Learn Thai In One Simple Step

[anchan42]

Thanks. Coming from a native Thai speaker, (hope I'm correct in this assumption), I'll take that as validation of my statement.

Your very quick to validate your own statement when your assumed native Thai speaker (i believe you're right there though) has just said the 'tone rules can be a bit bendy,' while you said 'whilst still maintaining adherence to correct tone'. I mean they're either adhered to or they're not.

Yes soap operas would be a better example, unless it's a karaoke scene.

To me; the phrase...'can be a bit bendy', indicates the practice in question does not occur very often. I enjoy listening to Thai pop music and my observations regarding adherence to tones is based on two years personal experience.

I stand by my earlier post, and the statements it contained.

I think you are right. It is not very often. I could not think of a good example. Stop listening to music seriously long time ago.

And yes, I am Thai.

[SoftWater]

Language learning is like dieting. There might be tons of advertisement about fast results and magic formulas, but at the end of the day, honest effort is the only thing that works.

Yupp, have been arguing this for as long as I've been involved in English language teaching and Thai language learning.

Some interesting points between the squabbles. Of which, I'd have to agree with Bhoydy and disagree with Anchan about tones in songs. Though I ordinarily defer to native speaker authority in any language, I think in Thai music native speakers are just not sensitive to the changing tone the way foreign learners are because they now what the word is and they know how it sounds.

If you find this hard to swallow, let me give you an example of the same thing in English: few native speakers of English (except teachers!) will register the fact that words like 'subject' and 'record' are pronounced differently as verbs from how they are as nouns, yet of course they all DO pronounce them differently when they use them. Nonetheless, if you go up to the average English native speaker and say do you know the word 'record' has two different but equally common pronunciations they will not believe you till you demonstrate it, and then they will be quite surprised that they hadn't noticed. I believe the situation with native speakers not noticing the 'off' tones is something similar. As a long-time learner of Thai, I can attest to regularly listening to Thai songs and noticing how the tone is not 'standard' = not as spelled (indeed, when it comes to spelling and speaking, there's also plenty of tone irregularity there, too, as has been oft-discussed in these threads).

I also wanted to make a comment on immersion, which doesn't seem to have been made by anyone else yet. Personally, I find immersion in Thai in Bangkok an altogether difficult thing to achieve, far less than the immersion a Thai would get in, say, London. A lot of locals I meet seem to have a complex about the fact that they can't speak ENGLISH when they meet a farang, and refuse to engage in conversation in THAI either. This means that, despite the fame of the 'friendly Thai', I often find people in Bangkok very uncommunicative. Those that ARE communicative are usually trying to sell something (or themselves), and have learned enough English to do the job without speaking Thai. If you are a foreigner,finding people to speak Thai with in Bangkok beyond basic service-orientated language (i.e., genuine conversational partners) is NOT EASY, and I think this has a lot to do with why foreigners find it hard to break past the upper-beginner level and ultimately give up.

Sw

[mangkorn]

I also wanted to make a comment on immersion, which doesn't seem to have been made by anyone else yet. Personally, I find immersion in Thai in Bangkok an altogether difficult thing to achieve, far less than the immersion a Thai would get in, say, London. A lot of locals I meet seem to have a complex about the fact that they can't speak ENGLISH when they meet a farang, and refuse to engage in conversation in THAI either.

That is diametrically opposite to my experience, in nearly six years of living in the city. I guess it depends on where you live - or, rather, with whom you choose to interact. It is true that most Thais are insecure about their command of English, but that is what makes them happy (even ecstatic) to meet a farang who really can speak Thai, and hold an entire conversation. I've always made a point (perhaps a point of stubborn ego) to never speak English with a Thai person, be it at the bank, at a government office, the dentist, or absolutely anywhere on the street. Everyone I meet is more than willing, very often relieved, to only speak Thai with me (except in those rare instances when, as you noted, someone is trying to get something out of me - in which case I am not interested anyway).

As per your other comment about how people seem unfriendly, I must say that I also found that to be the case when I first moved here (to a working-class area of the city with virtually no other farangs, apart from occasional tourists). But it occurred to me soon enough that the reason was simply because people assume that I can't speak Thai and, since they can't speak English, there is no point in initiating an uncomfortable and wholly unsatisfying encounter. Thus, it is clearly my own responsibility to take the initiative, which nearly always produces favourable results, and many friendships.

It might depend on where one resides - but perhaps it depends even more on personal style, and/or what one wishes to converse about?

