Thoughts About Thai Lessons In Audiobook Format

[grisbil3n]

I dont know if its me but I get really annoyed by the fact that the people talking on these books do it far to quickly and they dont articulate at all, something that would make it so much easier to learn. Is there some idea behind this perhaps so that the listener will get used to real conversation? Maybe its just the fact that I am kind of slow but when a couple of unfamiliar words are fired off in rapid succesion I find it impossible to keep up. How do people learn from this effectively, do you listen over and over and over again to each sentence? I am a complete beginner maybe thats the problem.

[leon1503]

I tried using the audio books myself , but I didn't really learn too much from them , because like you send they move to fast for one area to the next .

Also the only way to learn this language revision , revision . Learning someone one day does not mean you will ever remember it .

Lets say your audio book has ten units each lasting 30 minutes . You would start day 1 on unit 1 , day 2 with units 1 and 2 , day 3 with units 2 and 3 .and so fourth . when you got to unit 5 you should start back at maybe unit 2 again . this start the same system from units 6 to 10 . If your only studying sometimes like 3 hours per week I would go over each unit 3 times over a period of 1 to 3 months , But I find also that only relying on audio books is not enough . To avoid becoming bored with this audio book , you should use some online resources . mix it up . As your a beginner you should take it slow and just try to learn 2 or 3 words or perhaps 1 phase per few days .

[bifftastic]

I used the Pimsleur (forget which unit) and listened to it over and over and over. As the above poster recommends, lessons 1-6 (or something like that) then review and review again before moving on.

It got me started but you definitely need something else as well.

I tried the FSI as well but found it not to my liking, not sure why, probably because of the phrase-book style of it. Having said that, the Pimsleur is pretty 'phrase-book' too

I think a varied mixture of online, book-based, audio, writing and speaking is the way to a) learn well, if you're not attending classes and b ) keep your interest up.

You will probably find that there's something you don't like about pretty much every method you use so mixing it up also helps with that

Good luck and keep listening

[Delight]

247-I WANT BUY PEN AND PAPER WRITE LETTER.mp3This is new territory for me.

How do these audio books differ from CD,s that typically accompany a 'Learn Thai Book' ?

My approach to date has been to split the phrases ,words etc on aforementioned Cd's into individual MP3 tracks

Using abit of software I take the basic phrase and repeat it several times on each Mp3 track.

This takes time but from 2 CD 'd I end up with at least 100 tracks,probably alot more

The idea is that I listen to the track whist reading the relevant text

Hearing a new pharse for the first time is a little daunting.

after several complete repeats then things become clearer.

Do audio books work in a more productive manner than that which I have just described?

I attach atypical track as as example

[Tod Daniels]

"Delight"; Actually the pic looks like the standard “teach-Thai-2-foreigners” format I’ve seen in almost every learn Thai book I’ve ever looked at. It’s always beneficial when the book you’re learning from lists new vocabulary BEFORE you get into the sentence constructs.

Still it looks about right; Thai with karaoke engrish to help you with the pronunciation. This is usually followed by explanations of the “why” about Thai in regards to verbs or word compounds (words which when coupled together don’t necessarily mean the sum of the individual meanings), although in the case of writing paper it’s pretty close.

While the O/P mentioned the speed of the spoken Thai in lessons, the example used by “Delight” didn’t appear to be speaking fast by any wild stretch of the imagination.

I wish the Thais here spoke in as metered a tempo and enunciated their words even half as clear . I’d be in tall cotton!

I always used to review a lesson first and look for new vocab, figure out how to say them and THEN listen to the sound files.

[Delight]

"Delight"; Actually the pic looks like the standard "teach-Thai-2-foreigners" format I've seen in almost every learn Thai book I've ever looked at. It's always beneficial when the book you're learning from lists new vocabulary BEFORE you get into the sentence constructs.

Still it looks about right; Thai with karaoke engrish to help you with the pronunciation. This is usually followed by explanations of the "why" about Thai in regards to verbs or word compounds (words which when coupled together don't necessarily mean the sum of the individual meanings), although in the case of writing paper it's pretty close.

While the O/P mentioned the speed of the spoken Thai in lessons, the example used by "Delight" didn't appear to be speaking fast by any wild stretch of the imagination.

I wish the Thais here spoke in as metered a tempo and enunciated their words even half as clear . I'd be in tall cotton!

