The Grade 6 Course

[skylar]

Heaps of Japanese sat for that test... although I shouldn't be suprised.

[Bobcat]

Looking down the list of names of those who passed, I'd say that roughly 90% are Japanese.

[sabaijai]

Well, the reults of the Grade 6 exam are out. I passed!! Yay!

I'm not sure how many people sat the exam, but the list of those who passed includes 170 names in all.

Cheers,

Bob

Congratulations, Bobcat. Interesting that so many Japanese take the exam - I wonder why?

[Tingnongnoi]

I passed too!

[Bryan in Isaan]

Good work, Tingnonnoi and Bobcat!

Interesting about the Japanese. I wonder what they think about studying Thai, and how their experiences compare to those of westerners. As I recall, like Thai, Japanese also has good phonetic alphabets - two of them, and short and long vowels. Like western languages, theirs is not tonal. It would be interesting to hear from some of the Japanese who are studying Thai.

Bryan

[meadish_sweetball]

I have met a fair few Japanese who have studied Thai. In the majority of cases, they did so because they were stationed here for work in Japanese multinational companies. The companies would demand Thai proficiency of their employees.

On a personal level, I have also heard some expressing that it is frustrating to have to rely on English to communicate with "fellow Asians".

[Tingnongnoi]

I spoke with one of the officials about that on the day of the exam and she said it was more of a recent trend, with in the past a lot more westerners taking the exam compared with Japanese, but there is less interest now in westerners taking the exam. A lot of the Japanese also appeared to be exchange students.

[Bobcat]

Congratulations Tingnongnoi!! I'm looking forward to collecting my certificate and finding out exactly what score I got. I'm now wondering where to go from here with my Thai. My writing is now quite good, a lot better than my spoken Thai I think. I might look for a new teacher to improve my spoken Thai and stick with my old teacher for writing. Pity there is no Mor. 3 exam. At least then I'd have another goal to strive for. I'm pretty hopeless unless I have some sort of goal.

Are any of the other members thinking of taking the test this in December year?

Cheers,

Bob

[greenwanderer108]

ผมอยากลองสอบ แต่ว่าผมสะกดคำไม่ค่อยเป็น

ทำยังไงถึงจะสะกดได้??? อ่านฟังก็โอเคแต่ถ้าต้องเขียน มันแย้จัง!!!!

[meadish_sweetball]

greenwanderer, one solution:

Practice. Take dictation. Do a list of 50 words per day, check your results, as for the words you have problems with, add them to a special list for later practice. There are no shortcuts to spelling. I have the same problem, by the way, and am currently a bit too lazy and short of time to do something about it (I don't need to write Thai in my current situation - it would just be nice to be able to - not enough motivation).

[Bobcat]

I totally agree with Meadish. There are no shortcuts when it comes to writing. Just practice building your vocabulary on a daily basis and read, read, read. Reading is essential for vocabulary building and understanding the context in which new words are used in the written language. While studying I had to write a daily journal of one A4 page, a weekly essay of 2 A4 pages and a weekly dictation test of about 1 A4 page. After a while, the spelling mistakes get less and less until one day you're able to complete an entire A4 page of dictation without a single error. It takes time but it is, for me anyway, so enjoyable and satisfying.

[Bryan in Isaan]

Bobcat, you beat me by about 30 seconds - read read read. I am not nearly as far along as you all in my Thai studies, but I'm hoping this method works for me. I am out here in the villages, where there are no language schools and people speak Lao, so I am doing must of my Thai studies by reading. It helped me a great deal in my own native language, English. I read a lot when I was a kid. Now I can spell better than average without using spell check or anything like that. Maybe no big deal for my own language, but I really believe it helped. Now, if I can only stop doing typos and cut and paste errors...

Bryan

Edited January 26, 2006 by Bryan in Isaan

[sabaijai]

ผมอยากลองสอบ แต่ว่าผมสะกดคำไม่ค่อยเป็น

ทำยังไงถึงจะสะกดได้??? อ่านฟังก็โอเคแต่ถ้าต้องเขียน มันแย้จัง!!!!

Your spelling is perfect here. You might already be able to spell as well as a Thai 6th-grader and not know it. I'd give it a shot without studying if you're really keen. You can always take it again. Right Bobcat?

[katana]

While on the subject of spelling, one small error I could see. I think แย่ in the phrase มันแย่จัง should have a ไม้เอก, not a ไม้โท . (but still a lot better than I could have written, since my Thai grammar's pretty awful lol)

Edited January 27, 2006 by katana

[Bobcat]

I believe that there is no limit to the number of times that one can take the test. Also, minor spelling mistakes like an incorrect tone marker here and there, are of little consequence. I almost obtained full marks for the essay portion of the test and I know that it was peppered with little errors.

