One Guy's Effort To Learn Thai In 14 Years

[Nawtier]

Ah Ratty.....I am worse than you......but to embarrassed to tell.

Well.....not really, i dont give a hoot.

13 years now, still cannot speak any decent amount at all.

I went to some lessons once, i was 15 mintues late for the first lesson and could not catch up....so never went back.

I am thinking to give it one last effort one day...one day.

I would think if you really looked, you could find someone in Korat to teach for the right price.

There is a guy in Pak Chong for 400b an hour...i know to far, but Korat is 10 times the size and sure you would find someone for 200b an hour if you looked.

Get someone to put up a sign at the university. 2 hours for a student that needs some cash to pay for tuition should be easy to find.....or even exchange english for thai....an hour of each.

[dvc]

If, as you state, there's some type of block in your brain that leaves you unable to recognise and pronounce tones, how do you explain the fact that the more than sixty million Thai who live in this country have no problem learning to reproduce tones?

Because language acquisition in children is much different from language acquisition in adults. The more interesting question is: How do you explain the fact that sixty million Thais have no problem learning to reproduce tones in their language yet vast numbers of them appear to be completely tone deaf when singing Karaoke?

This in spite of the fact that studies have shown that speakers of tonal languages are much more likely to have perfect pitch than speakers of non-tonal languages:

In a study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and being presented at the ASA meeting in Portland on May 21, Deutsch and her coauthors find that musicians who speak an East Asian tone language fluently are much more likely to have perfect pitch.

From Tone Language Is Key To Perfect Pitch in Science Daily.

From what I've learned so far, it seems quite clear to me that any barriers we have to overcome to the production of clear, tone-accurate Thai, are deeply embedded as a result of first language interference. The trick is to force the voice to conform to the standard Thai tone patterns. Since I've achieved this myself, I know it's possible. Accept that it's going to feel strange and unnatural for a while, keep practising, and eventually you'll break through the barrier and achieve natural sounding tones.

I guess the bottom line is that my problem is not one of tone but one of attitude. Not one that I'm about to easily overcome short of a personality transplant.

That would seem to indicate that the ability to reproduce music related pitch is different from spoken language pitch. I know that I cannot sing in tune, but through hard work and practice I’ve managed to achieve correct pitch in relation to the Thai language. Yes, I think your problem is much more one of attitude than ability. The search for excuses to ones' inability to pronounce tones is self defeating. You can always find reasons if you want to. Why not try having a little faith and confidence in yourself. You may be surprised by what you can achieve.

[Ratsima]

I started out with faith and confidence. It was only after a huge effort and repeated failure that I started looking for reasons (excuses) for that failure.

I have had a number of coaches try to help me wih my pronunciation. None have lasted long. One was a retired university professor; an American who taught chemistry in Thai in Bangkok in the mid 60's. He's quite fluent. He finally told me, "It appears thar you just don't have the ability to produce the tones necessary to speak Thai." Not exactly a confidence builder.

[dvc]

Another thing I forgot to mention, is the difficulty many English speakers have in producing a convincing Thai accent. Tones and accent are inseparable from one another, and a lot of students of the Thai language, don't realise that self-consciousness holds them back from attempting to speak Thai with a Thai accent. Some students of Thai have described it to me as, a feeling that if they try to imitate Thai speakers, it will sound as if they're taking the piss out of the Thais. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thais also have the same problem when they attempt to copy an English speakers' accent, i.e. self-consciousness interferes with their ability to emulate the accent of a native English speaker. It may sound completely self-evident, but, the only way to produce a good accent, (in any language), is to copy the native speaker. This, seemingly obvious fact is largely ignored by native English speakers attempts to sound like a Thai. To imitate any accent requires the letting go of the inhibitions that stand in the way of speaking like a native speaker.

Edited January 8, 2011 by dvc

[Ratsima]

To imitate any accent requires the letting go of the inhibitions that stand in the way of speaking like a Thai.

