How To Urgently Improve Basic Thai?

[danone]

hi - my basic thai is pretty ok, was sufficient at least to get PR.

but I really have to improve my thai language from here. tried several teachers, but somehow didnt work.

any advise for a reasonably priced, effective teacher or school? am in prakanong area.

[geronimo]

hi - my basic thai is pretty ok, was sufficient at least to get PR.

but I really have to improve my thai language from here. tried several teachers, but somehow didnt work.

any advise for a reasonably priced, effective teacher or school? am in prakanong area.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My advice is to find a Thai who can speak English and befriend them

[Tyree D.]

exactly. That's the only way you can learn something other than, "What did you eat?"

รีนไทย

[westybrook]

I’m learning Thai using a Linguaphone Course from the library. It comes on 4 tapes and has 2 books.

My wife is Thai and so will my child to be, well you know half and half. But I need to learn and Linguaphone teaches you the basics but teaches you words you’re going to use and come across. Ok it means listening to tapes and meditating on what you learn but I am picking it up quickly.

Also the reason for learning the language could be a factor. I need to learn if I want to be a teacher and live in LOS. So think why you need to learn it and concentrate on that, and that will spure you on to learn quickly.

But good look to you anyway in learning, and to all that are tackling Thai right now

[chownah]

Read Thai newspapers every day. Variety of topics and cultural references...read about football if thats what interests you. Uncomplicated language.

[OxfordWill]

Just like walking in the park, eh Chownah?

[danone]

find a Thai who can speak English and befriend them?

my wife is Thai and befriended by me - doesnt work with learning Thai ...

Edited August 15, 2005 by danone

[Ijustwannateach]

Um, by posting your inquiry in the Thai language section instead of the Teaching In Thailand section?

[chownah]

Just like walking in the park, eh Chownah?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a little bit like walking in the park but mostly there is no similarity at all. Here's how you do it:

1. Learn the Thai alphabet....get the gaw gai book like the kids use...carry it with you and practice with the kids you see everywhere...its lots of fun and you'll also learn one word to go with each letter...useful words like elephant, horse, child, bell, kite, etc.

2. Buy the best Thai English and English Thai dictionaries you can find. Notice that 'dictionaries' here is plural. Get two books....big ones...the best you can find....one is used by you and one is used by the Thai person who is helping you.

3. Learn how to use the Thai dictionary...alphabetical order in Thai dictionaries is a bit more difficult than how its done in English....many Thias have difficulty doing this so you might have to look around to find out how its done...maybe go to a Thai school English dept taking your Thai-English dictionary and ask them to explain how to use it.

4. Buy a newspaper (or a children's story book if you prefer) and laboriously start to look up the words....this is really difficult since there is no space between the letters to indicate where one word ends and another word begins...really difficult at first. Do this by getting a piece of paper and writing the Thai on one line and the English above or below it. The first day you will be lucky if you finish one sentence....but don't give up. You might even only make it through one sentence each day for a week...but...after about a week or maybe even sooner you will start to see the same words in the new sentences and you will start getting a feel for where one word ends and another begins.

It's alot of work....especially at first and if you are doing it without anyone's help. If you can get someone to divide up a sentence into words for you then it will go alot faster....better still if you can get them to put bookmarks in the dictionary at the page for each of the words in the sentence....and better still if you can get someone to pronounce the sentence and listen to the way you pronounce it and offer suggestions. I think that most Thai people don't know what to do to help you learn Thai and if you can tell them what you would like them to do (like the things I've just mentioned) then they will be more willing to help you.

Since the OP say that he already has basic Thai skills and has already gone to some teachers it may be that he already knows the alphabet and some words so it should go alot faster for him. I've done this kind of work sporadically but not nearly enough to be able to say that I can read Thai...but it has helped me enough so that I can slowly make out the meaning of signs and the like...I can also sound out most Thai words and then ask someone what they mean. It's alot of work!!!

[geronimo]

find a Thai who can speak English and befriend them?

my wife is Thai and befriended by me - doesnt work with learning Thai ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Didn't specify "wife"

wives and husbands cannot teach each other much

I would suggest getting into basic conversation with people who live around you and people who work in shops

[chownah]

................

wives and husbands cannot teach each other much

...........