Edited January 27, 2006 by Bobcat

[sabaijai]

While on the subject of spelling, one small error I could see. I think แย่ in the phrase มันแย่จัง should have a ไม้เอก, not a ไม้โท . (but still a lot better than I could have written, since my Thai grammar's pretty awful lol)

Right, the superscripts were so small and my eyes so bad, I missed it. Green might not be ready for the test after all as that's pretty basic. Most non-native speakers have problems with the Pali-Sanskrit derived words (like remembering when to use ญ rather than ณ in a P-S compound), with the 'native' Thai words like แย่ usually coming easily.

[sabaijai]

Congratulations Tingnongnoi!! I'm looking forward to collecting my certificate and finding out exactly what score I got. I'm now wondering where to go from here with my Thai. My writing is now quite good, a lot better than my spoken Thai I think. I might look for a new teacher to improve my spoken Thai and stick with my old teacher for writing. Pity there is no Mor. 3 exam. At least then I'd have another goal to strive for. I'm pretty hopeless unless I have some sort of goal.

Are any of the other members thinking of taking the test this in December year?

Cheers,

Bob

I was thinking about it, but to tell you the truth I feel a tad silly taking a test I don't really have a use for. If I were applying for a government job, then I'd need it and wouldn't hesitate. I think I'd pass without additional study, so there's no motivation to register in order to improve my Thai. If there was a mor 3 exam then I'd probably feel more like an adult plus I would probably need preparation. I sit on the directory council of a Thai unversity, in which all university business is conducted in Thai (including hiring faculty) and I would feel pretty embarrassed if I failed a (hypothetical) mor 3 exam.

One incentive to study more would be to apply for entrance for a post-graduate degree program at one of the better unis, say Silpakorn or Chula, which would require taking a standard Thai language test. I don't think there's an actual failing score (I could be wrong) but if you score below a certain mark you're required to take more Thai courses, which wouldn't be a bad thing in my case.

This is a far cry from the bor 6 but I think I've mentioned here before how I knew an American in the 80s who took the national Thai university language exam (if that's the proper term), and he ended up scoring higher than any Thai ever had up to that point. His name was Jerry Gainey (since deceased) and he later authored the Language Map of Thailand Handbook, now out of print.

Maybe I'll take it next December just for fun though ...

[greenwanderer108]

Well, I took the exam on Saturday morning. It was scheduled to start at 8:30am (I got up at 5am to go over my vocabulary!) so I arrived at around 8:00am or so. There were several different exam rooms, each with around 60 students. In my room, there were 3 farangs (one Canadian, one Aussie (me) and one Italian). The rest of the students were Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

The exam consisted of four sections, as follows:

Dictation - 20 points, 30 minutes. A tape was played and we had to write what was said on the tape. I was at the front of the room and the speakers were at the back, so I was straining a bit to hear the tape. This part of the exam was not too difficult, although there were a few words in the passage that I had never heard before. I had to guess. I also know that I spelled one or two words incorrectly that I should not have - just dumb mistakes. Overall, this was not bad. The only thing was that the voice on the tape was quite quick, so you had to write very fast.

Essay - 35 points, 90 minutes. There was a choice a 3 topics - "Thai festivals", "Thailand today" or "Sports that I like". I chose "Thailand today". I wrote about all sorts of topics relating to Thailand and the topic was wide enough to allow for this. This part was not too bad at all. I used only vocabulary that I know so as to reduce the number of spelling errors. I ended up writing about 4 A4 pages and my hand was really sore after finishing this part of the test.

Comprehension - 30 points, 60 minutes. This was the toughest part of the exam. Motsly you were presented with a short passage and then were presented with a question and 4 possible answers. Most, if not all, of the questions had more than one possible answer. The vocab was really challenging to say the least. Topics ranged from invertibrate sea creatues, the process of producing honey, natural resources, tsunami, geology, environmental protection etc. There were also a couple of questions where you were given a passage with missing words and had to fill in the right words (you were given 5 words) in the right place. This was also tough as some words could have fit into several places.

