How Long Did It Take You To Become Fluent?

[Naam]

39 years ago i became fluent in Thai whilst having a Singapore Sling in a BKK bar learning to count from one to ten. the teaching lady behind the bar told me that i'm a natural talent and suggested "i go loom you and teach number much more?"

hihihi

were you "pushing fast numbers" (excuse the germanism) ?

i did not push any numbers because i did not take her to "loom me"

[coma]

ทำไมคนที่ไม่มีความสามารถแบบนี้อวดความไม่รู้ เพราะอะไรไม่อ่ายเอย คิดว่าการแอบเป็นคนขี้เกียจดีกว่า

ไม่ขี้เกียจเลยครับ ภาษาไทยยากมาก มีความสามารถแบบนี้นิดหน่อยครับ จำเป็นต้องคุยกับเฟซบุ๊กทุกวันครับ อาจจะเจอแฟนใหม่ด้วยครับ

๕๕๕

[CaptHaddock]

๕ ปี

เรียนที่โรงเรียนนานเท่าไหร่

๕ ปี ครับ แล้วช่วงเวลา ๕ ปีนั้น ผมก็อยู่ในเมืองไทยตลอดเวลา

นี้เป็นจุดสำคัญมากนะครับ ที่ได้เรียนและอยู่ในประเทศไทยขณะเดียวกัน เพราะว่าหลังจากเรียนเสร็จแล้ว ก็ต้องออกจากห้องเรียนแล้วก็ได้ใช้แต่ภาษาไทยเท่านั้นเอง ทำให้นักศึกษาได้เรียนรู้ และ พูด อ่าน และเขียนภาษาไทยได้อย่างคล่อง และมีประสิทธภาพเร็วที่สุด

นี้คือความคิดเห็นของตัวเองเท่านั้นนะครับ คุณ หรอคนอื่น ๆ อาจจะมีความคิดเห็นหรือประสบการณ์ที่แตกต่างกันก็ได้ครับ

ถึงแม้ว่านักเรียนต้องเลิกห้องเรียนสุดท้ายก็ตามแน่อน แต่คิดว่าเขาต้องได้รับหลักฐานภาษาไดยที่โรงเรียนก่อนนั้น

Edited November 14, 2012 by CaptHaddock

[leosmith]

ทำไมคนที่ไม่มีความสามารถแบบนี้อวดความไม่รู้ เพราะอะไรไม่อ่ายเอย คิดว่าการแอบเป็นคนขี้เกียจดีกว่า

Good to see another HTLAL person here. There are translation tools that make this pretty easy to understand for non Thai speakers, btw:)

I agree with kriswillems, but will say that 1 or 2 years would be quite difficult due to listening. I've found it to be more difficult than other aspects of the language, for some reason. And that's comparing it to other languages too.

[CaptHaddock]

ทำไมคนที่ไม่มีความสามารถแบบนี้อวดความไม่รู้ เพราะอะไรไม่อ่ายเอย คิดว่าการแอบเป็นคนขี้เกียจดีกว่า

Good to see another HTLAL person here. There are translation tools that make this pretty easy to understand for non Thai speakers, btw:)

I agree with kriswillems, but will say that 1 or 2 years would be quite difficult due to listening. I've found it to be more difficult than other aspects of the language, for some reason. And that's comparing it to other languages too.

1. HTLAL? Who's he when he is at home?

2. Of course, btw.

3. I have the impression that spoken Thai is inordinately difficult to comprehend, but I remember feeling that way about French in my university days. How long did it take you to be able to understand most Thai speech?

[GarryP]

If you can hold a telephone conversation with a Thai who is unknown to you, then you are fluent in the Thai language.

I can't agree with this. There are 4 aspects to fluency, 1.) Speaking and being understood. 2.) Listening and understanding what you're hearing. 3.) Reading, and 4.) Writing coherently. Telephone conversations include only 2 of those 4 skills.

So by your definition, illiterate Thais are not fluent!!!!!! I would have to disagree.

