How Do You Learn Thai?

[cdnmatt]

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm getting back into learning Thai. I've been living in Thailand for about 10 months now, and will probably be here the vast majority of the year for several years to come. I'm getting a bit frustrated though. I've tried a couple private teachers, but they weren't exactly great, so that was that. I'll probably look around for another teacher here in KK though, and hope that leads somewhere better.

I've finished both, the Beginner and Intermediate books from the "Benjawan Poomsan Becker" series. Give me any Thai sentence from either of those books, and there's a 85% chance I'll be able to understand, read, write, and pronounce it. Great, right? Yet, I still don't feel like I can speak a lick of Thai. I can talk a bit, but nowhere near enough to hold a conversation. That, and I've shown a few people those books, and they somewhat scoffed at them, saying no normal Thai person uses sentences like that. Oh, great.

If I need some type of help or servicing, such as at a restaurant, hotel, laundry, store, or whatever... then I can generally always get my point across in Thai, and get what I need done. That's great and all, but I find when it comes to normal, everyday conversations, I'm totally useless. For example, we're living up in KK these days, so when we go for a night out, English is usually pretty sparse. I find that I simply can't understand anyone, and nobody can understand me. We can manage to get a few phrases across to each other here and there, but as for an actual conversation? Not a chance. I understand they speak more Laotian up here, but nonetheless...

Anyway, just curious, does anyone have any suggestions about the general direction I should take? If I need to get a hotel room or order a meal, I can do that with no worries in Thai. When it comes to actual conversation though, it seems as though I'm totally useless. Any ideas on how to proceed in learning Thai?

Thanks guys!

Edited April 21, 2010 by cdnmatt

[bhoydy]

You've been here ten months and seem to be doing very well in your studies, it will come to you over periods of time. Try to keep a focus on what you want to learn the most because that will keep your motivation up, but don't forget about the boring bits cos they're important too.

[sarahsbloke]

Chat is the hardest thing to learn.

I'm totally hopeless,

1) they speak too fast

2) they all have different accents or 1st languages (central Thai is often their 2nd language)

3) sometimes they deliberately pretend to not understand what you say.

Group 3 are a real pain, but when you write it down in Thai they really get pissed off.

I really don't bother to talk Thai very much, much more advantageous to keep quiet and listen in.

Just keep expanding your vocabulary.

Edited April 22, 2010 by sarahsbloke

[farangnahrak]

Just a few quick pointers . . .

1) Thais don't talk like they write in books

2) Thais only teach perfect polite Thai to foreigners

3) Thais never speak perfect Thai, and its rarely very polite

4) The dialect in Khon Kaen is fairly different from Bangkok dialect

5) Bangkok dialect is the closest to how its written

Some examples of what you'll learn in a book, versus how a Thai would actually say it:

book: ขอพูดอีกหน่อยครับ

actual: แกว่าไรว่ะ?

book: คุณหิวไหมครับ?

actual: หิวป่ะ?

[bhoydy]

2) Thais only teach perfect polite Thai to foreigners

So, they teach their kids to swear?

[farangnahrak]

2) Thais only teach perfect polite Thai to foreigners

So, they teach their kids to swear?

I meant as opposed to the sentence, 'Thais only teach street Thai to foreigners' . . .

[bhoydy]

2) Thais only teach perfect polite Thai to foreigners

So, they teach their kids to swear?

I meant as opposed to the sentence, 'Thais only teach street Thai to foreigners' . . .

OK Gotcha

In response to the OP,

I have the same difficulties. I live in the south of Thailand, where they have their own dialect ภาษาใต้. I moved here from the north a year and a half ago and have been learning the 4 basic language skills for about 4 years in ภาษาไทย. When i first arrived here i was lost, but in the time i've been here i've picked up a bit through listening. I still don't speak it, that would confuse me too much, but i sometimes understand what's going on. Also some people who know me, know that i don't speak ภาษาใต้ so they slow their speech a little, others don't just to wind me up

[farangnahrak]

I have the same difficulties. I live in the south of Thailand, where they have their own dialect ภาษาใต้. I moved here from the north a year and a half ago and have been learning the 4 basic language skills for about 4 years in ภาษาไทย. When i first arrived here i was lost, but in the time i've been here i've picked up a bit through listening. I still don't speak it, that would confuse me too much, but i sometimes understand what's going on. Also some people who know me, know that i don't speak ภาษาใต้ so they slow their speech a little, others don't just to wind me up

I went to Krabi for vacation in 2008 . . . I had the hardest time understanding the southern dialect . . . I had to keep asking people to speak central so I can keep up . . . but they'd give me funny looks every time I asked . . .

