Six Months Of Study Of Thai Language – A Success Story

[ChristianPFC]

Six months of study of Thai language – A success story

I read reports by people who have been trying to learn Thai for years, there are even people who live in Thailand and don't make an effort, therefore here my story to share my experiences and to encourage others.

Books, websites and Thai Language School mentioned here do not present recommendations, as I don't have a profund knowledge of the market. If you really want to learn Thai, it probably doesn't make much difference which book or course you use. (The only thing to avoid is romanization.)

On 01.12.2010 I arrived in Thailand with about zero knowledge of the Thai language (I knew from previous holidays that "Sawatdee" means hello and "baan" is house). Now I can read and write (and to a lesser extent speak and listen) basic Thai.

Courses I attended (all at Thai Language Solutions Phaya Thai branch, no ED-visa):

Speaking and Listening 1: 50 h 6500 Baht + Text books 2*500 Baht

From begin of December to mid-January, 3 h/day 5 days/week.

(This course uses romanization, but there was no reading and writing course starting in begin of December and I wanted to start immediately. Later it turned out that it was quite useless, as I learn visuel and different systems of romanization are just confusing.)

Reading and Writing 1: 8 h 1200 Baht (out of a 50 h course for 7500 Baht, then switched to intensive) Mid-December to mid-January 3 h/day 2 days/week.

Intensive Reading 20 h private tuition 8000 Baht

Mid-January to mid-February, flexible

It turned out that private tuition is better than studying in a class: the higher costst are easily compensated as you have the teacher's full attention and you only hear Thai from a native speaker.

During my hibernation in Thailand (11 weeks from December to February) I had the chance to practise my Thai with my Thai friends and to get help from them. On the other hand, 78 h of classes in 11 weeks might look meagre, but this was a holiday and I used it to sleep travel around in Thailand and Laos.

In March, back in Europe, the real work started: learning words and reading and listening, on average 2h per day, every day. I use flashcards to translate words in both directions and read English sentences and their Thai translation textbooks, then cover the sentence and try to write it down in Thai. (and soon only read the English sentence and try to write it down in Thai). And listen to audiofiles of Thai Basic reader and reading the Thai script, translating unknown words, and finally listen without reading until I understand. With flashcards, I learned the entire vocabulary (720 words) of "Thai for beginners", and this enables me to understand half of general Thai texts (written by Thais for Thais). An amazing achievement! I can touch-type Thai as well (I printed out a Thai keyboard and looked at the printout while typing words for the flashcards).

Literature I use:

Poomsan Becker:Thai for Beginners (book only 299 Baht)

Tiger Press Thai Phrasebook with Tones (195 Baht) + CD (95 Baht) (not available in every bookshop, I bought it in Khao San road after having a look through a copy and seeing some things I liked, especially literal translation together with translation by sense)

Lanna Innovation Thai Consonant and Vowel Cards (250 Baht each)

David Smyth Thai an Essential Grammar (pdf free)

http://www.intermediate-thai.org (free, which I consider rather beginners level)

http://siamwestdc.co...er-UH/index.htm Thai Basic Reader (free, which I consider intermediate, this suits my requiremets almost perfect, speed of speech a bit slower would be nice)

Stuart Campbell and Chuan Shaweevongs THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE THAI LANGUAGE (Fifth Edition) (free in internet, I agree with others who said that is is an excellent book)

Working with different sources is very important for me: When I read something in book B and remember that I read in book A before the effect for learning is much bigger than reading it twice in book A.

Let me draw some paralles between Thai and French (maybe these are far fetched, if you don't speak French and are not interested in grammar, just skip it) and to a lesser extent German and Russian.

Thai demonstrative adjectives and demonstrative pronouns come in different forms:

demonstrative adjective: นี้ นั้น โน้น

demonstrative pronound: นี่ นั่น โน่น

the same is true for some French possessive adjectives and pronouns:

possessive adjective: notre, votre

possessive pronoun: le nôtre, le vôtre

If you need a mnemonic: the French pronouns have a circonflex, which is used in romanisations to indicate the falling tone in the Thai pronouns.

There are endings in many French words (especially masculine or feminine singular and plural past participles and adjectives: é, ée, és, ées) that are written in different ways but pronounced the same, similar to Thai words where an ending in N or T can be represented by different vowels, or even worse an ending vowel with a gaaran. And I often don't know if a French adverb ends in –ammant, -emmant or – ément, because it all sounds the same to me (maybe a native speaker pronounces differently and hears which ending is correct), whereas I often have problems to decide which S to use: sua, rusi, sala. Similar the Russian prefixes без and бес (maybe again problem only due to my wrong unclear pronunciation of hard and soft S).