Of course, there are also some people who just don't want to converse, which I imagine is no different than in any other country in the world...

[meadish_sweetball]

I also wanted to make a comment on immersion, which doesn't seem to have been made by anyone else yet. Personally, I find immersion in Thai in Bangkok an altogether difficult thing to achieve, far less than the immersion a Thai would get in, say, London. A lot of locals I meet seem to have a complex about the fact that they can't speak ENGLISH when they meet a farang, and refuse to engage in conversation in THAI either. This means that, despite the fame of the 'friendly Thai', I often find people in Bangkok very uncommunicative. Those that ARE communicative are usually trying to sell something (or themselves), and have learned enough English to do the job without speaking Thai. If you are a foreigner,finding people to speak Thai with in Bangkok beyond basic service-orientated language (i.e., genuine conversational partners) is NOT EASY, and I think this has a lot to do with why foreigners find it hard to break past the upper-beginner level and ultimately give up.

That was not my experience during the year I lived in Bangkok. Some people are aloof or unfriendly, yes, probably more so in Bangkok than in the provinces, but I still had no problems at all finding many Thais more than willing to engage in conversation.

I fully agree with you though, about the tones often not being followed in songs. It's easy to verify scientifically too, all you need is a computer program that registers pitch and shows it in graphics across time, there are freeware programs available that do this.

Then, record a Thai person reading out the lyrics to a Thai song in a normal tone of voice. Secondly, have the same Thai person sing the lyrics, applying the melody of the song. After that, compare the two recordings checking for relative levels of pitch, and the pitch rising and falling, on the graph.

[SoftWater]

Regarding my points about immersion and finding it hard to meet 'genuine conversational partners', I did preface that remark with 'personally' - and I do take on board mangkorn's point that this might be as much (or at least conversationally half as much) to do with oneself as the other party. However, my point was really to highlight the difference between immersion here and in most English speaking countries, where there really is no other choice (like it or not, whoever you choose to associate with, whatever you choose to talk about) than to speak the lingua franca. Here, it is always a negotiation between the speakers about how much English or Thai is spoken and which one dominates.

Sw

[SoftWater]

Here's a good example of the 'song' versus 'spoken' tones issue. The most obvious one to notice is นักศึกษา in the chorus and the way the tone rhymes with วะ two lines later (neither of them pronounced as spoken, and they shouldn't be the same tone as they are here). Compare with the way นักศึกษา is correctly 'spoken' in the line near the end that goes ไม่ใช่เรืองนักศึกษา.

Anyway, enjoy and sing along, the lyrics are below and the speaking parts are (of course) spot on and good models. In the sung parts all these are 'off-tone' IMHO:- นักศึกษา / ฝัน / วะ / หนา / )

<h2 class="title">เนื้อเพลง กูเป็นนักศึกษา</h2>

dfgทุกวัน ทุกวัน เห็นเขารีบออกไป

แต่งตัวทันสมัย ขับรถซิ่ง

อื้อหือ อ้าหา เทวดาฟ้า

ดินกุ๊กกิ๊ก ดุ๊กดิ๊ก สะดิ้งมาเต็มคัน

ชาวบ้านยืนมอง แล้วอดใจไม่ไหว

เอ่ยถามขึ้นทันใด ว่าไอ้หนุ่มเอ๋ย

*มึงเป็นใคร กูเป็นนักศึกษา (INCORRECT)

นักล่าปริญญา ใฝ่ฝันขึ้นไปเป็นใหญ่

แล้วยังไง กูจะรวยน่ะสิวะ

ความรู้กูแน่นหนา กูจะมาเป็นนายมึง

SOLO: /Bm/G/Bm/A/(2Times)

รำพึงรำพัน น้อยใจวาสนา

ไม่มีการศึกษา อนาคตสั่นไหว

จับกังคนงาน ยังฝันหวานเกินไป

น้อยอกน้อยใจ ไม่ได้เป็นนักศึกษา

เข้าเธค เข้าบาร์ ดึ๊บดั๊บกันเข้าไป

ชาติจะเป็นยังไง ไม่ใช่เรื่องนักศึกษา(CORRECT)

ซ้ำ *)SOLO: /Bm/G/Bm/A/(2Times)

ชาวบ้านถามว่า คุณจะทิ้งผมไปไหน

ยากจนเข็ญใจ รอให้คุณนำพา

คุณขึ้นสวรรค์ ผมไม่เคยคิดอิจฉา

ขอเถอะคุณจ๋า อย่าทิ้งผมไปไหน(

ซ้ำ *)มึงเป็นใคร กูเป็นนักศึกษานักล่าปริญญา ใฝ่ฝันขึ้นไปเป็นใหญ่แล้วยังไง กูจะรวยนะสิวะความรู้กูเหนือกว่า กูจะมาเป็นนายมึงSOLO: /Bm/G/Bm/

[DavidHouston]

I think that the older Thai popular songs do track tones well. See, for example, http://daraoke.gmember.com/idxplaymv.do?mv_id=0200582804

[SoftWater]

Incidentally, anyone fance a crack at what the connotation of the first part of this line is?

