One Guy's Effort To Learn Thai In 14 Years

[Ratsima]

[Long and boring.]

I first visited Thailand in 1977 about 2/3 of the way through an around-the-world trip. I was here a month and didn't bother to learn much Thai outside of the few phrases in Tony Wheeler's "Southeast Asia On A Shoestring".

I came back to Thailand in the 1980's when a friend of mine was construction manager for a hotel in Phuket. He and his wife lived in a nice big house off Soi Ngam Dupli. They had a maid who only spoke Thai, so I picked up a few phrases watching them interact with her.

I continued to visit Thailand at least once a year after that, mostly to dive in the Similans but also to travel a bit. Again, I never bothered to pick up more than simple traveler's Thai.

In 1996 I decided that knowing more Thai would be useful in my travels so I bought Becker's "Thai for Beginners" book and cassette tapes. My office had just moved, so my five minute commute had turned in to half an hour. I listened to the tapes for an hour a day: a half hour in and a half hour out. I didn't want to learn to read at that time, so I pretty much skipped the sections of the book on the alphabet, consonant classes, etc. Eventually I learned to understand and (I thought) say many useful phrases.

So, it was quite a shock to find on my next visit to Thailand that pretty much nothing that I learned was of much use. Since most of my visits were short and much of my time was spent on dive boats with other Westerners I didn't really have much time to practice.

By the early 2000's (awkward, isn't it?) I was considering retiring in Thailand, so I bought the Rosetta Stone Thai CD. At first, Rosetta Stone is extremely daunting. There's no studying, no memorizing, no reference book. You just sit at the computer screen and try and match spoken and/or written words with pictures. It seems impossibly difficult at first, but if you buy in to their immersion methodology it eventually begins to work. If you keep at it long enough you will learn the language. Unfortunately, the language you will learn is not actual Thai, but "Rosetta Stone Thai", a language spoken nowhere except by people who have learned their Thai from Rosetta Stone. (My wife finds it to be hilarious and will occasionally break into a decent imitation of Rosetta Stone Thai just for the fun of it.)

On the plus side, if you use Rosetta Stone right you will learn to read (sort of). And, you will learn how to read (sort of) without learning the Thai alphabet, consonant classes or tone marks. This was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't set out to learn to read, but after months with Rosetta Stone my brain somehow worked out the symbols and I found I could "read" (note the quote marks) words that I hadn't learned from Rosetta Stone.

At that point I decided I ought to learn the alphabet so I bought a Gor Gai book. I learned one letter per day. I practiced writing each letter I learned; filling up the designated spaces in the Gor Gai book. I also wrote out all the letters I'd learned up to that point ten times in a little notebook I kept for the purpose. Once I'd learned a new letter I'd put that letter's sticker on my computer monitor bezel. Sadly, I never got past ฏ. Learning an additional letter somehow caused an overload in my brain and I'd simply forget one or more of the letters I'd already learned. To this date my computer monitor has only 15 stickers on it.

I retired in 2005 and moved to Thailand. It was a huge shock to me that I couldn't understand anything that anyone said. It was (and it remains) an unintelligible buzz. What happened to those hundreds of hours of study? Why couldn't I pick out any familiar words? What had gone wrong?

Even worse, why couldn't anyone understand what I was saying? Even something as simple as น้ำเปล่า was met with furrowed brows and confused looks. Was my pronunciation really that bad? Yes, it was, and it still is.

Undaunted, I charged on. I had lost Becker's book, so I bought it again and spent many hours with it. I bought primary school books and read them out loud. I read "Manee and Friends" online. I bought the AUA Reading course book (and immediately abandoned it because of its bizarre transcription system). I went through "Speaking Thai" (book and tape) from Asia Books. I bought Becker's "Improving Your Thai Pronunciation" CD and struggled with it for hours. (ใครขายไข่ไก่ - I'm sorry, but I just can't hear the difference.) I learned how to look up words in a printed dictionary.

This brings us up to about 2008 at which point I decided that I was never going to be able to speak Thai and that I should stop wasting money and time on language learning. I continued to practice reading everything I could get my hands on. I really like being able to read road signs, product labels, menus, etc. (It always baffles the Thai waitresses when I can read the menu but have to point at the item I want because if I say it out load I'm certain to be misunderstood.)