Early during my studies of French language I notices that many internationally used abbreviations have the order of letters inversed or partially inversed (NATO – OTAN, UNO – ONU, AIDS – SIDA, VAT value added tax – TAV taxe à la valeur ajoutée, NMR nuclear magnetic resonance – RMN résonnance magnétique nucléaire, HIV - VIH) and later I read that French is postmodifying, i.e. (most) adjectives follow the noun, same as in Thai!

The pronunciation of voiced consonant like their voiceless counterpart at the end of a word appears in German and Russian as well. Amazingly, this even affects the same consonants: the pairs G -> K, B -> P, D -> T (romanized for Thai and Russian). When we say in German "Guten Tag", the first G sounds like G, the final G sounds like K.

My breakthrough with tones came when I read that high class consonants are all those who are pronounced with rising tone. If it's rising tone, it's a high class consonant. If it's a high class consonant, it's rising tone. This sounds like a bootstrap, and it is. But it reinforces class of consonant and tone. Starting from high class + long vowel = rising tone we can extend to live syllable (as it makes no difference for the phonetics if there is long vowel or a voiced consonant), and the rest quickly falls into place.

I'm not an expert of neither French, nor grammar, nor Thai, nor do I know which is the best book or language school. I can just tell you that the approach described above works for me (self-assessment, we will see on my next holiday how I far I can really get). If you find a mistake or disagree on certain points, let me know.

Problems that remain: use of classifiers, different fonts, word order, dictionary order, unwritten vowels in unknown words. The absence of gaps between the words does not pose a problem. So far, learning Thai (once I got used to the alphabet and the tones) is considerably easier than French or Russian.

I remember a sign in a couldn't read as it was in a font not used , and weeks later I came across the same place and I suddenly understood. Or the optician chain Charoen: I couldn't make any sense of the Thai letters, until I learned that there can be unwritten "a" sounds and the "oe" sound is wrapped around "ch" and "r" and the unwritten "a".

I rember that I asked Thai friends to tell me the names of letters I didn't know at that thime or didn't remember in January. I remember how I sat in classes reading slowly in February: first determining which sound a letter makes and then calculating the tone. I did this backwards: live or dead syllable from the end consonant, tone mark or short or long vowel, class of initial consonant. It was exhausting! I almost had headache after doing so for half an hour. Now I do it forwards with not much difficulty.

Edited June 3, 2011 by ChristianPFC

[Deserted]

In what sense is this a success story? I hope that's not all you learnt in 6 months.

[Peppy]

In what sense is this a success story? I hope that's not all you learnt in 6 months.

I suppose you expected he'd be near-native after six months...

I for one consider the OP's achievement (learning to read and speak at a basic level in six months) to be a success story. Of course, he's got knowledge of lots of different languages that he can draw parallels with, but I think his main point is that if you put in the hours with a wide variety of materials you can get pretty far in a short amount of time. To the OP, I say congratulations, and best of luck on your way to fluency!

[kokesaat]

Screw what others think about the legitimacy of your success story. If you're happy, then you've been successful in your studies.

If you can read even basic store signs, then you know more Thai than most expats. Keep plugging away....it'll continue to get better. โชคดีครับ

[hehehoho]

Well done.

Don't let the haters put you off learning a language that is completely useless in all but one little Asian backwater.

[aitch]

The Thai language opens the door to learn other languages based on Indic script. Clearly in the cards for the OP.

[bino]

I also took 20 hours of lessons, one on one with a very good Thai teacher. She started me out with children's books, complete with pictures of all the "names" of the alphabetic characters. As such, I also learned to read and write in Thai. I find it most useful when driving; I can read the street signs easily, especially the smaller "shortcut signs" that navigate you through the labyrinth of back-sois which do not have English language on them. The car is also a great classroom to learn the alphabet while sitting in traffic. Start by reading the tag numbers on the cars around you, then move up to reading the provinces that the cars come from.

My problem now is vocabulary- I need more. The reason the language is most useful for me on the road is because I know the names / what I should be reading. Same with reading menus - I already knew the names of most foods.

For all the guys out there who start the monthly "where do I find a nice woman in Thailand" threads, learning the language is a logical first step. It never fails to amaze and impress a Thai if you can write their name! Name tags are also fun. Once a girl realizes that you are trying to read / sound out her name, you're allowed to look! Most will oblige even further by pushing their chest out for easier reading!

On a more practical note, I've often wondered about if something were to happen to Ms. Bino. I am confident that I could find / read her name on critical documents. How many guys out there are married to a Thai and don't know how to read / spell their wife's name?

