Learning Thai Conversation

[VespaSeeker]

Hi ,

I have been living here for several years and can, read ,write and speak thai to a reasonable level as i have been to Thai language schools before for 40 hours .

My problem is I cannot understand hardly anything Thai people say to me unless it is basic questions , once they go into normal everyday Thai talking i aint got the faintist idea what there going on about , my Thai friends joke with me I am the only Falang they ever met who can talk Thai but understand nothing .

I have now started with a new Language school in BKK , i explained what my problem was so expected to be taught by a Thai teacher who was going to speak Thai with me .

4 lessons in and i can safely say i aint learned anything except how to say a few words i didn't know before from the school book they have given me and that is only from studying the book at home .

In the lesson i simple read from the basic book and the teacher asks me basic questions and lets me answer in thai , i am getting frustrated because i can do this already easily , if it was only for the 1st lesson ok fair enought but 4 hours of it is getting a little silly and still have 26 to go.

Bassically does anyone know if this is the right way to be taught ?

I mostly taught my self Thai by trying to Think in Thai and then noting down words i dont know and looking them up later on the internet then learning them to memory .

Edited January 15, 2010 by VespaSeeker

[Chaam local]

Do you have someone to speak to? I mean most people I know who have reached a good level in Thai usually speak Thai everyday with their g/f or wife. Or some hang around in bars for hours, or some use it at work. Whatever the circumstances, you probably just need a lot of practice.

Edited January 15, 2010 by Chaam local

[colspeed]

I agree, practice, practice, practice.

The trouble I have is that, if I say something wrong, people repeat what I said and laugh(because it sounds funny, I don't have a problem with that). However, if I say something correctly, people repeat what I said and laugh(because I'm a Westener speaking Thai and they find that funny, I also don't have a problem with that). Therefore, I never know if I've said it right or wrong, because I get the same reaction!

One big thing with any language is "don't be afraid of making a fool of yourself" - I find that quite easy.

Good luck

[RickBradford]

once they go into normal everyday Thai talking i aint got the faintist idea what there going on about

Perhaps a strong dose of Thai soapies on TV every evening would help (of course it might put you off Thailand for good, but that's the risk you take...)

[aanon]

This is not a new suggestion but I'd say you need more exposure to spoken Thai. Try to find a way to put yourself in situations where no English will be spoken. Find some additional friends, if necessary. Get the teacher to put aside the book and just try talking. If it gets hard after the basic questions, just persevere. Perhaps a rule of 50 minutes Thai, 10 minutes in English at the end could work. Also, think in terms of hundreds or even thousands of hours to really drive up real-life listening comprehension. Lastly, don't worry. You actually have to experience the total confusion stage. There is nothing wrong with racking up many hours being totally confused before things start to fall in place.

Good luck.

[krading]

I have the exact same problem, can read and speak fairly well but following a conversation is difficult.

I am always asking the missus "What did he/she say?"

What I need is something like Youtube videos of people speaking Thai with Thai subtitles.

[aanon]

I have the exact same problem, can read and speak fairly well but following a conversation is difficult.

I am always asking the missus "What did he/she say?"

What I need is something like Youtube videos of people speaking Thai with Thai subtitles.

1) You might like Rikker's idea: http://rikker.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-idea...ranscripts.html

2) If you have a computer, some time and someone to help you write out/check transcriptions, you could make some of these Thai subtitled vids yourself and learn a huge amount in the process. Check my recent thread on subtitles. In it, jay_jay says he is using a variation on this method to help with his language learning.

[Gaccha]

I have the exact same problem, can read and speak fairly well but following a conversation is difficult.

I am always asking the missus "What did he/she say?"

What I need is something like Youtube videos of people speaking Thai with Thai subtitles.

1) You might like Rikker's idea: http://rikker.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-idea...ranscripts.html

2) If you have a computer, some time and someone to help you write out/check transcriptions, you could make some of these Thai subtitled vids yourself and learn a huge amount in the process. Check my recent thread on subtitles. In it, jay_jay says he is using a variation on this method to help with his language learning.

As can be seen in my recent post, I am a keen advocate of Thai subtitles with Thai language. Let me tell you why that will definitely work.

I think you have identitifed a big weakness in your language acquistion: your listening ability. This is how to remedy it: get a DVD of Winnie the Pooh in English and Thai. Record the sound and then listen to an interesting 2 minute segment. Listen around 30- 50 times, until it starts to feel a like a song, you can anticipate the cadences, the rythm, the stresses and pauses. Then try to write down everything you can hear. Or if this is too bothersome choose one sentence you really like and learn it. Write it in roman letters but try to get anything you can. Some phrases because of slurring may require 30 listenings to a 5 second part of the dialogue.