Reading Out Loud and Conversation - 15 points, about 15 - 30 minutes. This was done after a lunch break. All students had to wait outside the room to be called one by one. You went to a table where there was a teacher sitting and sat down opposite the teacher. My teacher asked me where I was from and how long I have lived in Thailand. She then asked me to choose a piece of paper out of a small container. The piece of paper had a number on it which corresponded to the number of a particular story. There were 3 or 4 different stories to choose from. I then had to read the passage aloud for her. Mine was about Songkran and it's significance to the Thai people, both today and in the past. The vocabulary was quite okay, but it was peppered with a few tongue twisters. After I finished reading the passage, the teacher then asked me whether I understood it and what I thought about Songkran. We had a lovely chat about that and a few other things and that was it.

Overall, I think I passed. I'll get the result at the end of January or early February. I am glad it is over. Studying for it was not easy and it nearly drove me insane.

I'll let you know when I get the result. If anyone has any questions, please let me know as I'm happy to share my experiences of the test with the members of the forum.

Take care,

Bob

ส่วน essay โจทย์เป็นภาษาอังกฤษหรือไทย ? หมายถึงโจทย์ออกแบบไหน

Write an essay about one of the following topics: "Thai festivals", "Thailand today" or "Sports that I like".

หรือว่าจะเป็นภาษาไทยทั้งหมดอย่างเช่น

เลือกเขียนเรียนความหนื่งเรื่องจากหัวข้อต่อไปนี้ ก เทศกาลของคนไทย ข เมืองไทยวันนี้ ค กีฬาที่ชอบ

อีกอย่างที่ผมไม่ค่อยมั่นใจในการสะกดคือคำศัพท์บที่มีกำเนิดภาษาอังกฤษ อยางเช่น central, apple, basketball, volleyball, etc. เพราะว่าไม่ชอบใช่สำเนียงไทยสำหรับคำแบบนี้โดยเป็น Native speaker อยู่แล้วก็เลยไม่ค่อยตั่งใจเรียนรู้

การสะกดคำนี้

คิดว่าสัมคัญไหมถ้าเราเขียนอีกแบบหนึ่ง อย่างเช่น

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ แบเสกทบอล

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ basketball

หรือต้องเขียนถูกต้อง

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ บาสเกตบอล

ถ้าผมสอบปีนี้ ว่าต้องเตรียมตัวดีๆ โดยฝึกเขียนและเรียนรู้กดหลายๆที่เกียวกับการสะกดโดยเฉพาะตัวอักษรและความสัมพันธ์กับตัววรรณยุกต์ รู้นิดหน่อยแต่ว่าไม่พอละมั้ง แค่เขียนนี้ก็ต้องถามแฟนบอยครั้งช่วยผมสะกด

Dictation of writing 50 words per day sounds like a good idea. Think I'll try that.

Cheers ขอรับ

[samran]

ส่วน essay โจทย์เป็นภาษาอังกฤษหรือไทย ? หมายถึงโจทย์ออกแบบไหน

Write an essay about one of the following topics: "Thai festivals", "Thailand today" or "Sports that I like".

หรือว่าจะเป็นภาษาไทยทั้งหมดอย่างเช่น

เลือกเขียนเรียนความหนื่งเรื่องจากหัวข้อต่อไปนี้ ก เทศกาลของคนไทย ข เมืองไทยวันนี้ ค กีฬาที่ชอบ

อีกอย่างที่ผมไม่ค่อยมั่นใจในการสะกดคือคำศัพท์บที่มีกำเนิดภาษาอังกฤษ อยางเช่น central, apple, basketball, volleyball, etc. เพราะว่าไม่ชอบใช่สำเนียงไทยสำหรับคำแบบนี้โดยเป็น Native speaker อยู่แล้วก็เลยไม่ค่อยตั่งใจเรียนรู้

การสะกดคำนี้

คิดว่าสัมคัญไหมถ้าเราเขียนอีกแบบหนึ่ง อย่างเช่น

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ แบเสกทบอล

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ basketball

หรือต้องเขียนถูกต้อง

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ บาสเกตบอล

ถ้าผมสอบปีนี้ ว่าต้องเตรียมตัวดีๆ โดยฝึกเขียนและเรียนรู้กดหลายๆที่เกียวกับการสะกดโดยเฉพาะตัวอักษรและความสัมพันธ์กับตัววรรณยุกต์ รู้นิดหน่อยแต่ว่าไม่พอละมั้ง แค่เขียนนี้ก็ต้องถามแฟนบอยครั้งช่วยผมสะกด

Dictation of writing 50 words per day sounds like a good idea. Think I'll try that.

Cheers ขอรับ

What is the Thai word for 'pendantic' again? While we are at it, what is the translation of smartarse? (Spelt 'arse' not 'ass' as in some of the lesser developed parts of the English speaking world)

Other than that, tres impressif.