Edited June 5, 2011 by bino

[Slappz]

Good post, and thanks for the links!

[ChristianPFC]

Twelve months of study of Thai language – A success story

For my report after six months, see original post.

Kudos to a Farang friend who told me that bp is pronounced like the French P in Paris and dt like the French t in table.

Some problems that remain: use of classifiers and particles, reading different fonts (it’s getting better), word order.

Now I study Thai about 1 hour per day. In the beginning it was a bit more, so I guess in the twelve months I spent about 500 hours learning Thai.

I currently know between 1000 and 1500 Thai words, let’s say 1200, which means I can learn 100 words per month, which is comparable to English, French and Russian (I increased my vocabulary in these languages with flashcards over the last three years). Interpolating these results, I think I can become fluent in Thai in 10-20 years if I continue studying in Europe with two holidays per year in Thailand, two weeks each. If I were living in Thailand, I think it would take 2-5 years to become fluent.

Here some picture to show my progress:

My very first Thai lesson (I started with transcription and quickly switched to Thai):

Now reading Thai Basic Reader (www.siamwestd.com) and listening to the audio files and writing translations for unknown words in the margin or a sign that they are in the vocabulary section for that lesson or that they are in a previous lesson (but I didn’t remember the word, but when I looked it up I knew I came across it before). This page is the beginning of the series, now there are far fewer notes on my pages.

My Thai handwriting. I have a stack of about 2000 flashcards, I translate from English to Thai and write down the Thai word. Upper sheet clean handwriting, lower sheet fast writing.

I’m reading Aesop’s fables in English and Thai. When I read the English first I undestand about 80% of the Thai text, but when I read Thai I understand about 50% which is usually not enough to get the message.

Here an arbitrary extract from a chat with a Thai man on camfrog in October. (Technically, this could be considered to be a breach of privacy, but it contains no private information and serves educational purposes.) I can touch type Thai, but have a printout of the Thai keyboard so I can look up rarer letters.

christianpfc (00:33:53) : คุณอยู่ที่ไหน

Thai friend (00:35:41) : บางกอก

christianpfc (00:36:02) : ครับ

Thai friend (00:39:26) : ทำอะไรคับ

christianpfc (00:39:49) : ห้องอื่น

Thai friend (00:40:02) : ห้องไหน

christianpfc (00:40:58) : GAY_BAD_BOYi

Thai friend (00:43:30) : ไปไหนแล้ว

christianpfc (00:44:35) : ตอนนี้

Thai friend (00:45:20) : คุณมีแฟนหรือยัง

christianpfc (00:45:35) : ไม่มีแฟน

Thai friend (00:45:55) : อายุเท่าไหร่

christianpfc (00:46:07) : 31

Thai friend (00:46:40) : คุณชอบผมไหม

christianpfc (00:47:00) : ชอบครับ

Thai friend (00:47:14) : คุณเขียนภาษาไทยได้ไหม

christianpfc (00:47:24) : ได้

christianpfc (00:47:38) : เรียนภาษาไทยที่กรุงเทพ

Thai friend (00:47:59) : คุณอ่านภาษาไทยออกไหมคีับ

christianpfc (00:48:25) : ได้

Thai friend (00:48:41) : คุณพูดภาษาไทยได้ไหมคับ

christianpfc (00:48:57) : พูดได้

Thai friend (00:48:59) : พูดชัดไหมคับ

Thai friend (00:49:44) : เก่งจังอ่ะ

Thai friend (00:49:54) : มีเปิดหนังสือด้วยยย

Thai friend (00:50:07) : คุณเก่งมากกกก

Thai friend (00:50:22) : ฉันชอบที่คุณเก่งๆ

christianpfc (00:50:30) : พจนุกรม

Thai friend (00:50:38) : ใช่

Thai friend (00:50:55) : ที่เรียกว่า ดิกชันนารี ใช่ไหมคับ

christianpfc (00:51:22) : ครับ

Thai friend (00:51:46) : ตอนนี้ที่ฝรั่งเศสเป็นเวลาเท่าไหร่คับ

Thai friend (00:52:36) : คุณคุยกับฉันไหม

christianpfc (00:52:42) : 00:52

christianpfc (00:53:00) : ครับ

Thai friend (00:53:22) : ต่างกับประเทศไทย ราว 6 ชั่วโมง

Thai friend (00:53:57) : ตอนนี้ที่เมืองไทย 6.00 น.

