Your Ahhhh Moment

[Nouf]

I tried searching, but yet to see anything that resembles what i wanted to ask, this really goes out to the guys that have an intermediate level or above.

When was your "ahhhhhhhhh moment"

Ie: when something actually clicked in your brain , that all the hard effort was starting to pay off, and Thai people understood you or you understood someones conversation etc

I read on a forum about a couple of guys, including Stickman, and his was around 13 months in that he noticed that he was listing to a conversation in a restaurant and he understood it

I myself was thinking about a year of serious intensive learning, every day (well at least 5 days) practicing as much as your can, (although that is a big issue for some) and consistently comparing your efforts to the prior month, so that you can confirm you are making steady progress etc

I know everyone is different,but thinking more to the guys that live in Thailand and are using Thai or was learning Thai or a very regular weekly basis, but just wanted to get a feel from the guys that are using Thai in their daily lives the sort of time frame when they had that "ahhhhh moment" when something told them in their brains things were finally connecting

Of course circumstances will determine the outcome, but i was trying to direct the question towards the guys that took of a more intensive view or a serious view of learning, so were taking regular lessons or taking an intensive approach maybe through work or studying

Thanks

Edited November 26, 2010 by Nouf

[jdinasia]

My "ahhh" moment? hmmm

Actually it was when I really had the basics of reading down enough that I realized I could pronounce anything I read with reasonable accuracy. It didn't make up for missing lexical resources (vocabulary) on my part, but I could then ask people what something I was reading meant and not have to show them the printed paper.

[sbk]

My aahh moment has more to do with using it unconsciously, I guess. My sister-in-law banged on our door at some ridiculous hour like 6 am and of course, I woke up (hubby snoring away in bed) I groggily stumbled to the door, opened it and said "What" very grumpily in southern Thai without even thinking of saying it in English.

[tgeezer]

My aahh moment has more to do with using it unconsciously, I guess. My sister-in-law banged on our door at some ridiculous hour like 6 am and of course, I woke up (hubby snoring away in bed) I groggily stumbled to the door, opened it and said "What" very grumpily in southern Thai without even thinking of saying it in English.

When I finally worked out what this meant;

แกไม่่คิดว่าฉันจะจับมันได้ไม่ใช่หรือ

[juehoe]

My spouse always says "baeb nueng" for this situation

แป๊บหนึ่ง

[Gonsalviz]

My aahh moment has more to do with using it unconsciously, I guess. My sister-in-law banged on our door at some ridiculous hour like 6 am and of course, I woke up (hubby snoring away in bed) I groggily stumbled to the door, opened it and said "What" very grumpily in southern Thai without even thinking of saying it in English.

When I finally worked out what this meant;

แกไม่่คิดว่าฉันจะจับมันได้ไม่ใช่หรือ

I don't know if I've had one of those, but sometimes, out of frustration, my wife will spout out something in Isan Thai and it will occur to me that I actually got what she said.

My Thai before knowing her was all from BKK or the south so I am kind of weak on Isan.

[Tod Daniels]

I don’t know that I’ve had a real honest to goodness “Ahhhh Moment” , but this is about as close as it comes for me.

Friday night I had the choice of;

A.) Sitting outside my apartment gate with my thai friends and drinking.

OR

B.) Going to some bars with my foreign friends and drinking.

Truly, it was quite the conundrum as both choices included my ‘hobby’; drinking.

However I decided to stay with my thai friends rather than go hear the same old stories from my foreign friends which seem to run on an ‘endless loop’ kinda thing.

Sitting outside with my thai friends; listening to, participating in their thai conversations about various and sundry things we share as common interests; (in random order; politics, sports, women, world news, etc), me trading english for thai and them trading thai for english, at least at this point in my life here is a far more enjoyable nite out for me. I couldn’t even work up the slightest interest in trudging off with my foreign friends to some bar beer to hear the same old song and dance.

This could be due to several reasons; I have really good thai friends , I have piss poor foreign ones or any combination of the two .

Like I said, whilst it’s probably not an “Ahhhh Moment”, I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Foggy Dew]

Hi All,

I am a long way off any aaahhhha moment. But I do remember the morning that my wife told she had her first dream in English.

Have a happy

Foggy