Learning To Speak Thai. How?

[Plala]

I have been studying thai for a few years now but my conversational skills are still pretty bad. I do reading better than anything else because I can read things at my own pace but I find it hard to keep up with normal talking speed. Having a conversation is hard since I need extra time to find words and make sentences. I was hoping to do a little more speaking now, as I will stay in the country for a month or so, but I dont really know any thais so pretty much the only time I speak thai is when I order food in the restaurants and its not helping me improve.

Any advice as how to find people to talk to or such? I appreciate any advice but please dont tell me to find a girl/boy-friend as I am not interested in that. I do not usually hang around bars, but I have read advice on this board about practicing with the women in such places. I tried it the other night but I felt a little unconfortable talking to them and taking up their time as I was not going to bring them back to my hotel for doing any of the usual man and woman in a hotel room stuff. Is it alright to just sit there and have your drinks while talking or what is expected if you do? And also I dont want to drink beer every night.

I am currently in the northeast and would like to stay here during my trip, preferably in a smaller town.

/Plala

Edited January 29, 2012 by Plala

[ubonrthai]

In a small town in the Northeast, there should be plenty of people to talk to. The rice has been harvested so people aren't as busy this time of year. Go to the police station or any other gov't building where you see people not very busy and just start talking. Are you near a Lotus? Go talk to the security guards who stand around and do nothing. Are you near a school? Go find the English teacher/s and ask to practice your Thai. They'll likely want to practice English with you as well.

Find study materials that have a lot of sample sentences. The Thai2English software is very good because it has so many sample sentences. You need to purchase the software to see the sample sentences. It's not on the web site. Best software there is for learning grammar in my opinion and I've tried many.

Thai Language Wiki also has good sample sentences.

Edited January 29, 2012 by ubonrthai

[mackes]

I studied Thai for a your now and struggled like you with self studied and my progress was extremely slow.

The construction of the Thai language is so different from english, I recignize your need to think before speaking. It's not only a matter of learning words, you need to learn a different way of thinking and construct sentences. Not to mention the tone thing...

What I did was to find an english speaking teacher (native Thai) with learning skills and it's been very successfull. After three months (3•2 hours/week) my progress is really noticable. I can now speak in simple terms with people in restaurangs and shops and is quickly gerting more and more advanced.

The teacher live in Korat and her name is Usanee ***pm for phone number**

Edited January 30, 2012 by sbk

[poanoi]

Yes, i strongly recommend a teacher that can explain the structure in speaking form,

or you won't be able to communicate with any form of consistency

[mackes]

...

Edited January 29, 2012 by mackes

[mrmazinkle]

you cannot do anything well without practise.. also live in a small eesarn town and have no option nut to speak Thai every day,evening in the market...I write things down..prtactise the tones and making sentences with new vocabulary..My Thai is ok....Recently just starting to read and write so your way ahead of me on that I have been to www.learningthai.com

I recommend this site..good luck

[Plala]

Thanks everyone for the answers. When I said small town I did not mean as small a town as some of you had in mind. I plan to stay in places like Nong Khai, Nakhon Phanom or of similar size. Just not Udon or Khorat big. Unfortunately, many people here in Nong Khai, at least hotel/restaurant staff, where Im currently at, do speak English, and its hard not to take the easy way out and talk English back with them. I prefer places where the people does not know English because then there can be only one way.

And Im not much of a writer. Even though I can understand many words, its many times harder to spell all of them correctly and at the same time make correct sentences. But I dont really care about that as I feel the other skills are much more important.

And I do have one suggestion for learning material. I was struggling to find good resources for listening practice where I also could read the same texts or paper/screen. Then I found it..The bible! No problem finding both free mp3s of the Thai bible from iTunes aswell as dual language bibles on the Internet. Plus, its been translated to almost any language sentence by sentence so its easy to find a translation to your language. The downside is of course that it contains many words that are not very useful in everyday situations but at least it is a lot to read or to listen to with good translations available. Plus its free.

[kriswillems]

Taking into account you've very little time in Thailand, I think you should look for a teacher, because this is for most people a much faster way of learning than just talking to anyone.

Maybe you can have a look at a local school/university and ask them if they can organize something for you.

About the bars. Like you, I don't think that sitting in a bar is a very efficient way to learn Thai. If you want to go there anyway, I think it's ok to talk to the girls in the typical beer-bars without taking them out.

I don't think the bible is a good book to learn Thai (for the reasons you mentioned). Have a look a look at www.womenlearnthai.com under "free resources" for better resources.

[cameozo]

Join a thai dating site. Post a real / fake picture depending on how good you look. Talk to girls on skype. If they don't have a mic don't talk to them. When the conversation runs out of steam block her and add another one.

At a beer bar talk to girl, don't drink alcohol, tip them extra if you feel bad about wasting their time. But remember you're buying this girl a drink. Show up a few times to the same place and see if the girls still come back to talk to you. When they do I'm sure you'll feel better about it.

Honestly I undersand your pain. I actually generally ONLY get speaking practice with the girls I'm currently ----ing. Teachers and schools work. You can probably hire someone to speak with for ~200 baht and hour. Might not be a bad idea. I'd probably recommend hiring a couple of those and men > women if you're a man of course.

[ChristianPFC]

Join a thai dating site. Post a real / fake picture depending on how good you look. Talk to girls on skype. If they don't have a mic don't talk to them. When the conversation runs out of steam block her and add another one.

I find this very impolite towards other members of the websites, just to block them when you run out of subjects to talk about.

Listening and Reading: I can recommend "Thai Basic Reader" (which is intermediate level): http://siamwestdc.co...er-UH/index.htm

Is has texts about various subjects, a list of vocabulary for each chapter and audio files.

For sentences in Thai and Englisch I use "Thai Flashcards" http://www.thai-flashcards.com/ (click on "sentences").

I use camfrog (chatroom) when I am in Europe, but there I mostly write Thai (in chatrooms for gay hookup). When in Thailand, there is no need to use a computer to contact people, just go out in the street.

I recommend against talking to bar ladies, as in bars there is usually loud music and flashing lights that would distract me, furthermore you and the lady have different aims (you want to speak Thai, she wants your money), and they speak low class Thai (I cannot judge myself, but read several times that high-society Thais notice if you learned Thai in the bar scene which will make you lose face).

Edited February 4, 2012 by ChristianPFC

[alexpoker]

I suggest that you find a thai teacher to teach you. It will usually cost you like 200b an hour, but maybe its cheaper in the smaller towns. This is prices in Chiang Mai.

Your thai learning will be sped up significantly! theres a huge difference between sitting in a classroom and just learning something 1on1. I started with a tutor even tho Im going to a language school and im learning at a 5-7x faster pace. Ive actually stopped attending classes because Im so far ahead now.