I'm now at the skill level where I'm trying to learn the other three major dialects (as in, understand what they say), and I can't find any southern dialect literature. Can you post up everything you know of it? My limited understanding is they like to speak fast and remove syllables from words . . .

[bhoydy]

I have the same difficulties. I live in the south of Thailand, where they have their own dialect ภาษาใต้. I moved here from the north a year and a half ago and have been learning the 4 basic language skills for about 4 years in ภาษาไทย. When i first arrived here i was lost, but in the time i've been here i've picked up a bit through listening. I still don't speak it, that would confuse me too much, but i sometimes understand what's going on. Also some people who know me, know that i don't speak ภาษาใต้ so they slow their speech a little, others don't just to wind me up

I went to Krabi for vacation in 2008 . . . I had the hardest time understanding the southern dialect . . . I had to keep asking people to speak central so I can keep up . . . but they'd give me funny looks every time I asked . . .

I'm now at the skill level where I'm trying to learn the other three major dialects (as in, understand what they say), and I can't find any southern dialect literature. Can you post up everything you know of it? My limited understanding is they like to speak fast and remove syllables from words . . .

They do speak fast down here, and in Nakorn Sri Thammarat where i live they speak LOUD too. I'm no expert but yeah like you said they remove syllables. There is a saying down here where two people meet and the whole conversation is so short. One says (excuse the spelling) ไหน(อ่ะ) meaning ไปไหน and the other one answers เทพ meaning กรุงเทพฯ. Also, sometimes they have a different name for something, but other times simply the tone changes, an example is the number 2 สอง which has the rising tone in ภาษาไทย but a falling tone in ใต้ maybe spelt, ส้อง. I don't have any books on it but will ask at my school when the new term starts if anyone has anything. If there is anything i'll post it up on a new topic. Here's a link of a list of southern Thai words with their central Thai meanings. http://www.thamnong.com/hs9dmc//phasatai.htm it's a shame the font is not the easiest to read.

[farangnahrak]

Here's a link of a list of southern Thai words with their central Thai meanings. http://www.thamnong.com/hs9dmc//phasatai.htm it's a shame the font is not the easiest to read.

Thanks dood! I don't think my devotion to learning ภาษาใต้ will exceed that list for at least the rest of this year.

As for the font, incredibly easy compared to some I've seen. I read this one book that used a font that looked like scriptive hand writing . . . it was like fingernails on a chalkboard for me for the first 50 pages until I got used to it . . .

On a side note . . . everyone I met in Koh Samui all speak central dialect . . . says a little about where everyone on the island came from . . .

[klons]

I'm a self study person, not because I wouldn't want to go language school, it's just not going to happen for reasons I won't go into.

One method I use to expand my vocabulary is by recording Thai audio off the net, streaming radio etc. using a sound editor.

Then I can play the whole thing to see what I may understand, and then listen to it by selecting a phrase or sentence and play it as many times as I want before proceeding to the next sentence.

When I can identify a new word, I select the audio of that word and save it in a folder, and name the clip with a brief english definition.

After I have collected about a dozen new words, I make an audio patching them together in the order they appear in the folder, repeating each word twice.

Then when I play the clip, I can just look at the file names in the folder to help re-enforce my memory. Then I will play them without peeking.

My main source would be VOA because they have the transcripts. I also like to do talk radio because they talk in a conversational way, not like news casters. They can be difficult for me because there is no transcript but I press on with them anyway. They also help me with recognition of words and clumps of

words I should be familiar with.

So far I've done about 30 of these which would be about 350 words by my estimation. It works for me.