Persevere, you are training your mind in real speech.

I did this learning Japanese and my level leapt. And I mean leapt. I can remember listening to 'Apollo 13' around 30 times until I knew and understood every sentence (except one). Of course, I unintentionally, as a by-product, learnt phrases such as 're-enty plan' and 'booster rockets', and 'skip right out of the atmosphere'.

Now this will work. But you will need an MP3 player (iPod etc.), a DVD writer on your computer, a sound recorder (download 'PCWinspeakrecord' for free) and a great deal of time and patience.

If there is simply too much new vocab, then it was not a listening problem after all., You just need to expand your vocab. Get a vocab book.

[VespaSeeker]

Hi thanks for replies and ideas ,

My problem is the few Thai friends i have work in the property business, are well educated and deal with falangs everyday so can speak engish very well so always spleak english with me , when i do speak Thai its the same old problem , when they reply in Thai i can understand basic stuff but nothing if they go into full Thai so we just end up speaking english because its easier .

This is not a complaint against Thai people but all the ones i have met or been friends with ( including my current teacher ) dont seem to have the cappacity to slow there speach down so i have a change to understand the words and some slim change of understanding the sentance , everytime I introduce my self to a Thai stranger in Thai language , I get --- poot thai geng mak !! and of they go into full Thai at one hundred miles an hour !, even constant --- kor toad na krap , poot cha cha dai mai krap never slows them down lol

I have the same problem with my Thai GF ,she has studied bachelor and master degrees so also speaks english very well , i do try to have conversations in Thai with her , but its back to the same old thing, I cannot understand past the basic stuff + she works 10 hours a day so the last thing she needs when she is at home relaxing is me asking her what every little word means when we are chatting .

I not sure if i understand the subtitle idea if i have got this right , you listen to the Thai and write down the translation and then listen to it over and over until you understand it ?

This might not apply to that idea but i go to Thai movies often and always notice from what Thai I can understand that it very rarely matches the subtitles, i suppose its down to the individual movie interpreters interpretation of the spoken English .

Oh well back to school on monday so will just carry on for a few more lessons and see what happens ,just its very frustrating when you come out of a lesson after a hour and ask yourself , well what did i learn today ? and the answer is -- well basically nothing !

[aanon]

Hi thanks for replies and ideas ,

My problem is the few Thai friends i have work in the property business, are well educated and deal with falangs everyday so can speak engish very well so always spleak english with me , when i do speak Thai its the same old problem , when they reply in Thai i can understand basic stuff but nothing if they go into full Thai so we just end up speaking english because its easier .

This is not a complaint against Thai people but all the ones i have met or been friends with ( including my current teacher ) dont seem to have the cappacity to slow there speach down so i have a change to understand the words and some slim change of understanding the sentance , everytime I introduce my self to a Thai stranger in Thai language , I get --- poot thai geng mak !! and of they go into full Thai at one hundred miles an hour !, even constant --- kor toad na krap , poot cha cha dai mai krap never slows them down lol

I have the same problem with my Thai GF ,she has studied bachelor and master degrees so also speaks english very well , i do try to have conversations in Thai with her , but its back to the same old thing, I cannot understand past the basic stuff + she works 10 hours a day so the last thing she needs when she is at home relaxing is me asking her what every little word means when we are chatting .

I not sure if i understand the subtitle idea if i have got this right , you listen to the Thai and write down the translation and then listen to it over and over until you understand it ?

This might not apply to that idea but i go to Thai movies often and always notice from what Thai I can understand that it very rarely matches the subtitles, i suppose its down to the individual movie interpreters interpretation of the spoken English .

Oh well back to school on monday so will just carry on for a few more lessons and see what happens ,just its very frustrating when you come out of a lesson after a hour and ask yourself , well what did i learn today ? and the answer is -- well basically nothing !

To answer for myself and partly on behalf of Gaccha...we are talking in this case about making subtitles in Thai of Thai speech. You would aim to have the subtitles represent exactly what was said in Thai. Translation is not an issue in this case.

Of course, whenever subtitles are used for translation from one language to another there is going to be some looseness/adaptation/negotiation as the subtitler attempts to boil speech down to one or two short lines of text. That is an interesting process, too, but not what we're talking about here.