I can't find ล่า in my dictionary:

นักล่าปริญญา ใฝ่ฝันขึ้นไปเป็นใหญ่

[mangkorn]

ล่า means "to hunt."

The line seems to refer to someone "obsessed with success."

[SimonN]

Incidentally, anyone fance a crack at what the connotation of the first part of this line is?

I can't find ล่า in my dictionary:

นักล่าปริญญา ใฝ่ฝันขึ้นไปเป็นใหญ่

Perhaps; "one who pursues a degree".

I think in this context ล่า means to persue, hunt, chase.

[mangkorn]

Here, it is always a negotiation between the speakers about how much English or Thai is spoken and which one dominates.

I'll take your word for it, re: your experience. But it is wholly untrue in my own.

That's why I say it must depend on where you live, and with whom you interact.

I very rarely meet people who insist on speaking English (or even could, to maintain a conversation).

[crazydrummerpauly]

'Motivation'…I'd expand on this word by adding, 'drive' & 'incentive'. From my own experience, these qualities are in greater concentration during youth. As a fifty two year old, I remember the powerful rush associated with doing and learning, I had, when I was say, twenty five. I don't have these qualities to the same degree, now that I'm older, but my ability to acquire new information is no less now than it was twenty years ago. It's just the motivation that has waned.

With regard to other posts on this page: If one studies the Thai written language without fully comprehending and absorbing the tone rules, the result will be poor pronunciation and accent. Correct replication of tones is an integral part of good Thai speech. The tone rules should be embedded in the mind, to the point where they become automatic. A number of Thai language students of my acquaintance have larger vocabularies than me, but their success in being understood by native Thai speakers is significantly lower than mine. The people in question do not pronounce tones accurately.

In many instances I may lack the necessary words, but so far, what I am able to say is always understood. This gives me the encouragement to try harder, and continue to absorb new vocabulary and attempt more complex sentence structure.

Here is what I've learned, regarding the ability to correctly pronounce tones, from the point of view of a native English speaker. In the beginning, one must discipline the voice so as to correctly replicate the tones. The native, (English), language will always try to interfere with this process. After some time spent speaking in this fashion the feeling of 'unnaturalness' will gradually fade, and the pronunciation of the tones will become automatic. The next step in the process, (and the one I'm working on now), is to give some emotive value to words whilst still adhering to correct tone values. I've noticed that all native Thai speakers have this ability. You only have to listen to a Thai pop song to hear examples. The singer will almost always be able to load words with different emotive values, (intonations), whilst still maintaining adherence to correct tone.

100% correct - I really cannot relate to the OP's point about getting by with decent Thai but WITHOUT getting close to the correct tones - my experience is that of repeating the same word or phrase over and over until - as much by luck as anything - I hit upon the only tone-sound that the Thai listener will understand. Even simple words like the names of people - e.g. 'Peter' - if you don't say 'PEETAH' with a rising tone, but let the final syllable drop as in everyday English, many Thais will just look blank, even if they are looking at the Peter in question !

[dvc]

That is diametrically opposite to my experience, in nearly six years of living in the city. I guess it depends on where you live - or, rather, with whom you choose to interact. It is true that most Thais are insecure about their command of English, but that is what makes them happy (even ecstatic) to meet a farang who really can speak Thai, and hold an entire conversation. I've always made a point (perhaps a point of stubborn ego) to never speak English with a Thai person, be it at the bank, at a government office, the dentist, or absolutely anywhere on the street. Everyone I meet is more than willing, very often relieved, to only speak Thai with me (except in those rare instances when, as you noted, someone is trying to get something out of me - in which case I am not interested anyway).