Late last year I heard about HighSpeedThai from a post on this forum. I broke my no-more-Thai-language-books rule and bought it. If I were 30 years younger, had a decent ear and wasn't such a cretin, this would be a great course. But, your success at HighSpeedThai depends on your ability to hear and reproduce the tones and on your ability to memorize large amounts of data: letters, consonant classes, tone rules, etc. I can do none of the above, so this effort was yet another ignominious failure.

Why haven't I taken a course or hired a tutor? Well, I live in Korat and there are no courses. And, finding a tutor is next to impossible. I found one online who wants 3000 (yes, three thousand) baht per hour. I have to wonder what sort of Thai she's teaching. I found another who will teach you online using Skype, but she wants 500 baht per hour. That's more than I'm willing and able to pay.

Now it's time for me to make amends. I've lived in this neighborhood for five years. Many of the people with whom I have regular contact have the mistaken impression that I can speak Thai. They hear me say a few things and they figure that since I've lived here a while I must be fluent by now. For example, there's a small minimart where I buy gin. The only two sentences I've ever said to that lady in Thai are, "I want a bottle of Gilby's gin." and "You don't need to put it in a bag." That's it. But, every time I go in there she's on about "ฝรั่งพูดไทยได้ดี", and then she babbles on with zero comprehension by me. I need to let these people know that I can't speak Thai so that they don't waste their time trying to converse with me.

Finally, I need to change tactics. Instead of trying to learn Thai I need to work out strategies for living here without being able to speak. Which reminds me, I should have paid more attention to PeaceBlondie six or seven years ago. He knew back then that an old fart like me would never be able to speak Thai.

That's all folks.

[meadish_sweetball]

If you stop trying to learn Thai and just try to enjoy the interaction, maybe you will learn some?

[Ratsima]

If you stop trying to learn Thai and just try to enjoy the interaction, maybe you will learn some?

Maybe so. I thought that's what I'd tried for the last year or two (before I went for HighSpeedThai).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that somewhere in there I bought the Pimsleur course...

[Samuian]

If you stop trying to learn Thai and just try to enjoy the interaction, maybe you will learn some?

Maybe so. I thought that's what I'd tried for the last year or two (before I went for HighSpeedThai).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that somewhere in there I bought the Pimsleur course...

You aren't alone, that is for sure!

Very funny is that some understand me very well, even pickup the southern taint, so do I, some don't, so I don't!

Some don't understand me... maybe they don't want... up to them!

And yes, some just babble and I don't give a hoot!

It's just as is!

Never went to school, lessons, the only book I ever bought was "Fundamentals of the Thai Language"....

[givenall]

Don’t worry in this new globalized world, soon or later everyone will speak English and you and I are ready for that

[Colabamumbai]

I have faith in you. You took the time to make the long post. You can learn to speak Thai. Take your notes and your sentences and go around and use them. The people will correct your pronunciation and help you. Believe in yourself.

[Parvis]

Wait another "few years" - and may be you can go to your family doctor "Whats the problem?" - - "I want to speak Thai". He goes to his refrigerated cabinet - turn around - and ask "What dialect?" - you reply "Isaan (since you live in Khorat)" He pulls out a syringe labelled "Isaan" and proceeds to give you an injection. "It will take 10 days to take hold" - he will say.

Futuristic - sure. Impossible - not necessarily. Braincells (experience) have been transferred betweeen rats - with promising results. What's the difference between you and a rat?

On a more realistic notion - I think you have proceeded to TRY to learn Thai - like most of us - without proper "scientific" guidance - because there is not any YET (to my knowledge).

[Parvis]

Wait another "few years" - and may be you can go to your family doctor "Whats the problem?" - - "I want to speak Thai". He goes to his refrigerated cabinet - turn around - and ask "What dialect?" - you reply "Isaan (since you live in Khorat)" He pulls out a syringe labelled "Isaan" and proceeds to give you an injection. "It will take 10 days to take hold" - he will say.