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I absolutely and totally disagree with this. In fact in a good marriage your spouse will probably be the person who teaches you the most.

[Nepal4me]

I absolutely and totally disagree with this. In fact in a good marriage your spouse will probably be the person who teaches you the most.

I have found many wives don't like to teach their husbands Thai. They are often too busy, too lazy or simiply prefer to improve their English. Teaching a language also requires patience and more patience, not always in good supply in marital situations. Particularily if the husband's Thai is very weak and the wife's English is quite good or at least functional, it can be just frustrating for the wife to continually teach the dumb farang the same darn thing that she taught him 4 times yesterday and he forgot again. In my case, my wife's English is only slightly better than my Thai so we teach each other every day. We have a "Talking Dic" which is always on the living room table and gets used constantly. We virtually never use a paper dictionary.

I'm lucky but I can see why it wouldn't work in every relationship.

Read Thai newspapers every day. Variety of topics and cultural references...read about football if thats what interests you. Uncomplicated language.

Don't really agree with this. I find Thai newspapers to be very difficult. Very idiomatic and many short forms and acronyms. Nothing at all like spoken Thai.

[sanook2me]

I spent 4 years in Bkk and the fastest way i learnt was when i put the effort into learning the thai alphabet. The letters are everywhere and you never stop reading them and learning new words all the time.

I had the linguaphone course and i still use it at home in blighty to make sure i don't lose it.. as they say use it or lose it.

Some of my farang mates were good with idiomatic Thai but as soon as i learnt the alphabet my Thai was so much better, you can read words and understand them much better than only listening...

learning the alphabet is the only way. Its fun and easy !

[craigt3365]

I agree that getting taught by your wife might not be a good idea. I started down this road and it was just too hard. Her English is not that good...so it was very difficult for her to explain the difference in the letters (consonants, low class, high class, begining/end positions, etc.).

So, I searched this wonder forum and found 2 great web sites. They are in the "sticky" posts at the top. Great sites! I am learning the alphabet now, then will try the words. I can speak a little Thai, but have a long way to go....love the way these web sites have sound!!!!!

[Neeranam]

I married a lady who couldn't speak a word of English when we met.

Seems to have worked in improving my Thai, although obviously i could speak a bit of Thai when we met.

She explained things in Thai and I had to learn.

Better than someone trying to explain in English, in my opinion.

I did learn to read using AUA book, which I recommend.

Also as others have said, start off with the kiddies books.

[Khutan]

find a Thai who can speak English and befriend them?

my wife is Thai and befriended by me - doesnt work with learning Thai ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Same with me, she made it a mission to have conversational English very fast. Whenever I was away from Thailand, she was in English Lessons up to 6 hours a day.

When we permenantly moved together, English was the dominant language, peppered with the odd Thai word. So now there is no Thai spoken at home, unless Thai people come and visit.

IJWT, I will move this to the Thai Language forum.

[meadish_sweetball]

This topic has been brought up many times already. Please use the forum search function for learning + thai and you will have a lot of opinions from different people regarding the best books, methods, etc.

The truth is that no 2 people learn the same way, having differing amounts of time available for learning, and differing linguistic intelligence as well as backgrounds of exposure to/interest in foreign languages.

Some general advice is that language skills are best acquired with regular practice - every single day.

It *really* pays off to take time specifically to study instead of trying to cram your studies into an already packed schedule. You will just not have enough time to do it well. If you can take some weeks off for intense studies, that is a very good start.

Using newspapers to learn to speak Thai is rather impractical until you have already learned the alphabet, the sounds (phonetics) and the tone rules.

Yes, there are rules for how to divide the seemingly endless stream of text into words, and learning these rules can be a helpful shortcut - ideally you want access to both a farang teacher with a good level of Thai, and a Thai with a good grasp of your native tongue (ideally, if you are not a native speaker of English) or English. This way you will be able to grasp everything a lot quicker.

[~G~]

I married a lady who couldn't speak a word of English when we met.

Seems to have worked in improving my Thai, although obviously i could speak a bit of Thai when we met.

She explained things in Thai and I had to learn.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Same here.. gf does not speak any english, learned conversational Thai quickly... however my reading skills are very basic.