Hence my need for a personality transplant. I could no more let go of my inhibitions than you could get water from the moon.

[kokesaat]

My 2 cents:

You appear to know a fair amount of Thai vocabulary, yet can't get the clerk to understand you're looking for water. You're not going to solve this problem alone with a pile of books or with Anki files or in a class filled with students. IMO you need a good teacher (and not necessarily a professional teacher) who knows how to be firm with you (that's the hard part). I 'taught' my Thai teacher how to be firm with me by being firm with her when she mispronounced her v's, st's, th's, and a multitude of other vowel/consonant combinations when she spoke English with me. I refused to yield....never in an unkind way, just by insisting she do it the correct way. And I insisted that she do the same for me when we practiced Thai......if I mispronounced a word or used the wrong tone, I asked her to just say 'pit' at the end of the sentence (and as time went on, only at the end of a paragraph). It was then up to me to determine the word that I misspoke.

I'm still at the stage where the Thai on TV goes in one ear and out the other......but when I speak Thai in restaurants or on the street/stores, I frequently get comments about how clearly I speak (versus the common พูดไทยเก่ง).

I studied Latin/Spanish/German before my stint in the Air Force where I studied Chinese for 2 years. By far, learning tones in Thai was tougher on my aging brain than anything I studied earlier. Now, partially deaf in one ear and with tinnitus in both, if I can do Thai tones, I'm convinced anyone can.

[dvc]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Whenever I walk into a shop I always start out with สวัสดีครับ to get the other person used to the notion that I'm going to speak in Thai. And, I always use the polite and complete sentences as in canuckamuck's post above.

Sometimes I use the phrasing that my wife always uses when asking for something at a shop: "ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ"

And, yes, I'm shy, reticent and lack confidence. I am what I am.

Please tell me, what is your understanding of the meaning of the following Thai phrase?

(Also shown above in the quote box, from an earlier post of yours).

ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ

Edited January 8, 2011 by dvc

[Ratsima]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Whenever I walk into a shop I always start out with สวัสดีครับ to get the other person used to the notion that I'm going to speak in Thai. And, I always use the polite and complete sentences as in canuckamuck's post above.

Sometimes I use the phrasing that my wife always uses when asking for something at a shop: "ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ"

And, yes, I'm shy, reticent and lack confidence. I am what I am.

Please tell me, what is your understanding of the meaning of the following Thai phrase?

(Also shown above in the quote box, from an earlier post of yours).

ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ

'I don't know if you have water.'

My wife uses that construct whenever she asks for something in a shop even if she knows they have it. She says it's more polite than asking outright.

[dvc]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Whenever I walk into a shop I always start out with สวัสดีครับ to get the other person used to the notion that I'm going to speak in Thai. And, I always use the polite and complete sentences as in canuckamuck's post above.

Sometimes I use the phrasing that my wife always uses when asking for something at a shop: "ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ"

And, yes, I'm shy, reticent and lack confidence. I am what I am.

Please tell me, what is your understanding of the meaning of the following Thai phrase?

(Also shown above in the quote box, from an earlier post of yours).

ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ

'I don't know if you have water.'

My wife uses that construct whenever she asks for something in a shop even if she knows they have it. She says it's more polite than asking outright.

Well...I guess you could use that phrase, although I've never heard a native Thai speaker use a construction even remotely similar. It sounds strange to me.

Perhaps one of these phrases might be more to the point and still quite polite.

มีน้ำขวดมั้ยครับ – Do you have bottled (plain) water

มีน้ำเปล่ามั้ยครับ Do you have bottled (plain) water

ขอน้ำเปล่าสองขวดหน่อยครับ – Can I have two bottles of plain water please

[Ratsima]

Well...I guess you could use that phrase, although I've never heard a native Thai speaker use a construction even remotely similar. It sounds strange to me.

I assure you, my wife is a native speaker. In fact, she used that phrasing this morning when we were looking for a small shaving mirror at Home Pro.