I always used to review a lesson first and look for new vocab, figure out how to say them and THEN listen to the sound files.

Thanks for your response:

However I was not asking for comments on the system that I use:

I asked if Audio Books offer a superior methodology.

An aside .(apologies to the OP)

Is the' word for word ' concept as detailed in the JPEG in general use.

I have only sourced in one book-i.e. the book I use. Foe certain Thai for Beginners do not use it.

In your experience is it widely employed?

Thank again for replying.

[kokesaat]

I did the 56 lessons of Thomas Gething's 'Intermediate Thai' (available free pdf/mp3) a while back. The first 6 lessons were recorded by a female who spoke clearly and what I considered not-to-fast. Then lesson 7 hit and the guy with the lisp recorded every other lesson and spoke much quicker than the female. I hated those lessons at first, but stuck with the program and by the time I was mid-way through the 56 lessons, his lessons were no more difficult than the others.

If you have recorded audio and printed text, you can replay portions over and over (audacity works especially well for this)....as you do so, say the words aloud, play the 'tape' and repeat. What seemed like garbled/fast will become clearer as time goes on.

Good luck with your studies.

[FireInTheSky]

Personally I never liked pimsleur It never got my full attention and I thought it was pretty boring. But that's just my opinion though..

[Rumblecat]

I'm up to lesson 28 out of 30 on Pimsleur. I think it's helped my spoken Thai a lot- the main advantage is that goes slow- it makes you repeat words, understand them, and then in later lessons it'll bring back words and situations and phrases from earlier ones. It's pretty well organised as well- they recommend you repeat each lesson till you've got it around 80% memorised and then move onto the next one. Some lessons I had to repeat seven or eight times, others were easier. It's not cheap but I've found it very useful. Each lesson clocks in at 30 minutes.

I've tried a few other audio ones but they were terrible- stock phrases, not explanation of the words contained within, speaking way too fast, and no review process. The advantage of Pimselur is that it uses role playing, so you take part in the conversations, rather than just listen dumbly.

You can listen to the first five minutes of lesson one here- http://www.pimsleurmp3.org/pimsleur-thai-i-part-1-mp3.html- just click on the buttons above Level 1 Part 1, under the picture. It gives a pretty good example of the style and speed of the course.

[rch1023]

Personally I never liked pimsleur It never got my full attention and I thought it was pretty boring. But that's just my opinion though..

I didn't like Pimsleur too. I am UK English, and Pimsleur is US English. I kept hitting US idioms which jarred with my UK English, so that when my mind got to Thai, it was L1-L2-L3. and did not work.

I really needed non-idiomatic US, or UK, English. And I still haven't found it!

- Roger -

[exbelg]

i tried pimsleur 30 lessons

not cheap

and all you learn in fact is to speak to a hooker you want to buy beer of asking how much it is for a night in the hotel

[Anyse]

I am now using a combination of things:

1. A flashcard system

2. iPod 101 Thai

3. Thai for Beginners

For dictionaries, I use the Becker-Pirazzi "Thai-English English-Thai Dictionary" with the 3 lookup systems: Thai, English and Thai Sound (which has been helpful when I can't figure out the script). I have this in paperback as well as on my iPhone. This is, by far, the best dictionary for the iPhone. I have tried ALL of them and this one has features that others just don't have: enlarging the typeface (usually Thai script is too small on an iPhone screen!), copy/pasting within the dictionary entry itself, a lookup system using all three systems of the Thai paperback edition, and all entries with Thai and English spoken for each word/phrase.

Well, there you have my 2-bits on this. Also, does anyone else know where the term "2 bits" comes from? HINT: It only goes up increments of 2's and only up to 6.

[Rumblecat]

i tried pimsleur 30 lessons

not cheap

and all you learn in fact is to speak to a hooker you want to buy beer of asking how much it is for a night in the hotel

Nah, that's utter nonsense. If that's all you really took from 15 hours of lessons, then fair enough, but probably says more about yourself and your attitude to towards Thailand than Pimsleur. Although if you're doing each lesson two to three times (sometimes more) in order to fully comprehend them, so you're sinking anywhere from 30 to 45+ hours into it, wasn't there a point after eighteen or nineteen hours where you thought the course wasn't for you, if all you'd retained was being able to ask the price of something? And that all you could apply that to was the concept of paying for sex? I'd have probably been a wee bit depressed if that was me, as much for my stunning lack of imagination as for anything else.