Futuristic - sure. Impossible - not necessarily. Braincells (experience) have been transferred betweeen rats - with promising results. What's the difference between you and a rat?

On a more realistic notion - I think you have proceeded to TRY to learn Thai - like most of us - without proper "scientific" guidance - because there is not any YET (to my knowledge).

[Parvis]

Wait another "few years" - and may be you can go to your family doctor "Whats the problem?" - - "I want to speak Thai". He goes to his refrigerated cabinet - turn around - and ask "What dialect?" - you reply "Isaan (since you live in Khorat)" He pulls out a syringe labelled "Isaan" and proceeds to give you an injection. "It will take 10 days to take hold" - he will say.

Futuristic - sure. Impossible - not necessarily. Braincells (experience) have been transferred betweeen rats - with promising results. What's the difference between you and a rat?

On a more realistic notion - I think you have proceeded to TRY to learn Thai - like most of us - without proper "scientific" guidance - because there is not any YET (to my knowledge).

[tgeezer]

A very nice post, I wonder how bad you really are; maybe just more realistic than the rest of us.

[Ratsima]

A very nice post, I wonder how bad you really are; maybe just more realistic than the rest of us.

Here's how bad I am:

- I've been with my wife for six years now. Even she, who should be sort of used to my bad Thai, can't understand me most of the time.

- I have an American friend who is quite fluent in Thai. He taught Chemistry, in Thai, at the university level in Bangkok and Chiangmai in the 60's and 70's. He never understands my Thai. He has tried to help me with my pronunciation. He finally gave up and said, more or less, that I simply didn't have the ear necessary to pronounce Thai properly. He also said that my personality was unfit for learning Thai: shy, reticent and unwilling to make mistakes. I'm sure he's right.

[PeaceBlondie]

I'm your worst example. But maybe I'm your best example. I didn't try twenty words the first four years. Becker was worthless. The small beginner's class at the YMCA was teached by an MA in Thai who couldn't teach Thai to farang. Neither could the teacher at CMU. Worthless. Now I can't write Thai letters. Nor if I could learn spoken Thai after five years of successful study, would I have substantial conversatians.

Fewer than a million Thai natives are fluent in English (and they don't run in our circles).

[tgeezer]

A very nice post, I wonder how bad you really are; maybe just more realistic than the rest of us.

Here's how bad I am:

- I've been with my wife for six years now. Even she, who should be sort of used to my bad Thai, can't understand me most of the time.

- I have an American friend who is quite fluent in Thai. He taught Chemistry, in Thai, at the university level in Bangkok and Chiangmai in the 60's and 70's. He never understands my Thai. He has tried to help me with my pronunciation. He finally gave up and said, more or less, that I simply didn't have the ear necessary to pronounce Thai properly. He also said that my personality was unfit for learning Thai: shy, reticent and unwilling to make mistakes. I'm sure he's right.

Sorry, you must be prepared to make a fool of yourself and remember that you don't sound worse than a learner of English at the same level.

[Ratsima]

Sorry, you must be prepared to make a fool of yourself

Sorry. Can't do it. Never could. Way too old to change.

[vincentv]

The Thai language is not one of the easier languages to learn. It does take time to learn. If one wants to get to a basic level where he could communicate he should expect to spend at least 1000 hours learning the language in a fairly effective manner. Ultimately, learning a language can be broken down into a number of tasks:

Learning to pronounce the sounds – You can’t get far without this.

Learning to read – It is very hard to learn the amount of vocab required to communicate without being able to read. Unless you are a blabber mouth and can go and talk to anyone about anything, you simply won’t get enough ear time with the language. Being able allows you to get input on almost any topic.

Learning vocab – You will need to be able to not only listen to and understand words but you will need the ability to construct sentences with the vocab that you learn. In the west a kid at the age of 5 – 6 knows around 10,000 words(receptively), but will probably use a lot less in day to day speech.

The most common 2000 words make up about 90-95% of spoken conversation. So how long does it take to learn 2,000 words? The first words are always the hardest, once you get familiar with the common sounds and patterns it gets much easy. So we will say 10 words an hour. So that gives us about 200 hours to learn 2000 words. So once you add learning to read and learning to pronounce onto that you have around 250 hours.