As per your other comment about how people seem unfriendly, I must say that I also found that to be the case when I first moved here (to a working-class area of the city with virtually no other farangs, apart from occasional tourists). But it occurred to me soon enough that the reason was simply because people assume that I can't speak Thai and, since they can't speak English, there is no point in initiating an uncomfortable and wholly unsatisfying encounter. Thus, it is clearly my own responsibility to take the initiative, which nearly always produces favourable results, and many friendships.

It might depend on where one resides - but perhaps it depends even more on personal style, and/or what one wishes to converse about?

Of course, there are also some people who just don't want to converse, which I imagine is no different than in any other country in the world...

My rule of thumb is slightly different. If I sense that the Thai I'm speaking to has better command of English than I have of Thai, I'll switch to English. If the opposite seems to be the case…I speak Thai. As I progress with the language the need to resort to English becomes less and less.

My experience finding people to speak Thai with is much the same as yours. Most, (but certainly not all), Thais I speak to seem to appreciate the effort I'm making to speak their language. I've lost count of the number of times I've been greeted with a beaming smile and look of relief on the face of someone who finds they can indeed use their native language to communicate with me. There is something much more direct and intimate about communicating in Thai, with a Thai person, than having to rely on English. It is this very pleasant sensation that keeps me motivated and hungry to learn more.

[SoftWater]

That's why I say it must depend on where you live, and with whom you interact.

Agreed. SOoooo....it's rather different than, say, living in London, where you either speak English or you don't speak.

Language immersion here is an option or strategy you can choose to pursue or not; in London or Paris it is a fact of life.

It's not the same, and I believe that this is why many foreigners do not progress in Thai as well or as fast as a foreigner living in Paris will progress in French.

[bhoydy]

Where i live, most people do not speak English. Many people here will say hello to you to try and make conversation with you even though they do not speak English. The foreigners that have been in this town for any length of time can speak some Thai. You could get away with not speaking Thai because there are some English speakers here, although you would not be able to choose friends so easily. I speak whatever language is spoken first in the conversation and take it from there. I was at immigration the other day and the officer spoke to me in English. Even though his English was lower than mine i conducted my affairs in English because i thought he wanted to practice his English and the business i had at immigration was not complicated (90 day report). In my group of friends here there are two English speakers and the rest speak none. Quite often we sit at the tea shop and there is English, Thai, and ภาษาใต้ of which the latter, i understand little. The farang who don't speak Thai, some tend to go up to the city at the weekends. That's my observation.

[mangkorn]

That's why I say it must depend on where you live, and with whom you interact.

...it's rather different than, say, living in London, where you either speak English or you don't speak.

Aren't the English and North Americans constantly complaining about how the immigrants don't speak English? They are speaking, just not to you...

Surely, there are lots of immigrants in London or Paris whose command of English or French is very poor, particularly in immigrant enclaves. If people don't venture out of the neighbourhood much, nor interact on a daily basis with the dominant society, they may get along speaking their own language with their fellows: imagine older people who've emigrated to a Chinatown in any major city in the world, to give just one example. Their own world is often quite self-contained, to family and kindred neighbours.

There are also many Latin Americans in the US whose English is pretty minimal. And when someone manages to bring grandma up to "el Norte," she is probably not going to learn enough English to carry a conversation, if she doesn't really need to. That is quite the same as farangs who move to Thailand and interact only with other farangs, and Thais who speak English. Thus, I think it does depend on environment, and one's personal priorities.

[HappyInCM]

That is diametrically opposite to my experience, in nearly six years of living in the city. I guess it depends on where you live - or, rather, with whom you choose to interact. It is true that most Thais are insecure about their command of English, but that is what makes them happy (even ecstatic) to meet a farang who really can speak Thai, and hold an entire conversation.

That was not my experience during the year I lived in Bangkok. Some people are aloof or unfriendly, yes, probably more so in Bangkok than in the provinces, but I still had no problems at all finding many Thais more than willing to engage in conversation.

IT sounds like both of you were already at a pretty conversational level when you lived in Bangkok. I would think that, that would make a big difference as well. (although I would have assumed that SW was doing most of his dealings in Thai as well, so maybe ability is only one component).

I do think English, French and Spanish speakers are more forgiving of poor pronunciation and maybe even poor grammar and that makes it easier for beginners to practice. THIS does not mean thais are somehow mean or something, just that their language itself is a bit less forgiving of poor pronunciation. I've spent the last few months working on my pronunciation mostly and I can see a big improvement in my ability to communicate in Thai and not switch to English; they even make fun of my tone sometimes now, which I take as a good sign that most of the time I'm ok, but when I'm off it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb - and/or when I'm off, I'm really off

[SoftWater]

That's why I say it must depend on where you live, and with whom you interact.