I used it myself last week when I was shopping for a Micro SD card at the IT Center. It produced an immediate response and the needed SD card.

I forgot, I sometimes use น้ำขวด which seems to be better understood than my pronunciation of น้ำเปล่า.

Edited January 9, 2011 by Ratsima

[dvc]

Well...I guess you could use that phrase, although I've never heard a native Thai speaker use a construction even remotely similar. It sounds strange to me.

I assure you, my wife is a native speaker. In fact, she used that phrasing this morning when we were looking for a small shaving mirror at Home Pro.

I used it myself last week when I was shopping for a Micro SD card at the IT Center. It produced an immediate response and the needed SD card.

I forgot, I sometimes use น้ำขวด which seems to be better understood than my pronunciation of น้ำเปล่า.

If you can manage the purchase of a Micro SD card, then it stands to reason you should have no problem negotiating the purchase of a bottle of plain water.

It sounds like you’ve got the problem sorted. I’ll leave you to it.

[Ratsima]

I guess the difference is that I can pronounce Micro SD card.

[Tod Daniels]

I guess the difference is that I can pronounce Micro SD card.

Probably they understood you because you pronounced those words with a thai accent "microo et-di gard"

I have heard ไม่ทราบว่า used quite a lot by native speakers. However I mostly hear it when the person asking doesn't know who someone is or where a particular place is located, not generally in regards to if a particular product is carried in a store.

For constructs like that I hear most often hear

มี-what ever you're asking for (possibly with the classifier)-มั้ย Which is just; "(Do you) have blah-blah?" I've had that work 10 outta 10 times with things I'm tryin' to find in shops.

Please understand I'm not doubtin' your wife’s native thai speaking ability or her assertion that it 'sounds more polite'. It's just not something I hear thais use when askin' about things. Like I said, it's mostly facts, who, locations and directions to some place. Nor am I saying it doesn't 'play'; just that it sound kinda artifically pretentious to me in the context you're using it in .

Then again I'm most definitely NOT a native speaker. But then again, neither are you, lol...

You'd be better off stickin' with

มีน้ำขวดมั้ย or ขายน้ำขวดมั้ย Have bottled water? Sell bottled water?

Edited January 9, 2011 by tod-daniels

[Ratsima]

Well, the person I spend the most time with is my wife. So, she's my model when it comes to common usage. It took a very long time before I could understand even part of what she says when she's talking to other people or her family. So, when I did finally start to understand what she was saying I did what seemed natural - mimic her.

The advice you hear most often in this sub-forum is to listen, listen, listen.

[dvc]

I guess the difference is that I can pronounce Micro SD card.

Probably they understood you because you pronounced those words with a thai accent "microo et-di gard"

I have heard ไม่ทราบว่า used quite a lot by native speakers. However I mostly hear it when the person asking doesn't know who someone is or where a particular place is located, not generally in regards to if a particular product is carried in a store.

For constructs like that I hear most often hear

มี-what ever you're asking for (possibly with the classifier)-มั้ย Which is just; "(Do you) have blah-blah?" I've had that work 10 outta 10 times with things I'm tryin' to find in shops.

Please understand I'm not doubtin' your wife's native thai speaking ability or her assertion that it 'sounds more polite'. It's just not something I hear thais use when askin' about things. Like I said, it's mostly facts, who, locations and directions to some place. Nor am I saying it doesn't 'play'; just that it sound kinda artifically pretentious to me in the context you're using it in .

Then again I'm most definitely NOT a native speaker. But then again, neither are you, lol...

You'd be better off stickin' with

มีน้ำขวดมั้ย or ขายน้ำขวดมั้ย Have bottled water? Sell bottled water?

Tod; thanks for providing a much fuller answer than mine, to the question of the use of the phrase,

ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ I was so focused on its use in a shop or store environment, I neglected to comment on its use outside of such situations.