[sabaijai]

ส่วน essay โจทย์เป็นภาษาอังกฤษหรือไทย ? หมายถึงโจทย์ออกแบบไหน

Write an essay about one of the following topics: "Thai festivals", "Thailand today" or "Sports that I like".

หรือว่าจะเป็นภาษาไทยทั้งหมดอย่างเช่น

เลือกเขียนเรียนความหนื่งเรื่องจากหัวข้อต่อไปนี้ ก เทศกาลของคนไทย ข เมืองไทยวันนี้ ค กีฬาที่ชอบ

อีกอย่างที่ผมไม่ค่อยมั่นใจในการสะกดคือคำศัพท์บที่มีกำเนิดภาษาอังกฤษ อยางเช่น central, apple, basketball, volleyball, etc. เพราะว่าไม่ชอบใช่สำเนียงไทยสำหรับคำแบบนี้โดยเป็น Native speaker อยู่แล้วก็เลยไม่ค่อยตั่งใจเรียนรู้

การสะกดคำนี้

คิดว่าสัมคัญไหมถ้าเราเขียนอีกแบบหนึ่ง อย่างเช่น

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ แบเสกทบอล

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ basketball

หรือต้องเขียนถูกต้อง

กีฬาที่ผมชอบคือ บาสเกตบอล

ถ้าผมสอบปีนี้ ว่าต้องเตรียมตัวดีๆ โดยฝึกเขียนและเรียนรู้กดหลายๆที่เกียวกับการสะกดโดยเฉพาะตัวอักษรและความสัมพันธ์กับตัววรรณยุกต์ รู้นิดหน่อยแต่ว่าไม่พอละมั้ง แค่เขียนนี้ก็ต้องถามแฟนบอยครั้งช่วยผมสะกด

Dictation of writing 50 words per day sounds like a good idea. Think I'll try that.

Cheers ขอรับ

What is the Thai word for 'pendantic' again? While we are at it, what is the translation of smartarse? (Spelt 'arse' not 'ass' as in some of the lesser developed parts of the English speaking world)

Other than that, tres impressif.

Are you mixing up pedantic with pendejo (just joking :D ).

Even if he loses a few points on spelling he should pick a few up on rhythm/sentence construction.

Good question about use of English, can you get away with writing English words in Roman script? I'm presuming not, but one can usually guess the way the Thais would spell English in Thai script.

[meadish_sweetball]

I think spelling English in Thai is just as difficult as Sanskrit/Pali words. Seems like several sets of rules are in use, and which one to apply in a particular case is not always self-evident.

Richard may have formulated some ideas around this?

[sabaijai]

I think spelling English in Thai is just as difficult as Sanskrit/Pali words. Seems like several sets of rules are in use, and which one to apply in a particular case is not always self-evident.

Richard may have formulated some ideas around this?

There is some variation in print, i.e., I've seen the same English words spelt more than one way in Thai but for the most part I find it to be fairly consistent. At least with transcriptions of English you're not using the 'extra' consonants developed specifically for P-S.

About the only wildcard is the one Green alluded to in his alternate spellings of basketball, i.e., whether to follow a standard American or standard British interpretation of /a/, etc. Seems to me the Thais almost always follow the American pronunciation, with a few exceptions (like aluminium).

[greenwanderer108]

I think spelling English in Thai is just as difficult as Sanskrit/Pali words. Seems like several sets of rules are in use, and which one to apply in a particular case is not always self-evident.

Richard may have formulated some ideas around this?

okay, no girlfriend around to consult the spelling and too lazy to grab the dictionary at the moment...so i'll keep it simple for now.

Lately, I've been trying to solidify my understanding of using the วรรณยุกต์ in corelation to the different อักษร which is pretty consistent and straightforward thus far. It's helping my spelling as far as the tones go. Though surprisingly, I struggle more with the เสียงสามัญ of อักษรกลาง than any of the other tones. Sure the midtone is supposed to be the easiest to sound off, but I tend to mix it up with เสียงต่ำ as the low tone is more natural/easier to speak for me. how bout you guys, do you find midtone natural to speak?

So how about the sanskrit/pali words?? Do they follow the same rules as the rest of the Thai words i.e. อกษร วรรณยุกต์ ตัวสะกด as far as dictacting, sounding (tone), and spelling, or are they simply a matter of must hear/remember special cases.

Was it Sabajai or Meadish that said something before about the Sankskrit/Pali not using the วรรณยุกต์ being monotone. I can't exactly recall. What's the breakdown for these..