...it's rather different than, say, living in London, where you either speak English or you don't speak.

Aren't the English and North Americans constantly complaining about how the immigrants don't speak English? They are speaking, just not to you...

That's a different point, Mangkorn. Of course there are people who do not wish to integrate, and if that's your aim Bangkok is an ideal town, because you can interact with the local population without speaking a word of Thai if you don't want to. As we all know, there are plenty of these kind of expats around. However, if you live in London and don't want to speak English, you will have zero interaction with the local population and do all your business only with your own kind (among whom many will also speak English and do business with the locals on your behalf).

The point that I'm making about my own experience is perhaps best illustrated by a couple of examples. I have an English friend who visits Thailand about once a year or so. Although she is English, she is ethnically Asian. She doesn't, of course, speak a word of Thai, but because of how she looks, locals always speak Thai to her. When we walk around together, locals insist on speaking Thai to her even when I ask questions. They continue addressing their replies to her, to the point where we're in some kind of surreal situation that I and a local are having a conversation, but the local is talking 'at' the person next to me. If my friend decided to live here, she would pick up the language far faster than I did for this fact alone.

Similar things happen with my wife and I when we go to restuarants. I order something, the waitress comes back and tells my wife they haven't got it. I then tell the waitress what I want instead, and she asks my wife (who hasn't said a word in all of this) if I want that with salad or not (or whatever). I say "yes" and off the waitress trots. Later I ask for the bill and she gives it to my wife. It's both bizarre and exasperating. It's also what I mean about immersion, and why - in my experience - it has nothing to do with who I choose to associate with or where I go but is a general phenomenon across the city that I have experienced throughout the seven years I've lived here.

[kutjebu]

Sorry this is long, you know my penchant for bloviating.. ..

Living almost directly behind what is purported (by the owner) to be the 'largest thai language school in the world', I have met quite honestly HUNDREDS of thai language students. To a person they enroll in the school thinking that simply by attending the 4 hour minimum requirement the MOE has as a qualification for an ED visa they will suddenly start speaking/reading thai.

Unfortunately, in the 3+ years I've known those students (and many of the former and current thai teachers too); I've never met a single person who came into the classes 'cold', knowing neither how to speak or read, and yet after attending a year of 4 hours a week could do either with anything resembling proficiency. Even the students who have attended several years are far from speaking coherent semi-structured thai in anything but the most basic situations. In fact, I can count on a single hand with some fingers (and my thumb) left over the number of students I've met who can carry on a conversation in thai without having to break back into engrish when they forget a word. Most of those people have native language interference to such a great degree that when speaking thai their structure is almost unintelligible.

IMHO, there is NO short cut to learning thai; no magic pill you can take, no magic method that fills you with the language within a specific time frame. It is an investment of a lotta time and a lotta effort too, nothing more. True, different people learn differently, and a particular methodology may work better for me, and not so well for you, but it still boils back down into the time you're willing to put into learning.

Invariably I meet people who profess to being able to speak thai, some have been here 15-20 years, have thai wives, kids, etc. Yet when I hear them speak it's more along the lines of '2-word-tourist-thai', or 'horse-peak' (bar-thai). That manner of speaking is certainly NOTHING I'd ever want to speak at say, Immigrations, or when dealing with anyone who holds a position in even a semi-official capacity here. It makes me sad that someone could live here in this country, have a thai wife, thai kids, houses, cars, buffaloes, etc, yet never put the time into learning the language.

The excuses I've heard for people failing to pick up even rudimentary thai are nearly universal; I'm too old, I'm tone deaf, and can't hear the tones in the words, I'm not good at languages, blah-blah-blah. It's all b/s because they won't/don't put the time into learning. I am no language pundit, nor do I excel at anything in particular. I'm far from the sharpest knife in the proverbial drawer but I was able to do it. If I can, anyone can, plain and simple.

I've been here over 5 years, but I've only studied thai about 30 months now. I taught myself to read, first by learning the alphabet, but NOT in the traditional way. I didn't give two shits what a letter was called nor did I care what its corresponding word was. I learned by recognizing the characters which (to me) made similar sounds. Here's an example; (And I included the chart I used to learn as well)

Thai has

1 - 'g' sound - ก

5 -'k' sounds - ข,ฃ,ค,ฅ,ฆ

3 - 'ch' sounds - ฉ,ช,ฌ

4 - 's' sounds - ซ,ศ,ษ,ส

6 - 't' sounds - ฐ,ฑ,ฒ,ท,ธ,ถ

AND SO ON.