The problem with learning from your partner is that you might be confined to a certain vocabulary that you use most often in everyday life and not go far beyond it. Although I might be fluent in informal, everyday Thai, I don't have a clue about Thai used in business negotiations, legal lanugage, art, politics, science or thousand other topics. I sometimes use an informal speech when the circumstances require formal speech. for example, I had to get a few laughs to understand that "kao jai bao" is not to be used with someone you don't know...

[taxexile]

Read Thai newspapers every day................. Uncomplicated language.

and what newspaper would that be ???

the language and sentence construction used by newspapers is completely different from spoken thai , and i would be most grateful if you could recommend a daily newspaper that uses uncomplicated sentence construction and language( in the articles , the headlines are easy enough) , and a dictionary (big or small) that contains the full gamut of news-speak slang.

learning from partners will usually lead to arguments.

a structured course in basic thai combined with reading and dictation preferably one to one with a teacher would probably suit most people.

i can recommend

p and a language centre on silom near saladaeng.....022379252

and / or

somchart school sukhumvit soi 11 , they advertise in the bangkok post regularly.

should be able to get most people started and can take you to intermediate or advanced levels if you want to go that far.

Edited September 8, 2005 by taxexile

[ilyushin]

My Thai and several dialects came from being in direct contact with the local people in all ways of life and business. Not easy , but I got far more than a language. I hope that you can find your personal method to learn Thai.

If in BKK go for a 40-80hr program. Test run!

Check this out too! http://www.learningthai.com/speak_thai.html

CHAPTER 8

[Khun Larry]

My advice is to find a Thai who can speak English and befriend them

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would advise you to do the opposit: Find a Thai who cannot speak English and befriend them or live together. Worked for me.

If they speak English you will likely not learn Thai, however their English will improve.

FYI, after considerable effort and a fair amount success I find knowing Thai to be of very little value. Definitely not worth the effort.

Up to You.

[Neeranam]

and what newspaper would that be ???

the language and sentence construction used by newspapers is completely different from spoken thai , and i would be most grateful if you could recommend a daily newspaper that uses uncomplicated sentence construction and language( in the articles , the headlines are easy enough) , and a dictionary (big or small) that contains the full gamut of news-speak slang.

Try the football ones if you are interested in football.

I would advise you to do the opposit: Find a Thai who cannot speak English and befriend them or live together. Worked for me.

If they speak English you will likely not learn Thai, however their English will improve.

FYI, after considerable effort and a fair amount success I find knowing Thai to be of very little value. Definitely not worth the effort.

Up to You.

I agree with the first part, but Thai is very useful to me, but I am not yet fluent.

[richard10365]

Learning how to read and write helped me alot.

I was able to read and write thai (not that good) in about 14 months but it took a lot of work.

I bought a book on the Thai language, took the Thai alphabet one letter at a time, a regular sheet of notebook paper and wrote that letter about 100 times on that page. Each time I wrote it I would say it. I did that for all the vowels and consonants.

I am at the point if one of my Thai friends has an english word they are having problems saying, I usually can write the english word in Thai and then they can say it.

IMHO, knowing how to read Thai can help you learn Thai more effectively.

Also.......

Don't waste time when your doing a visa run on a bus or train. Use those hours to study.

If you go running, take the Thai alphabet with you. Recite it as you run. It takes your mind off the run somewhat and you learn at the same time.

Lable your home with the Thai words for places and things in your home. Like hong nam (bathroom), gaio (cup or #9), etc.

Put a Thai language book in the bathroom. There are times in the bathroom when your not doing too much and it is a good opportunity to study.

Try reading signs in your village or city. Either street signs or signs on business. I remember seeing signs everyday in my village for almost a year and not knowing what they said. Then one day, I was able to read it. I looked at my friend all excited and spoke the name of the village on the sign. He looked at me funny and probably thought, "what a goofball".

Watch farang DVDs with a Thai soundtrack with English subtitles. Especially if it is something you have seen before because you already have an idea what they are going to say only now it is spoken in Thai.

That's all the ideas I have for now.