[Nawtier]

Think like a retard and you should be right as rain.......go in and say 'hungry water'

[Ratsima]

I just asked my wife about this, again. She agreed that the phrase is not one in general use in a shop situation but something she adopted for her own use to be extra polite. But, hey she just finished law school so I guess they successfully taught her to talk in circles.

[Nawtier]

Does she use the same phrase when she calls the water company ??

[DavidHouston]

Friends,

Re: "ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าครับ", I wonder if this isn't a short version of "ไม่ทราบว่ามีน้ำเปล่าหรือเปล่าครับ". The listener, of course, would interpret เปล่า either as "plain" or "or not", or both. Is leaving out of the first or second เปล่า merely an ellipsis clarified in the spoken form?

Thanks.

[Ratsima]

David - I think not.

If she were asking for a small mirror, as she did to day at Home Pro, she would say ไม่ทราบว่ามีกระจกขนาดเล็ก

[Nawtier]

If you 'do not suppose' the shop has water....or a small mirror....why go there in the first place ??

[Ratsima]

If you 'do not suppose' the shop has water....or a small mirror....why go there in the first place ??

Who are you quoting there, Nawty?

[dvc]

I agree that reading doesn't help you to get a perfect pronunciation, but it will give you a pronunciation that's good enough (on the condition you can remember how the word is written).

Not on its own it won't. If you haven't ever heard Thai, no amount of reading Thai script is going to get you anywhere near it. Conversely, there are plenty of people who can speak Thai with excellent pronunciation (both second-language and native speakers, come to that...) who can't read Thai at all.

The benefits of learning to read Thai are many, but I think it's just false to say that it is the key to correct pronunciation as 'nomadic' implied a couple of posts up.

I think listening to how Thai sounds is part of learning to read. Very few people learn to read without knowing how the consonants, vowels and tones sound.

Learning to read without hearing and speaking aloud is indeed pretty useless... it would be like learning an ancient language of which nobody knows for sure how it sounded.

The relationship between reading, writing and speaking has always interested me…ever since I learned how to read and write Thai. I’ve noticed that foreigners who can read and write Thai, yet pronounce it poorly, are ones who’ve only been exposed to a Latin based transcription of the Thai vowels and consonants. To achieve correct pronunciation requires the use of some form of recorded Thai, (CD, audio cassette, MP3), to play along whilst sounding out the consonants and vowels. In this way you get a match between what is written and what is spoken. In my case, I had a (good) Thai native speaker, make an audio cassette of all the vowels and consonants, in order, which I would then copy by saying them out loud whilst writing down the corresponding vowel or consonant. In this way, I locked in the correct sound to each and every symbol in the Thai written language.

What does irritate me still, is foreigners who speak very good Thai, but cannot read or write. I think something along the lines of, why would you go to all the trouble of learning to speak Thai and then neglect the reading and writing…as if it wasn’t important! On occasions where I’ve asked such people why they don’t bother to learn the written language, they usually brush the question aside with something like, ‘it’s not important’, or, ‘I can get a Thai to translate anything I need to know’ or, ‘I’m too busy / it’s too hard’. I once knew a Chinese Malay woman who was married to a Thai man, (they lived in Bangkok). She spoke good Thai but could not read or write. When I asked her why she didn’t learn to read and write, she said, ‘there’s nothing worth reading in the Thai language’.

For me it’s also a question of respect. By that I mean, respect for the language you’re learning. If you’re going to learn to speak a language you must also commit to learning its written form. As far as I’m concerned the two are inseparable. Further; I can’t imagine traveling around Bangkok, (or anywhere else in Thailand), and not be able to make sense of all the written Thai that surrounds me. Being able to read and write adds immeasurably to my learning and day to day experience of life in Thailand.

[Ratsima]

I agree about the importance of reading. There are huge practical advantages as well. I often cycle in rural areas where all the signs are in Thai. The ability to read them keeps me from getting hopelessly lost. It's hard for me to imagine trying to get by without being able to read things like product ingredients, highway warning signs, restaurant menus, songtaew destinations, etc.