Armed with a vocab of 2000 words, good pronunciation and the ability to read you still won’t be able to talk about rocket science. You will need to find a way to slowly and steadily increase the size of both you receptive and productive vocabulary, if you are aiming to become fluent in the language. I believe using the right methods. One could learn up to 30 words an hour. This is pretty good, generally as a child goes through school he learns around 10 new words a day. This learning goes on from when he starts school to when he finishes university. So, it would be nice to “learn Thai in 7 days” but it is simply not possible.

If one wants to learn the language, he needs to set aside some time every week or every day if possible. Doing this, using well designed materials you WILL make progress.

Of course, if you have some kind of hearing problems. It may be a struggle for you to learn the language, but this does not apply to most of us. So far from Ratsima is the first one to have these issues, one American guy learn to read Thai in 2 weeks using the system.

As Ratsima righty states, learning a language does require one to remember a large amount of vocab and other facts. The good side of this is that it is a very good work out for your brain, I am quite sure there a number of studies out there showing that learning a language can slow mental decline and improve memory.

Now if Ratsima did not have these problems with hearing the tones, and started learning Thai from the day he landed in Thailand, suppose he spent 7 hours a week studying he would have spent a total of 5110 hours learning the language. If was using somewhat efficient material he should be at a level where he could watch any TV show with ease. He would be able to converse about anything he wanted. He would make small mistakes here and there but ultimately he would be fluent.

So the name of the game is to find good materials that allow you to progress at a good speed and stick to it. I wasted many hundreds of hours using ineffective materials, learning a language is quite a large task, the last thing you want to do is to waste time when doing it.

That is my 2 cents.

Vincent

[kokesaat]

My humble suggestion: Stop looking for an authentic Thai teacher. Instead, look for someone who has some education behind him/her, who can speak passable English, and wants to practice English conversation. You provide the opportunity to practice English for XX hours per week while that person works on your tones for the same amount of time.

Get the ภาษาไทย แบบใหม่ เล่ม ๑ - ๗ series (or the first one or two to start). Tell your 'teacher' to be brutal with your tones, until you get the hang of it.

It isn't impossible.....I don't buy the age argument (I'm 59), I don't buy the tone deaf argument (I used that for many years). To me, it all came down to finding someone who could demonstrate the proper pronunciation for me then help me until I got it right. My wife didn't have the patience (not would I if the shoe were on the other foot).

Surprisingly, after I finally got the hang of the tones, when I asked my wife what a word meant, she understood me (assuming I pronounced the word correctly and with the proper tone).

My 'teacher' is the village pharmacist. Working one-on-one with someone who could half-explain how pronunciation worked was the key for me.

Good luck! If you're going to live here, don't give up!

[canuckamuck]

I seem to be following in your footsteps, but I am only coming up on year 7.

I too have a stack of Thai learning books/cd's so on. I read Thai quite well, but I haven't got the tones figured, and I don't know what I am reading unless all of the words are from the vocab I have accumulated, I am guessing near 2000 words. Of course many of those words are language course words, so people don't use them much.

And Thai spoken at regular speed throws me off even if I know the words.

But I think I am making progress

I am currently wondering what my next Thai learning project will be.

[RAZZELL]

Tried a long-haired dictionary?

RAZZ

[Colabamumbai]

The Thai language is not one of the easier languages to learn. It does take time to learn. If one wants to get to a basic level where he could communicate he should expect to spend at least 1000 hours learning the language in a fairly effective manner. Ultimately, learning a language can be broken down into a number of tasks:

Learning to pronounce the sounds – You can't get far without this.

Learning to read – It is very hard to learn the amount of vocab required to communicate without being able to read. Unless you are a blabber mouth and can go and talk to anyone about anything, you simply won't get enough ear time with the language. Being able allows you to get input on almost any topic.

Learning vocab – You will need to be able to not only listen to and understand words but you will need the ability to construct sentences with the vocab that you learn. In the west a kid at the age of 5 – 6 knows around 10,000 words(receptively), but will probably use a lot less in day to day speech.

