Tools For Speaking/hearing The Tones

[HappyInCM]

I'm starting to get more serious about my tones, so I figure its a good time to ask people here what they used to learn them.

Books I know of:

Becker books - thai for beginners (drills but no audio on the drills) and improving your thai pronunciation (w/audio)

I know davidhouston recommended a series of small books called something like new method (although I cannot find the post again for some reason).

Software I know of:

thailanguage.com: determining tone of single syllable words http://www.thai-language.com/id/798459

byki - has a great tool for working on your pronunciation that shows you a native speaker's pitch graph and your own.

http://slice-of-thai.com/voice-viewer/ has a free "voice viewer" a spectogram of your voice which is similar to byki's.

I'd also be interested in just what people did - practice three hours on same sound with all the tones and then similar sounds and then on to sentences?

Note, there are lots of other posts about shortcuts to the tone RULES, but here I'm hoping to get tips on practicing first speaking/listening to single words and then sentences given that someone can already determine what the correct tones are from the written word.

[HappyInCM]

oh yeh, if there are any books, cds or software that help you find that sweet spot in voicing the tones - i.e., not too exaggerated as to make it hard to speak but different enough for a listener, that would be great. I guess never having taken any singing lessons, it's hard to do the tones without exaggerating them - for me at least.

[eric67]

I know davidhouston recommended a series of small books called something like new method (although I cannot find the post again for some reason).

Probably these:

หัดอ่านภาษาไทย แบบใหม่

There's about 7 books or so, here's a link to the first:

Chula bookstore

I guess the best thing is to practice these books with a native Thai speaker. Doesn't have to be a teacher, just someone with a lot of patience and the willingness to correct your mistakes.

[DavidHouston]

Eric has it exactly correct. The name of the series is หัดอ่านภาษาไทย แบบใหม่. The Chula Book Center located close to Siam Square in Bangkok carries these books, but I have also found them in local book stores. If your local store does not carry them, the personnel at the bookstore can look them up on their computers and order them for you; the bookstore affiliated with Central, B2S, will likely be happy to order these books for you. All of these books are sold via Se-ed's "ebook" shop. See http://www.se-ed.com/eShop/(A(2eQp68QyygEk...CookieSupport=1

There are seven books in the series and the lessons are progressing in terms of degree of difficulty and aggregation of syllables. Some lessons have vocabulary lists following each lesson; but the definitions are all in Thai.

Since the books are all in Thai, provide no rules, and carry very little explanation of what each is trying to teach, you need to have a native Thai speaker working with you. As Eric said, a "teacher" is not required, just someone who is a native Thai speaker. To use an analogy from logic, I would call the approach used in these books as "inductive", that is, the student learns grammar by inducing the rules from many examples. The alternative is to learn the rules first and apply them to each new word encountered -- the "deductive" method.

There are some students in these forums who state openly that they will not learn to pronounce Thai unless and until they learn all the rules of Thai pronunciation. For them, these books are not helpful.

As for teachers, I would suggest that if the student is in Thailand that he or she goes to the local elementary school and ask the school director if there are any teachers who would like to earn some money teaching foreigners after school. If you find a teacher this way, you will not only find someone to teach you to speak the tones correctly, but you will be helping to supplement the income of members of an underpaid class.

Best of luck in your learning!

I know davidhouston recommended a series of small books called something like new method (although I cannot find the post again for some reason).

Probably these:

หัดอ่านภาษาไทย แบบใหม่

There's about 7 books or so, here's a link to the first:

Chula bookstore

I guess the best thing is to practice these books with a native Thai speaker. Doesn't have to be a teacher, just someone with a lot of patience and the willingness to correct your mistakes.

Edited March 10, 2010 by DavidHouston

[Tod Daniels]

หัดอ่านภาษาไทย แบบใหม่

The above mentioned books are great ONLY IF you happen to have a spare native thai speaker around the house.

Unfortunately they are next to worthless if you don't . I doubt someone who couldn't already read and know the toning rules could make heads or tails out of them. Believe me I am NOT downing the books as I have them too. I'm just saying without a native thai speaker; one who has the PATIENCE to continually correct your mispronunciations (as was mentioned already by "eric67") your 'bang-4-the-baht' will be quite low.

Glenn Slayden has a quiz called "Listening for the Tone of One-Syllable Words" on his site thai-language-dot-com here;

http://www.thai-language.com/id/798459

For a free resource it's really good. I can get rising/falling, and sometimes the high ones, but I suck at the rest, even if I know the meaning of the word.

That is due to my negligence in EVER taking the time to learn the thai toning rules, although I am thinking seriously about undertaking it in the near future (at the urging from several of the more illustrious members here, whose thai far surpasses my current level )...

I see David Houston has already posted about them, and I bought them at his suggestion. They are cheap as chips, and Chula Books will deliver them for a small fee in the greater Bangkok area. Good resource, (now if I just had a native thai speaker here at the house.... .. )

Edited March 10, 2010 by tod-daniels

[SoftWater]

As for teachers, I would suggest that if the student is in Thailand that he or she goes to the local elementary school and ask the school director if there are any teachers who would like to earn some money teaching foreigners after school. If you find a teacher this way, you will not only find someone to teach you to speak the tones correctly, but you will be helping to supplement the income of members of an underpaid class.

A very interesting suggestion, David. Thanks.

Chula bookstore

Sometimes I'm astounded at my own ignorance. How come I never knew they had a website? I see that they will also take orders via the website and deliver to your door.

[edit: oops, cross-posting, I see tod already mentioned this!]

Many thanks for this link!!

Edited March 10, 2010 by SoftWater

[AbeSurd]

Glenn Slayden has a quiz called "Listening for the Tone of One-Syllable Words" on his site thai-language-dot-com here;

http://www.thai-language.com/id/798459

For a free resource it's really good. I can get rising/falling, and sometimes the high ones, but I suck at the rest, even if I know the meaning of the word.

Thank you so much for posting that link.

That is a GREAT exercise.

I reckon I'm going to try and practice with it regularly from now on.

It should mean I can practice my reading ability and tones without having to check with my teacher all the time.

Cheers.