh, those are the obvious ones. In most of those not only the words are loan but also the objects. They don’t need much analysing to tell that they are originated from one of Chinese dialects. For me the interesting words are those that have long been forgotten. Identifying their origin accurately probably worth a research paper on each of them. The numbers are quite interesting too. If we look at the number zero ศูนย์, from the writing I would say that it is a Pali /Sanskrit word. The mathematical concept of zero probably developed much later the rest of the number. This would suggest that Chinese influence aged much older then Pali /Sanskrit. I am not sure about genetically related through.

The migration south of Thais is also debatable but I have to stop before getting too much off topic.

Still waiting for youtube links…

[Paul123456]

Really interesting and mainly positive conversation. Nice.

I only have time to skim through it now, but it is interesting.

I'll have a look at www.fluent.... soon.

Hope the learning has gone well.

It would be great to think, I could set aside 8 weeks - concentrate fully on learning Thai and I would make some very good progress. In fact that makes a lot of sense - but having someone already do it, helps. ie. I know that 8 weeks won't be wasted.

A friend of mine was posted to the Australian Embassy in Bangkok and the first 6 months of his posting was in Chiang Mai learning Thai full time. With professional teachers. By the end of that he could read quite complicated articles and letters.

Me - I have been here about 6 years. I can speak and hear a fair bit when one on one. But watching the TV - mainly too hard. Reading and writing - only limited ability.

I am quite convinced that learning here and there, bits and pieces doesn't work too well, and I'd love to do some intensive learning over a couple of months.

But time and money....

Anyway, good luck everyone with your study