[Joosesis]

I think he's just pulling our leg. It just doesn't add up.

He can read, but can't be understood ordering water.

He can be understood ordering a sim card, but not be understood ordering water?

He seems to want to blame this on tones....that is not the issue. There are very few words like น้ำ and the ONLY word that would be used in the context you claim to put it in is ... water.

David was spot on with the หรือเปล่า suggestion, but ratsima's answer was rude.

Either he over boasted his reading ability and he genuinely is a beginer (in which case the answer is study more!) OR.... he can truly read, and is just messing around in the forums to cause problems.

[Ratsima]

I don't think I ever "boasted" about being able to read. I have a very limited vocabulary. I can sight-read, at best, a few hundred words.

I didn't intend to be rude to David. He made a suggestion I (politely, I thought) disagreed with "I don't think so" and posted a counter-example. If that turned out to be rude, I apologize.

I think you're right about tones not being the root of my problem. I think it's a broader problem with pronunciation in general. The other day I asked my wife why people can't understand when I say น้ำเปล่า. She replied, "It's because you use พ instead of ป.

Sorry to have wasted everyone's time. I'll leave this thread alone now.

[dvc]

I once knew a foreigner whose situation was a little bit similar to yours. I ‘introduced’ him to Thailand and he ended up living in Bangkok for the next ten years. I remember going over the numbers, one to ten with him, with a Thai native speaker. He could not hear, let alone reproduce the correct sound and tone of any of the numbers. He simply spoke in a monotone that bore no relation to normal spoken Thai. He did not follow my suggestion to attend a formal Thai language course, and instead made do with learning from his maid and a variety of bar girls. I should point out that I am not implying that you learned to speak Thai from bar girls. The similarity I perceive, is that of his inability to hear and reproduce tones and the sounds of all the vowels and consonants. Further; he paid little attention to Thai grammar and simply substituted Thai words into an English language sentence structure. To my amazement he was understood by most people he conversed with. However, I must comment on the amazed, puzzled and simply dumbfounded looks on the faces of the various Thais he spoke with. Yes, he made himself understood, but in a strange sub-dialect of Thai spoken only by foreigners who habitually frequent the bars.

He had, (I think), a similar mental/psychological block to you, when it came to speaking Thai. He also spoke French, as a second language, quite well, and his accent was attractive and natural sounding. Why should it be that he simply couldn’t ‘hear’ and reproduce spoken Thai?

If we accept the premise that life puts us in situations for a good reason. Could it be that your inability to let go of your inhibitions is part of a larger requirement that you need to embrace making mistakes in order to grow as a person? I know this sounds like pop psychology, but I have experienced similar things in my own struggle to ‘grow up’, so I know it to be true. I believe that if you make a conscious decision to drop the defences that are blocking the absorption of Thai, it will eventually filter down to the subconscious level and become part of your deeper emotional/psychological make-up. This won’t be an easy thing to achieve, but I believe it’s possible.

[Ratsima]

Could it be that your inability to let go of your inhibitions is part of a larger requirement that you need to embrace making mistakes in order to grow as a person?

I think you're 100% correct.

I have no idea where to begin.

[Ratsima]

Here's me reading:

hst.mp3

A monotone that bears no relation to spoken Thai.

[dvc]

Here's me reading:

hst.mp3

A monotone that bears no relation to spoken Thai.

It's really not too bad. I was expecting much worse. Your tones, especially when you say ครับ are wide of the mark. You're not hitting the correct high tone for ครับ and you're allowing your English language intonation to override the Thai tones in nearly all instances. However, your interpretation of the Thai consonants and vowels is not too bad. I could understand it, but I needed to make mental corrections to nearly all your tones in order to understand what you're saying.

Edited January 11, 2011 by dvc