I learned to recognize the initial sound a character made and the corresponding ending sound. I also learned the vowels and more importantly vowel length (a BIG deal here). Sadly I spent zero time learning the tone rules, and freely admit I've no clue about 'em at all other than the most rudimentary ones. I taught myself to recognize written thai words by memory ONLY;

white – ขาว

news – ข่าว

rice – ข้าว

he/she – เขา

knee – เข่า

enter – เข้า

I also learned to weed out spurious definitions when reading by the context of a sentence. If I am not certain of the meaning of the word I look at the words around it or in the previous sentence. Many times I can get a words meaning simply by ruling out similar sounding words whose meanings don't make any sense in the sentence.

Face it, if you read a word and don't know the meaning, you just don't know the meaning, plain and simple. Being able to pronounce it perfectly does NOT help you remember the meaning, it only gives you the ability to pronounce it and maybe ask someone what it means.

This is one of the reasons I'm reticent to speak thai daily as my pronunciation is, well, it's outta whack. I mean it's totally understandable, but I hafta do what I call the normal "song and dance" (ice-breaker), "Hello, how are you?", "I'm fine thanx." "Can you speak english", "Oh I can speak thai a little as well, maybe we can chat." "What do you think about that?". Now if I do that; to a person every thai I speak with understands me just fine. Just as the thais I interact with on a daily basis understand my foreign accent when speaking thai to them.

However if I walk up to someone I don't know / doesn't know me, and ask a question without doing the seemingly prerequisite "song & dance"; nearly to a person thais will not put the effort into understanding me. (FWIW, my thai teacher friends said they'd never met someone who knew more thai, could read and understand thai as well as I do, and yet spoke such off toned thai. Actually when they said that it made me very sad Although they said if I put in a month or so of only speaking thai I'd be able to dial it in to something less mangled )

When I first started learning I made up my own sheets of common verbs, opposite words, directions, common foods, etc and drilled with them every day. I also made flash cards of every vocab word from my language school, by chapter, and drilled them until I could recognize each word when I saw it. The same with Benjawan Becker's "Speak Like a Thai" series.

I went to a language school for a year and it increased my reading ability but not my speaking. I've bought, begged, borrowed, and stolen more thai lesson books from the various and sundry language schools out there than I care to count. It has taken HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of hours to even get to the level I have, and I've a long way to go to be anything resembling proficient in this language.

To me learning thai is about one thing(actually two things really), but the first one; word memorization is the ball breaker. The second is thai language structure, which is outta kilter from english structure in MANY areas (I know it's still a S-V-O structured language, but you know what I mean). I also think english language interference when speaking thai can send you "off the script" faster than poorly pronounced or enunciated thai.

Remember what works or worked for me, may not for you, your mileage may and likely will vary, there is no expressed or implied warranty, some restrictions apply, call now operators are standing by.

And NEVER EVER forget the thai saying; "Something is better than nothing", colloquially spoken as กำขี้ดีกว่ากำตด or coarsely translated as; "A handful of shit is better than a handful of fart". Knowing ANY thai is better than knowing none.

Good luck, in your language endeavors,

Thank you very much for all your suggestions.I'm 68 and like at least to speak some Thai and the only way is to put some hours in it and repeat and repeat.

Many thanks.

[Baa_Mango]

tod-daniels.. i came quite a long way over 2 years as far as learning reading and writing with out really getting heavily into tone rules (outside of words i have memorized) then when i started to give it half a shot of studying it became automatic fairly quickly! i was pretty surprised.. all i did was make reference words that i liked to go by and apply to anything i read ( used mostly slang and funny stuff) anyways.. was just surprised to read that because it seemed like you have a solid handle on the language.

[bangkokburning]

one of my biggest struggles at learning thai is the lack of permanence i have in the country. there is a certain level that until i met my girlfriend was enough. i am no encouraged to spend money on lessons and make huge efforts - here today, tossed out on my as tomorrow.

[Ratsima]

I've invested a tremendous amount of time and effort into learning Thai. I can read. I know the tone rules. When watching an English language TV show I can usually read and understand the Thai subtitles. But, I've never been able to make myself understood when speaking Thai. Nor can I understand the Thai that I hear. I'm much more likely to understand something that's written as opposed to something that's spoken.

There's more to it than just memorizing.