I'm not exactly well versed in the linguistic roots/branches as most of the seniors here...but I'm interested in knowing the general rules for descerning the roots of certain words other than from the sounds/sylables words have (อุย words are most likely chinese, etc.) . So is it safe to say that all words with ณ ญ (can you elaborate sabaijai) and the other obsolete characters like ฏ ฆ ฌ etc. are Sanskrit/Pali based. What about the ones with อิ์ at the end?? (not just a simple Ga-lun, but the sara ee! with ga-lun on top)

hope you can clear it up.

เทงค์ ยู เววี มัทช์

[Bobcat]

ส่วน essay โจทย์เป็นภาษาอังกฤษหรือไทย ? หมายถึงโจทย์ออกแบบไหน

Write an essay about one of the following topics: "Thai festivals", "Thailand today" or "Sports that I like".

หรือว่าจะเป็นภาษาไทยทั้งหมดอย่างเช่น

เลือกเขียนเรียนความหนื่งเรื่องจากหัวข้อต่อไปนี้ ก เทศกาลของคนไทย ข เมืองไทยวันนี้ ค กีฬาที่ชอบ

As a test of the Thai language (reading, writing, comprehension and speaking), all questions and instructions were in Thai. Also, you would lose points for using English words on the test.

I'm sure with a little more practice you'd do just fine on the test, Greenwanderer. Concentrate on your spelling by doing dictation and read lots of Thai books. Reading will give you a better understanding of how to write the Thai language more naturally, like a Thai.

Cheers,

Bob

[sabaijai]

So is it safe to say that all words with ณ ญ (can you elaborate sabaijai) and the other obsolete characters like ฏ ฆ ฌ etc. are Sanskrit/Pali based. What about the ones with อิ์ at the end?? (not just a simple Ga-lun, but the sara ee! with ga-lun on top)

Almost, but not always. There's a thread on this somewhere already in the Thai Language branch. Basically the ones using these letters that are Thai rather than P/S you probably already know, such as ผู้หญิง.

I studied Sanskrit at university for three terms, and Pali ('Sanskrit for morons' we irreverently called it) for one term. In addition to helping to recognise P/S vocab in Thai (and recognise the meanings related to the Skrt roots), it helped my spelling of those words as I could relate each letter to its P/S equivalents. Sanskrit spellings follow very regular rules related to points of articulation in the mouth, eg if a retroflex /r/ appeared in a word, any /n/ that followed had to be certain /n/; likewise any /n/ following a palatal had to be a certain /n/, etc. These rules have carried over directly to P/S-derived Thai, and I rely on those same rules when spelling Thai words of P/S origin (in cases where I can't remember the spelling right off the bat, that is).

On the other hand most Thais learn to spell P/S words without having studied Pali or Sanskrit separately so it's obviously not a requirement for learning Thai. Much as the study of Greek and Latin enhance one's understanding of Engish but isn't absolutely necessary for learning the language.

I can't think of any particular benefit in being able to recognise Thai words as P/S-derived when it comes to spelling. If you don't know the P/S spelling rules, you just have to memorise the spellings. (I may be neglecting some benefit that doesn't come to mind at the moment.) Assuming you're not going to go to the extreme of studying P or S, the only thing to do is memorise the vocab and spelling as you go along. If you find P/S of intrinsic interest, as I do, then you might want to consider taking a course or two.

Re วรรณยุกต์, I'm not aware of any Thai words of P/S origin that use any of the four tonemarks per se, but the tonal system works the same, more or less. There are exceptions (eg, when a low-class consonant followed by a long vowel and stop final is pronounced with a low tone rather than a falling tone) but they are so few it's best simply to memorise them. The other thing with P/S-derived Thai is that you have to know when the syllables are pronounced and when they're not (eg, sometimes you pronounce an unwritten vowel as a short /o/, sometimes as a short /a/; sometimes a final short /i/ is silent, sometimes not). Again there are no rules I know of, it's just a matter of memorisation.

A good intermediate or advanced class in Thai reading and writing would cover a lot of these points.

I'm sure Richard W will have further light to shed.

[Oldfield]

This is a really interesting thread. Well done to those of you that have taken part in this test.

I was just wondering. What was the purpose in taking such a test. Was it just as a motivational tool to help you improve your Thai? Or was there another motive, maybe to help towards Thai residency or citizenship?

Well done though - it sounds challenging.

O

(I just realised this was from 1996...any updates since this? Does this test still exist?)

Edited August 15, 2011 by Oldfield