The most common 2000 words make up about 90-95% of spoken conversation. So how long does it take to learn 2,000 words? The first words are always the hardest, once you get familiar with the common sounds and patterns it gets much easy. So we will say 10 words an hour. So that gives us about 200 hours to learn 2000 words. So once you add learning to read and learning to pronounce onto that you have around 250 hours.

Armed with a vocab of 2000 words, good pronunciation and the ability to read you still won't be able to talk about rocket science. You will need to find a way to slowly and steadily increase the size of both you receptive and productive vocabulary, if you are aiming to become fluent in the language. I believe using the right methods. One could learn up to 30 words an hour. This is pretty good, generally as a child goes through school he learns around 10 new words a day. This learning goes on from when he starts school to when he finishes university. So, it would be nice to "learn Thai in 7 days" but it is simply not possible.

If one wants to learn the language, he needs to set aside some time every week or every day if possible. Doing this, using well designed materials you WILL make progress.

Of course, if you have some kind of hearing problems. It may be a struggle for you to learn the language, but this does not apply to most of us. So far from Ratsima is the first one to have these issues, one American guy learn to read Thai in 2 weeks using the system.

As Ratsima righty states, learning a language does require one to remember a large amount of vocab and other facts. The good side of this is that it is a very good work out for your brain, I am quite sure there a number of studies out there showing that learning a language can slow mental decline and improve memory.

Now if Ratsima did not have these problems with hearing the tones, and started learning Thai from the day he landed in Thailand, suppose he spent 7 hours a week studying he would have spent a total of 5110 hours learning the language. If was using somewhat efficient material he should be at a level where he could watch any TV show with ease. He would be able to converse about anything he wanted. He would make small mistakes here and there but ultimately he would be fluent.

So the name of the game is to find good materials that allow you to progress at a good speed and stick to it. I wasted many hundreds of hours using ineffective materials, learning a language is quite a large task, the last thing you want to do is to waste time when doing it.

That is my 2 cents.

Vincent

highspeedthai.com

Good well constructed reply.

[leosmith]

Sad story. Obviously, not willing to work = not able to learn the language, and I think that's what you're saying. But if you're interested in the main thing that caused you failure, here's my opinion. Lack of mastery of pronunciation. It should be the first thing a person does with any language, especially a tonal language. It can be a very intense difficult hurdle. However, time-wise, it's a mere road bump on a long road to proficiency. And mastering pronunciation doesn't mean you are fluent. It merely allows you to continue. Without it, you'll get nowhere.

I also had difficulty mastering pronunciation. I started out with Becker, and nobody understood me. It wasn't until I made a serious effort, making all sorts or random, silly sounds, until I got in the ballpark, that I made my breakthrough. This was with a tutor(not a real teacher), who are extremely easy to come by. Once I was in the ballpark, I continued further studies of the language, always with attention to pronunciation. Within a few months of beginning to work on my pronunciation, it went from undecipherable to good.

There are lots of other issues. For those, Vincent's post is full of good general language learning advice.

[Ratsima]

I wrote the OP primarily as an introspective exercise to examine how I could have spent so much time and so much money trying to learn Thai and to have failed so miserably. I appreciate the comments and suggestions. Thanks to all for taking the time to reply.

[HappyInCM]

Learning vocab – You will need to be able to not only listen to and understand words but you will need the ability to construct sentences with the vocab that you learn. In the west a kid at the age of 5 – 6 knows around 10,000 words(receptively), but will probably use a lot less in day to day speech.

The most common 2000 words make up about 90-95% of spoken conversation. So how long does it take to learn 2,000 words? The first words are always the hardest, once you get familiar with the common sounds and patterns it gets much easy. So we will say 10 words an hour. So that gives us about 200 hours to learn 2000 words. So once you add learning to read and learning to pronounce onto that you have around 250 hours.