[anothertorres]

40 hours? that's nothing. that's one weeks worth of working at learning the thai language. i'm almost to 160 hours and i know how to say "dting dtong" and "bpai dern len gap mah". keep working, someday you too will be able to know half as much as me seriously though, 40 hours? you need 100 hours before you start getting frustrated.

watch TV, listen to music, listen to commercials, listen to the buddhist monks on the morning radio (they talk very slow and i find them quite understandable) and most importantly, keep up your great attitude. you obviously have a strong desire and honestly, it's what most lack when they just up and decide they can't take it anymore and lose interest in learning any further.

[VespaSeeker]

40 hours? that's nothing. that's one weeks worth of working at learning the thai language. i'm almost to 160 hours and i know how to say "dting dtong" and "bpai dern len gap mah". keep working, someday you too will be able to know half as much as me seriously though, 40 hours? you need 100 hours before you start getting frustrated.

watch TV, listen to music, listen to commercials, listen to the buddhist monks on the morning radio (they talk very slow and i find them quite understandable) and most importantly, keep up your great attitude. you obviously have a strong desire and honestly, it's what most lack when they just up and decide they can't take it anymore and lose interest in learning any further.

Lol 160 ? i would change schools if i was you , no i am sure you know more than what you say , actually i did 20 hours years ago on conversation and then another 17 on reading and writing last year , i gave up after 17 hours when we got to the teacher trying to teach me silent ho: hi:p , that was the end for me , total brain melt down !

Anyway like i said i mostly teach my self from the internet and dont have many problems with speaking Thai and being understood most of the time , and dont worry there is no way i am giving up , I have paid already so i will be there to the last second !

My school told me i was be understanding Thai conversation easily within 30 hours .

Cant see it but i hope they are right .

By the way the Monk idea is a good one , actually used to do it before and i do the listening to music too but i learned the meaning of sia Jai a long time ago

[ozzieovaseas]

hey mate,

Following your story with interest as i pretty much in the same position.

My Idea for you: Get one of the mini mp3 with recording function made by sony. I have an older one (icd-ux70) but it works great, is not much bigger than a mp3 player and the sensitivity of the recording mode is amazing.Even if tucked away in your pocket it will pick up minute noises in a room.

So my plan was to take this with me when out amongst people speaking thai ect ect and play it back later.You can slow the recordings down in increments and the voice mode alters the pitch accordingly so you can still make out the words when played slowly.

If you were motivated enough you could even record thai tv in a room and replay it over and over at varying speed...might be interesting to try this with the thai newsreaders..

Anyway having said all that, for the previous year in LOS i seemed to have little time to do all this and basically just used it for music

[Gaccha]

hey mate,

Following your story with interest as i pretty much in the same position.

My Idea for you: Get one of the mini mp3 with recording function made by sony. I have an older one (icd-ux70) but it works great, is not much bigger than a mp3 player and the sensitivity of the recording mode is amazing.Even if tucked away in your pocket it will pick up minute noises in a room.

So my plan was to take this with me when out amongst people speaking thai ect ect and play it back later.You can slow the recordings down in increments and the voice mode alters the pitch accordingly so you can still make out the words when played slowly.

If you were motivated enough you could even record thai tv in a room and replay it over and over at varying speed...might be interesting to try this with the thai newsreaders..

Anyway having said all that, for the previous year in LOS i seemed to have little time to do all this and basically just used it for music

There is nothing wrong with this but it does have a big problem: how do you know when you are right and how do you find out what the gaps are? Unless you have a very kind/well-paid Thai with you, you're stuffed.

The ideal is to have a script in Thai, a recording in Thai, a script in English. This does exist (albeit very very rare). The Voice of America radio broadcasts have a perfect transliterative script in Thai. But the level is high. The current issue is getting from beginner to beginner-intermediate. That's why I said use "Winnie the Pooh" *the original version). I chose this very carefully. Other children books use very tough words 'the emerald of the skull of Valhalla'.

If you use GOM player (download for free. It was created by the Korean government) it can slow the dialogue down on your computer. As for an MP3, almost anything is better than an iPod for language learning.

So here are my instructions:

1. buy Winnie the Pooh

2. choose a 3 min segment

3. record segment off DVD onto MP3

4. listen 30 times to Thai language

5. write down in roman letters anything you can

6. look up words/see if you can find words you don't know

7. now check against English

8. keep listening again and again (if necessary target 10 second segments)

You will be amazed at the improvement in doing this. At least equal to 10 hours of language classes. Extremely intense and you will enjoy it. You will. Really.

[hiero]

gaccha - that is good advice. I used to constantly complain thais talk to fast etc and then started repeatedly listening to things to make them go in.