christianpfc (00:54:17) : เข้าใจ

Thai friend (00:54:33) : คุณมีอะไรจะคุยกับฉันไหม

Thai friend (00:54:50) : ฉันอยากคุยกับคุณมาก

christianpfc (00:54:58) : ครับ

christianpfc (00:55:19) : ฉันชอบเห็นคุณครับ

Thai friend (00:55:33) : ฉันไม่หล่อแล้ว

Thai friend (00:55:41) : คุณหล่อกว่ามาก

christianpfc (00:55:55) : ขอบคุณครับ

Thai friend (00:56:01) : คุณยิ้มหน่อยสิ

Thai friend (00:56:23) : หล่อมากกก

Thai friend (00:56:42) : คุณตาสีฟ้าเหมือนน้ำทะเล

christianpfc (00:57:49) : ฉันตาสืน้ำตาล

Thai friend (00:58:10) : เราออกจากห้อง มาคุยกันสองคนดีไหม

Thai friend (00:58:18) : จะได้ไม่มีใครบกวน

christianpfc (00:58:48) : ครับ

Thai friend (00:59:18) : ออกไหม

Thai friend (00:59:26) : แล้วเปิดกล้องกัน

Thai friend (01:00:11) : ออกแล้วนะ

christianpfc (01:00:23) : ออก

Thai friend (01:00:30) : ครับ

Thai friend (01:00:33) : มาแล้ว

Thai friend (01:01:16) : ฉันมีเรื่องอยากพูดคุยกับเธอเยอะแยะ มากมายเลยล่ะ

christianpfc (01:01:45) : ครับ

Thai friend (01:02:16) : คุณอยู่เมืองอะไรในประเทศฝรั่งเศส

christianpfc (01:02:53) : ไกล้เมืองปารืศ

Thai friend (01:03:21) : ฉันรู้จักปารีส

Thai friend (01:03:39) : ฉันเคยดูในภาพยนตร์

Thai friend (01:03:48) : ที่มีหอ ไอเฟล

christianpfc (01:04:11) : ครับ หอ ไอเฟล

christianpfc (01:04:38) : หอ ไอเฟล สูงมาก

Thai friend (01:04:47) : ฉันชอบฝรั่งเศส

I can understand about 90% of what my Thai friends write, and give the appropriate answer to about 50%. Sometimes I have to consult a dictionary (online or paper). Some of my Thai friends have serious problems with orthography, but I can guess the correct word in most cases.

[khaan]

In what sense is this a success story? I hope that's not all you learnt in 6 months.

I suppose you expected he'd be near-native after six months...

I for one consider the OP's achievement (learning to read and speak at a basic level in six months) to be a success story. Of course, he's got knowledge of lots of different languages that he can draw parallels with, but I think his main point is that if you put in the hours with a wide variety of materials you can get pretty far in a short amount of time. To the OP, I say congratulations, and best of luck on your way to fluency!

I second that!

[khaan]

I'm reading Aesop's fables in English and Thai. When I read the English first I undestand about 80% of the Thai text, but when I read Thai I understand about 50% which is usually not enough to get the message.

I can understand about 90% of what my Thai friends write, and give the appropriate answer to about 50%. Sometimes I have to consult a dictionary (online or paper). Some of my Thai friends have serious problems with orthography, but I can guess the correct word in most cases.

WOW Christian to be able to type Thai online quickly enough to chat is an incredible achievement in such a short period of time! I am envious of you

coincidentally it was only this week someone advised me to read children's books. Where did you happen to buy Aesop's fables in English and Thai?

[bifftastic]

Hi Christian,

thanks for posting

You mention "David Smyth Thai an Essential Grammar (pdf free)"

Any chance of a link? I had a quick 'google' but couldn't find a free pdf.

Thanks

[kokesaat]

I picked up a few Aesops fables style books the other day at a book store that mostly sells school books for grades ป.1 to ป.6. They had a whole line of these books....each priced at 35 baht.

As for typing Thai, I used Thai Typing Tutor 1.04. Unfortunately, I don't believe the current download works (for some strange reason), but I'm sure there are similar programs out there. If you can type on a normal keyboard (all 10 fingers), using this type of program should have you typing Thai at a relatively good speed in about 2 weeks, with 15 minutes of practice a day.

[craigt3365]

One post has been removed due to links to copyrighted materials. Per forum rules:

17) Not to post links to pages that contain objectionable material. This includes, warez, cracks, pornography, pyramid schemes, referral ID's, eBay listings and requests for donations. Discussion of file-sharing of pirated material is prohibited, however file sharing for legal purposes is allowed.

:jap:

[ChristianPFC]

One post has been removed due to links to copyrighted materials.