As for myself, I speak, listen and read but am unable to write. I can speak on all manner of subjects apart from the most technical, and often do not notice whether I am watching a TV program in Thai or English. It is all the same to me as I do not need to translate/interpret from one language to the other. My vocabulary and proficiency is such that Thais at the office ask me how to translate words from Thai to English and vice versa. But they have to write my responses themselves. Boy do I wish I had had the time to study the language and learn to write. Coma's written skills are impressive. Seriously jealous.

Edited November 21, 2012 by GarryP

[leosmith]

1. HTLAL? Who's he when he is at home?

2. Of course, btw.

3. I have the impression that spoken Thai is inordinately difficult to comprehend, but I remember feeling that way about French in my university days. How long did it take you to be able to understand most Thai speech?

1. there are 2 of you? god save us!

3. Yes, the only language I speak that's comparable is Mandarin in listening difficulty. I find it harder to understand than spoken Japanese, Russian, and much more difficult than French, for example. It took me a couple years to comfortably understand the person I was talking to; that was about 500 hours of study, so it could have been done in less than a year. But as far as listening in on other people's conversations, watching movies, news, etc, I don't consider myself more than about 60-70% on the average, and that's after 8 years and maybe 2000 hours.

[xoxman]

Is this the level of fluency you are talking about here ?

[thaibutty]

If you can hold a telephone conversation with a Thai who is unknown to you, then you are fluent in the Thai language.

I can't agree with this. There are 4 aspects to fluency, 1.) Speaking and being understood. 2.) Listening and understanding what you're hearing. 3.) Reading, and 4.) Writing coherently. Telephone conversations include only 2 of those 4 skills.

So by your definition, illiterate Thais are not fluent!!!!!! I would have to disagree.

I agree with you. But it´s not only about completely illiterate Thais, but also about the vast numbers of Thais who left school after ม2 or ม3 and might not have been the best students before that. They don´t have the vocabulary to understand everything being said in the Thai news. Many of them don´t understand everything they read in the newspaper.

But this is the same with native speakers from English speaking countries, or in my case Germany. Even for native speakers there is a big difference in the proficiency not only in written language but also in spoken language.

For me fluency is about being able to have conversations about almost any topic, excluding special vocabulary, such as legal, medical or technical. The most important factor would be if you are being understood by complete strangers and being able to have a conversation on the phone.

[CaptHaddock]

If you can hold a telephone conversation with a Thai who is unknown to you, then you are fluent in the Thai language.

I can't agree with this. There are 4 aspects to fluency, 1.) Speaking and being understood. 2.) Listening and understanding what you're hearing. 3.) Reading, and 4.) Writing coherently. Telephone conversations include only 2 of those 4 skills.

So by your definition, illiterate Thais are not fluent!!!!!! I would have to disagree.

I agree with you. But it´s not only about completely illiterate Thais, but also about the vast numbers of Thais who left school after ม2 or ม3 and might not have been the best students before that. They don´t have the vocabulary to understand everything being said in the Thai news. Many of them don´t understand everything they read in the newspaper.

But this is the same with native speakers from English speaking countries, or in my case Germany. Even for native speakers there is a big difference in the proficiency not only in written language but also in spoken language.

For me fluency is about being able to have conversations about almost any topic, excluding special vocabulary, such as legal, medical or technical. The most important factor would be if you are being understood by complete strangers and being able to have a conversation on the phone.

At some point there is a useful distinction to be made between fluency of the kind that any native speaker may be expected to have and one's own aspirational goals of competency, which may surpass that. I certainly expect in the future to be understood by strangers and to be able to converse on the phone. In fact my goal is to be as competent in Thai as I am in English. Fluency seems like a useful minimum, rather than an ultimate, goal.

[leosmith]

I think arguing about what "fluent" means is a total waste of time. I've seen it on every language forum I've ever trolled, and nobody ever agrees to anything. What's more, there is never interesting or helpful information exchanged in these fluency discussions. The only time I ever use the word is when people ask me if I'm fluent. I ask them to define what they mean by that, and they usually want to know if I can hold a conversation. But without a description, the word is useless.