[bobthedog]

I would recommend AUA with their ALG program. It gives good listening skills, but requires many hours of study. Check out their sample videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/algworld

Edited January 15, 2010 by bobthedog

[moe666]

You need new friends who donot speak english. The first trip in 1998 I couldn't pick out anything but with each trip heard more and more, it just takes time with any language. When I am in Thailand I like to set at food stalls and listen to reoccuring words and then will ask the girl friend what it means you can pick up word this way slow but gets the job done on conversational Thai.

I have a friend who is married to a Thai and has been in country for about 15 years and he speaks good Thai but his wife still corrects him a lot.

Good luck

[katana]

These videos from Algworld are pretty good listening practice.

http://www.youtube.com/user/algworld

Cross posted with bobthedog.

Edited January 15, 2010 by katana

[anothertorres]

Lol 160 ? i would change schools if i was you , no i am sure you know more than what you say

i am afforded free schooling during my time here on this bizarro earth, so i go because i can and it keeps my brain functioning in perpetual learning mode. however, i spend inordinate amounts of time speaking to thai people. it's the best way to learn. anyway, i dting dtong dton nii bpai dern len gap mah.

[Tod Daniels]

Thai conversational courses are one of the hardest to gauge as far as "bang for the baht".

The good one's I've seen have short stories with new vocabulary words typed out, questions to gauge your comprehension, and are taught ONLY in thai. The student and teacher go over the vocabulary first, and then the student reads the story silently to themself. After that the student reads it aloud, sentence by sentence with the teacher correcting his pronunciation. Once the story is read, the questions are asked by the teacher to gauge comprehension, and the student answers only in thai using as complete spoken thai sentence structure as they can. The difficulty in this type of learning is finding subject material that is of interest to the student (something that is critical to any learning) as well being written at a level which the student will understand. Using material either too far above the students current level as well as too far below are both detrimental. So proper course material is a critical factor in this equation.

I have attended free classes at more thai language schools than I care to even remember. Most of their thai conversation classes are nothing more than a thai national gossiping, using the time to preach their value system and/or pawn their beliefs off on the students in some demonstration of superior thai intellect. (Can you tell I'm less than impressed by the majority of conversational thai courses I’ve attended? )

Given the dissimilarities between written and spoken thai being able to read, in and of itself doesn't give you any spoken thai experience. By dissimilarities I mean things like in colloquially spoken thai, subjects are routinely left out if understood in context, and other things which differentiate written thai from spoken.

I have met people who profess to be able to 'read thai', and can actually pronounce a word fairly accurately, but when asked, they can't tell me what it means in engrish. Sadly, this is NOT reading; if you don't know the meaning of what you're reading, you just ain't reading my friend, no matter how good your pronunciation is. I’d rather massacre a word's pronunciation yet be able to know the meaning every time I read it, than speak it totally clear and be clueless as to its definition.

Learning the thai language with any proficiency is basically about two things; vocabulary word acquisition, and learning thai language structure. They go hand in hand; you cannot just spew out thai words in engrish sentence order and think it'll fly here. It'll come out like the mindless gibberish I hear foreigners who profess to 'speak thai' spout every day much to the bewilderment of the thais they are speaking to.

This week I am going to attend two conversational thai classes a different thai language schools near my house, and I'll report back on their perceived value. I am also looking for other perspective students to attend a conversational thai class with, as I've found going it alone is sometimes disconcerting. Anyway, I'll report back.

Sorry I put this on two thread in the Language Forum.. Deal with it.

[meadish_sweetball]

I mostly taught my self Thai by trying to Think in Thai and then noting down words i dont know and looking them up later on the internet then learning them to memory .

The problem with this approach is that you tend to 'build your own Thai' based on your own language rather than modelling it on natural native speaker patterns. Not that the approach is not a useful exercise, it is, but it should be complemented with exposure to proper everyday Thai so you can start to construct your sentences more like Thais would.

Classes can only be of limited use for this, as a classroom setting is never like real life. Pester your friends with questions. Also if you have spare time, find Thai people who also have spare time and are willing to talk - taxi drivers are a classic, I got to practice a lot of Thai that way. Many of them quickly adapt to your level of Thai so you can have simple conversations about basic subjects.

When you've got a little further you can try temples, novices often have some spare time in the late afternoon and are often interested in chatting for a while. It was never very difficult for me to find people to talk to when I was practicing.

Bring a notebook and an mp3 recorder when you are out and about. It's good to listen to your conversation attempts later as when you listen to yourself afterwards, you will catch your own mistakes more easily and can contrast your own grammar and pronunciation against that of the native speakers you talk to. Use the notebook to note down new words, you can ask the Thais to write them down for you in Thai script and that way you can look them up later if you don't understand the explanations the Thai give you.

Soaps are also good for listening comprehension practice, even though they can be painful to watch.