[Mr. Farang]

I have observated, over the years, that the only people who can speak Thai with any "nice sound" are the people who learned to read, and speak clearly, the basic Thai alphabet first.

The same is true in the English language, and if someone cannot say ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ very clearly, then they cannot speak basic English very clearly.

All people who I have met who try to speak Thai without learning the Thai alphabet, speak Thai very poorly, from a phonic perspective.

In other words, the "basics" of Thai, is based in the Thai alphabet, and then, in small combined words of basic Thai (just like Thai children learn in school.)

After learning the basic Thai alphabet, speaking Thai with Thai speakers is the next best thing to do :-)

Edited September 9, 2005 by Mr. Farang

[meadish_sweetball]

Learning the alphabet is an important component, and I agree that most people who speak Thai clearly will have learned the alphabet. Learning the alphabet is one approach to getting the Thai sounds right.

But you may find that just learning the alphabet does not help you anyway, because even though you know the shapes of the Thai letters and what they are called in Thai, you may still mispronounce them.

As case in point: Many millions of Thais know how to recite the English alphabet, but how many Thais do you know who can pronounce 'z' properly? Still, they know how to read and write the letter.

Unless you have an exceptional ear, you will struggle with some phonemic differences in Thai, such as the difference between the bilabial stops (บ ป พ) ('b', 'bp' and 'p'), the dental stops ด ต ท (d, dt, and t) the difference between the vowel sounds โ and อ , the correct pronounciation and stress pattern of สระ เอือ (no equivalent sound in most dialects of English), and perhaps the most difficult are the five phonemic tones (mid, low, high, rising, falling). It takes lots of listening and correcting before you get there.

To get these sounds right, you need to become aware of where your articulators (the different organs in your speech apparatus - tongue, teeth, lips, etc) should be positioned and move for each individual sound.

You also need to observe and understand fundamental differences you are preconditioned not to observe in your native language (such as the important difference in Thai between long and short vowel sounds - unlike in English, the length of the vowel sound determines the meaning of the word).

People who learn Thai outside of a formal situation and never have somebody explain these difference to them, will often not hear the difference, and thus can not produce it themselves. This way, they will always have a strong accent.

[spencerdharmagrafix]

Just like walking in the park, eh Chownah?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The best tip i got from a Thai on how to speak Thai properly was - "If you dont learn to read and write Thai, you will NEVER be able to speak properly" I agree with this completely, now that i look back

[spencerdharmagrafix]

Learning the alphabet is an important component, and I agree that most people who speak Thai clearly will have learned the alphabet. Learning the alphabet is one approach to getting the Thai sounds right.

But you may find that just learning the alphabet does not help you anyway, because even though you know the shapes of the Thai letters and what they are called in Thai, you may still mispronounce them.

As case in point: Many millions of Thais know how to recite the English alphabet, but how many Thais do you know who can pronounce 'z' properly? Still, they know how to read and write the letter.

Unless you have an exceptional ear, you will struggle with some phonemic differences in Thai, such as the difference between the bilabial stops (บ ป พ) ('b', 'bp' and 'p'), the dental stops ด ต ท (d, dt, and t) the difference between the vowel sounds โ and อ , the correct pronounciation and stress pattern of  สระ เอือ (no equivalent sound in most dialects of English), and perhaps the most difficult are the five phonemic tones (mid, low, high, rising, falling). It takes lots of listening and correcting before you get there.

To get these sounds right, you need to become aware of where your articulators (the different organs in your speech apparatus - tongue, teeth, lips, etc) should be positioned and move for each individual sound.

You also need to observe and understand fundamental differences you are preconditioned not to observe in your native language (such as the important difference in Thai between long and short vowel sounds - unlike in English, the length of the vowel sound determines the meaning of the word).

People who learn Thai outside of a formal situation and never have somebody explain these difference to them, will often not hear the difference, and thus can not produce it themselves.  This way, they will always have a strong accent.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

agreed on all points! plus the fact that if your wife is from the south or from Isaan then their Tonal pronounciation of certain words will be pronounced "wrong" according to Central thai Grammar!