Armed with a vocab of 2000 words, good pronunciation and the ability to read you still won't be able to talk about rocket science. You will need to find a way to slowly and steadily increase the size of both you receptive and productive vocabulary, if you are aiming to become fluent in the language. I believe using the right methods. One could learn up to 30 words an hour. This is pretty good, generally as a child goes through school he learns around 10 new words a day. This learning goes on from when he starts school to when he finishes university. So, it would be nice to "learn Thai in 7 days" but it is simply not possible.

a 5 yr old knowing 10,0000 words is 10x higher than the sources quoted on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary). do you have a source for this estimate? (also wiki's source estimates a college freshman in the US knows about 12,000 word families)

Do you have an estimate for how much time is needed to review already known words before losing them? i.e., if I spend an hour a day learning 30 new words a day, how many hours do I have to spend keeping the words I already know?

Edited February 17, 2010 by eljefe2

[vincentv]

Hi there,

10,000 words is an approximation of a 5 year old child's receptive vocabulary. I read many books on language acquisition. Please see 'The Vocabulary Book: Learning and instruction" by Michael F.Graves. You could also have a look at "Teaching Vocabulary" By I.S.P Nation.

The Bare Naked Lexis lists 2700 common head words that make up around 19 out of 20 words used in spoken English and about 9 out of 10 words used in academic texts. 2700 head words translates to around 10,000 individual words.

When I say 30 word an hour, that is leaving room for some spaced repetition. Perhaps 7 repeats over a 6 month period. Of course it will be good if you actually use these words in the real word. I find it useful to play comprehensible audio in the background. For me I save movies as mp3s and play them when I am working. Using this method I can review many thousands of words every day. While this is a form of receptive review I do feel that it helps with building the ability to productively use the vocab. With that being said, I feel that it is very important to practice using the words you are learning in a productive manner, as this is what you are going to be doing when you are conversing. This is why I have ensured that every lesson in the HighSpeedThai program has a speaking section where you productively use the vocab that you learn. At the moment I am adding more exercises, ultimately one will get practice forming at least 5 sentences using each word that he learns.

The HighSpeedThai program teaches 1600 words, one can't expect to be fluent when he finishes it, but he will have a very good footing. He should understand the gist of most spoken Thai.

I am in the process of creating a program that teaches a further 5,000 to 10,000 words, but this is no small task. So I better get back to it.

[pramaprow]

I've been here for thirty two unbroken years and speak about as well as a five year old (no reading, no writing)...and everything is hunky dory...it's always puzzled me why anyone would want to learn to speak, read, and write this language (beyond the functional oral stuff) when Thai's (for the most part) have no interest at all in what we (Caucasians) think, or have to say...by the way, I've lived most of my time here in a rural setting and have seldom seen, let alone spoken with other 'farang'...I'm ready for the roasting...in my case ignorance truly is bliss...

Edited February 21, 2010 by pramaprow

[MUYTHAI]

Ratsima,

I enjoyed reading your post and the responses it created. I learned much. I too am still studying Thai. I started with the common phrases and then the numerals and letters and then sentences. I wrote the icons over and over and would say their sound out loud. I still have a loooong way to go. Spansih was easy street compared to Thai! I want to learn Khmer because, supposedly, there are no tones like the five Thai tones You might want to get some pocket-sized flash cards and write down all the Thai numerals, letters, etc. and pronunciations one side and then the English translations on the other. Carry the cards everwhere you go so you can pull them out when you have any exrta time in order to quiz yourself. It sounds like you already know the alphabet, etc. Keep on keeping on. The journey of a 1,000 mile starts with one step. I commend you for your efforts! It seems like your wife could help you. 3,000 baht per hour for Thai lessons. That person is crazy and thought you were dumb falang. I could spend quality time with a high-rate charging Thai gogo beauty all night for that price. Sorry...had to go there. I assume your avatar is a lotus fruit missing some seeds? Nice. Thanks for your post and best wishes!

[jybkk]

I've been here for thirty two unbroken years and speak about as well as a five year old (no reading, no writing)

...by the way, I've lived most of my time here in a rural setting and have seldom seen, let alone spoken with other 'farang'

Well, since you obviously don't like to talk to anyone, thai or farangs, I can get why you don't feel like learning another language.

[farangnahrak]

I've been learning for almost 6 years now, on average 1.5 hours a day, about ~3300 hours. My language/reading skill is that of a Thai 5th grader (I've taken the tests). I'm guessing I'd need another 3000 hours to reach University level.

I second what Vincent said.