That was my post. Fortunately, I have a copy of it, so I can post the part that complies with the rules again (which makes me wonder, why the entire post was deleted, which contained only a small part of problematic content? Actually reading the post before deleting would have been a good idea!)

The Aesop fables was a random purchase in a shopping centre. They have these mobile stalls that sell stuff in the aisles (or waiting areas in Hua Lampong railway station or Ekkamai bus station). The trick is to find a book for children, that is densely packed with stories (47 in my book), because I don't want to pay for pictures and a fancy cover.

Long ago, I opened a thread asking where I can find such books, but obviously you have to keep your eyes open and be lucky. I saw two volumes with 50 fables each in January in Ekkamai Busstation, but missed to buy them. In June, I had to settle down for the book with 47 stories (see picture above). In all bookshops I checked, they only had editions that contained too many pictures, too fancy covers and too little stories for my taste.

Edited December 7, 2011 by ChristianPFC

[manarak]

VAT value added tax – TAV taxe à la valeur ajoutée,

nah, it's TVA, Taxe sur la Valeur Ajoutée, but your general point about abbreviations is valid. The reason for the letters being in the opposite order is that latin languages put the most important thing first.

So a blue car becomes a "car blue" or "rot see fah" :-)

[craigt3365]

One post has been removed due to links to copyrighted materials.

That was my post. Fortunately, I have a copy of it, so I can post the part that complies with the rules again (which makes me wonder, why the entire post was deleted, which contained only a small part of problematic content? Actually reading the post before deleting would have been a good idea!)

The Aesop fables was a random purchase in a shopping centre. They have these mobile stalls that sell stuff in the aisles (or waiting areas in Hua Lampong railway station or Ekkamai bus station). The trick is to find a book for children, that is densely packed with stories (47 in my book), because I don't want to pay for pictures and a fancy cover.

Long ago, I opened a thread asking where I can find such books, but obviously you have to keep your eyes open and be lucky. I saw two volumes with 50 fables each in January in Ekkamai Busstation, but missed to buy them. In June, I had to settle down for the book with 47 stories (see picture above). In all bookshops I checked, they only had editions that contained too many pictures, too fancy covers and too little stories for my taste.

The post that was removed had a link to "Thai an Essential Grammar" book. I did look at the book, and it does have a copyright. Here is the text from the book:

First published 2002 by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

© 2002 David Smyth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,

or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including

photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

We take this quite seriously as this opens us up to potential lawsuits.

Hope you understand.

[manarak]

One post has been removed due to links to copyrighted materials.

That was my post. Fortunately, I have a copy of it, so I can post the part that complies with the rules again (which makes me wonder, why the entire post was deleted, which contained only a small part of problematic content? Actually reading the post before deleting would have been a good idea!)

The Aesop fables was a random purchase in a shopping centre. They have these mobile stalls that sell stuff in the aisles (or waiting areas in Hua Lampong railway station or Ekkamai bus station). The trick is to find a book for children, that is densely packed with stories (47 in my book), because I don't want to pay for pictures and a fancy cover.

Long ago, I opened a thread asking where I can find such books, but obviously you have to keep your eyes open and be lucky. I saw two volumes with 50 fables each in January in Ekkamai Busstation, but missed to buy them. In June, I had to settle down for the book with 47 stories (see picture above). In all bookshops I checked, they only had editions that contained too many pictures, too fancy covers and too little stories for my taste.

The post that was removed had a link to "Thai an Essential Grammar" book. I did look at the book, and it does have a copyright. Here is the text from the book:

First published 2002 by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

© 2002 David Smyth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,

or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including

photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or

retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

We take this quite seriously as this opens us up to potential lawsuits.

Hope you understand.

This is not for discussing moderation, but rather make a legal comment on what you posted about copyright above.

The copyright notices can mostly be ignored as most are invalid.

The determinant for intellectual property is national law of the country where the poster (christianPFC) and/or the publisher (Thai Visa) is domiciled.

Most countries know a right to publish short excerpts on fair use basis without infringing the copyright on the whole work.

It's just a point I wanted to make - I don't know how Thailand handles fair use and publication of short excerpts, and if the Thai Visa editorial team doesn't know either, removing the post was the safe thing to do.

But doing a legal research on that topic could be beneficial for the future.

EDIT:

in fact the research was quite easy, since Thai lawyers published an article on this topic:

http://www.tillekeandgibbins.com/sites/default/files/informed_counsel_vol1_no4_p10.pdf

It seems short excerpts can indeed be published on fair use basis.

Edited December 8, 2011 by manarak