สี่ will be pronounced as ซี in Isaan เป็น in Central Thailand would be pronounced as เป็๋น (siang jatthawaa), in the South. so it is pretty useless to learn central thai from an Isaan wife. Maybe one should just learn Isaan in this case..I spent my first 2 years in Thailand in the South and when i finally moved up to bangkok, although i could already speak Thai no one could understand a word a said (except for south people) I asked for the whereabouts of the บขส in South dialect ( บอ ข้อ ส้อ )and no one knew what the ###### i was talking about, as in official Thai language it would be; บอ ขอ สอ !!! Listen to the TV is better and talk with bangkok peopl e at best. Better to speak bangkok Thai as if not you will have difficulties when travelling through other regions of Thailand.

Edited September 10, 2005 by spencerdharmagrafix

[spencerdharmagrafix]

and what newspaper would that be ???

the language and sentence construction used by newspapers is completely different from spoken thai , and i would be most grateful if you could recommend a daily newspaper that uses uncomplicated sentence construction and language( in the articles , the headlines are easy enough) , and a dictionary (big or small) that contains the full gamut of news-speak slang.

Try the football ones if you are interested in football.

I would advise you to do the opposit: Find a Thai who cannot speak English and befriend them or live together. Worked for me.

If they speak English you will likely not learn Thai, however their English will improve.

FYI, after considerable effort and a fair amount success I find knowing Thai to be of very little value. Definitely not worth the effort.

Up to You.

I agree with the first part, but Thai is very useful to me, but I am not yet fluent.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kom Chad Luek is simpler than Thai Rat (although i like the gruesome news in thai rat!) but yeah i understand the problem u are having with newspapers as they love to use abbreviations (Thai people love to abbreviate anyway!) so they will use นศ (nak suegsaa) รร (roeng rien) ตร (thamruaj) ดตร (daab Thamruaj)

ปปส (bpraab bpraam yaa saeb thid)etc! i advise to get a book with all the abbreviations and place it to the side of your newspaper. It will take all the fun out of reading, but it serves as an exercise and will increase your ability to follow what the article is about..suffer long enough and one day you will understand..I did it that way

Edited September 10, 2005 by spencerdharmagrafix

[Mr. Farang]

But you may find that just learning the alphabet does not help you anyway, because even though you know the shapes of the Thai letters and what they are called in Thai, you may still mispronounce them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When most people (including me!) say "learn the Thai alphabet"... they means"learn to read, write and pronounce"..... because alphabets represent "sounds".

al·pha·bet    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (lf-bt, -bt)

n.

The letters of a language, arranged in the order fixed by custom.

A system of characters or symbols representing sounds or things.

For example, when I learned Thai, the entire purpose of learning the alphabet was an exercise and practice in pronouncing the letters, step-by-step.

[meadish_sweetball]

As evidenced by plenty of posts and questions in this forum in the past, not so few beginning students of the Thai language sit at home with a Linguaphone or Pimsleur course and fail to 'hear' or understand the distinctions I outlined above; that is why I keep stressing them. It was not an attempt to discredit your contribution, Mr. Farang.

Actually, your dictionary quote proves my point. The crucial thing is that characters represent sounds. The alphabet itself IS not the sounds; the sounds and the spoken language exist as separate entities, and the letters are symbols meant to represent these - but no language with an alpabetic writing system has a 100% letter-sound correspondence.

You can learn the symbols of the Thai alphabet by heart without being able to produce the sounds they represent correctly. Likewise, you can learn the sounds of Thai without learning the alphabet (although I agree with you, that fewer people are successful this way. Still, I have met a few foreigners who speak basic, everyday Thai fluently and quite clearly without being able to read and write it. One of them learned to speak Thai during his 6 years in prison. His Thai is good enough to fool a native over the phone. Another friend is a linguist who speaks phonetically correct Thai but can only transcribe it with the AUA phonetic system).

You obviously speak and pronounce Thai quite well already, and your sound training occurred simultaneously with learning the alphabet - I am just saying there are different approaches to reach the same end goal - mastering the sounds.

Personally, I learned to describe the sounds of Thai with IPA before and in connection with learning how to read and write. Further, I did not learn the consonants going from ก to ฮ, instead our course divided them into groups based on their a.) phonetic features and b.) their class (low, mid and high).

As with most things, there are many ways to reach the same goal.