And I want to point out that Rosetta Stone is a huge scam. Its absolutely useless for anything other than a verbal comprehension test. It is to the authors financial benefit to convince you that buying their material is all you need to be bilingual.

[Baa_Mango]

Thai seems super daunting at first.. to actually learn it.

In my opninion to really learn and understand it reading and writing is a must. Now.. you do not learn to read and write Thai so you can enjoy all those Thai tabloids or old literary prose.. reading and writing will allow you to hone your speaking and listening. With out reading and writing comprehension it is very hard to speak clearly. Sure you can learn and remember words and phrases.. and sure for a lot of people, Thai people will understand them because they are able to mimic some phrases very well. When i started studying vowels, tones, etc.. than i realized that the sounds i was saying when i (tried) to speak Thai were not the actual sounds, they were close, but ultimately not the same. When first getting into written Thai it can seem like an over load. I have self studied reading and writing for about 3 and 1/2 years.. not sure duper hardcore or anything, but I never just quit or stopped.. some times I'd be into it and than get bored and then perk up later.. the thing is first thing to do is just learn the alphabet.. 44 consonants.. not that hard. I remember what i did was user beckers Thai for beginners to get an english approximation of the sounds and learn the consonants in order 7 at time.. so first one week i casually would practice writing the first 7 letters.. when i had those down basically.. i learned the next 7 so now everytime i would practice, i would be writing 14 letters.. at the same time as this writing practice i would be using super basic home made flash cards that had the thai consonant on one side and the Becker transliteration on the other side ( with the tone too.. which you can start being aware of and attempting to practice as well.. ) So after a while.. i would write 44 letters in order, through my groups of 7 learning and practicing.. also now my memory of the names of the characters was so so.. i was probably on this for 4 or 5 months.. not super serious but I would at least try to write the letters once a day as well as try to show thai friends / gf my "skills" ( so bad looking back on it..)

The great thing about learning Thai in Thailand is that its written everywhere.. everytime i was on bts i could try to match up the letters of the stations with the (crappy) transliterations.. i could stare at the different advertisements and try to figure out those crazy fonts.. After a while i started to get into vowels.. now this is another huge step.. mostly because a few vowels simply dont exist in english, just as the NG conosonant sound (at beginning of a word) doesnt exist in english as well.. So vowels was harder, but i would practice writing them and trying to remember the sounds.. as i did this i would start to figure out some very simple words.. ie Baht,gin, water, rice, etc.. words with mid tone and simple long or short vowels.. at this stage i drove my gf insane.. A very serious note.. having a gf whose is educated will help a lot.. if he/she can speak even simple english it will help a lot.. what i've noticed is that people who are with sex workers (who are often sadly under educated) will struggle getting good answers and progressing. Anyways as i learned vowels i would always hound all thai people i knew about the pronounciation of the vowels and hard consonants..somes times people would be like, ok .. right right right wrong right wrong wrong wrong right.. it was frustrating as memorizing them as well as physically being able to make the correct sounds is / was very difficult. Writing shit down all the time is also vital.. how ever you have to do it.. with crappy english transliterations beside it or words that are similar.. i know Thai for beginners has the list of sounds in english that are similar/matchable with the vowels.. that book is actually a powerful tool but it took me a long time to sort through the good and bad parts.. i only use the vowel and consonants english translations.. i didnt really follow her learning plan.. its very good for reference though.

Anyways.. basically apply everything you are learning and know to all things in your everyday life.. going out was always fun, seeing signs, menus, etc etc.. slowly learn. If you like thai food, learn as much as you can..if you like swear words, than study that, what ever will help you remember the vowels, sounds, and tones. The last thing i learned was the tones.. starting to be aware of the consonant classes is important but is something that can slow come in..for me it wasnt so planned.. it was just too hard to try to memorize the vowels, consonants, different classes, and the effects the classes have on each tone mark, as well as the tone rules on words with out tone marks.. it is just time and practice.. reading different learning thai books also helped me get a more rounded view on the concepts.. for example the Teach your self thai book by the brit' smyth.. i hated his transliteration system ( now that i know thai it p's me off even more) but some of the way he explained things made more sense to me then the way the girl did in Thai for beginners.. also of course some times i would just get lost on thai-language.com, as well as this forum, trying to make sense of different rules and words..

After being in Bangkok for a year i did 3 months of basic conversation as piam mitr (ughh looks ugly in english) and this helped a ton for confidence and practice of speaking thai.. i only did book 1 and 2 which dont have any thing to do with the written language, just basic convo stuff and basics.. but it helped a ton with me trying to remember the tones as well as basic comprehension and convo skills, which even though i thought were semi ok because of all the time i used talking with people and messing around with thai writing, i discovered were super crap. 3 months after i was out of that school, i could see a huge difference in my own vocab and comprehension. I also got the all thailanguage versions of the text books used there so i could study those as well..

Since then I have been studying university (in an international program, english only) but have made a lot thai friends and learned all about how thai kids' speak. My reading and writing has came together a lot more coheseively and this has had a super positive effect on the clarity and tones of my spoken thai..looking back i can see exactly what things i was doing wrong, tone wise, as well as just how the sounds are.. unaspirated final consonants etc etc.. I am no thai expert or even semi fluent but signs, menus, and all that are simple.. these days i am reading grade 5 level comic books (off and on when i got free time, on the bts etc etc ) and am still learning a lot. I like listening to thai hip hop and other pop music.. although its still difficult i find my self understanding more and more. When i see progress with my self it makes me very happy and makes me have zero regrets.. i remember screaming and being so frustrated about nonsensical word spellings and rules that no one could explain.. I have been on an off in Thailand almost 4 and half years.. the first year i spoke zero thai.. was just a backpacker hanging around islands.. after saving more cash and coming back spent another year split between two 6 month trips doing nothing.. after that i started to get into bangkok thats where i am now.. a third year uni student studying communication.. I will not stop learning thai.. i've got a long way to go.. my typing sucks and is slow as hel_l.. i dont have time to just hang out and practice it.. i have my strong areas of talking but i can find my limitations and try to work on it..i havent learned anything oh so fast, but ive learned that just being interested and getting over that " oHH NO ITS IMPOSSIBLE!!" stage has been super rewarding and fun. Combine that with the fact that living in this country and being surrounded by people who will never ridicule crappy thai skills also helps build confidence and learn new things.. anyways.. theres a ton of really good people on this forum and i remember 4 years ago when i was looking through this forum i was thinking about how hard it must be to learn and how smart and all that stuff some of these people must be.. but now i think you just have to try first..

[krading]

I 'read' Thai, make all the right sounds, can even write simple stuff but learning vocab is my main problem. I read a text and if I don't know a word I look it up and even write it down if I have a pen and paper.

Next day I come across the same word, I have to look it up again.

Takes me a long while for it to stick.

It's like names, I remember faces but it takes me ages to remember names.

Must be 'old timer's' disease.

[featography]

A very nice post, I wonder how bad you really are; maybe just more realistic than the rest of us.

Here's how bad I am:

- I've been with my wife for six years now. Even she, who should be sort of used to my bad Thai, can't understand me most of the time.

- I have an American friend who is quite fluent in Thai. He taught Chemistry, in Thai, at the university level in Bangkok and Chiangmai in the 60's and 70's. He never understands my Thai. He has tried to help me with my pronunciation. He finally gave up and said, more or less, that I simply didn't have the ear necessary to pronounce Thai properly. He also said that my personality was unfit for learning Thai: shy, reticent and unwilling to make mistakes. I'm sure he's right.

I've been here almost 4 yrs, and have gone thru most of what you have described. I have one question. Do you suffer from Tininitis (ringing in the ears)? I do and for me it is virtually impossible to differintiate the tones in the Thai language. I did the Pinsler cds but after the 6th cd, I realized, that only teaches textbook pronunciation, not real life dialect.No one understood me either. My daughter has been pestering to go with Rosetta Stone, so I am glad you mentioned how that worked for you. You saved me a couple hundred bucks. If you are hearing impaired my suggestion is test for hearing aids. In that case, I advise the clip over the ear type, and not the ear inserted ones. I gave up those due to the humidity here. It caused all kinds of skin irrations inside the ears. Hang in there.