Tips On How To Fail To Learn Thai

[CaptHaddock]

After reading a lot of comments about how impossible or undesirable it is to learn the Thai language well, it seems that we need a thread with practical advice to caution those who are at risk of actually learning it. I thought I would kick it off with a few helpful observations I have picked up from these discussions so far.

Meeting the following conditions should ensure that you do indeed fail even if you remain in the country for decades.

1. Start with language competence in one language only, English.

2. Although you yourself speak only one language, you should have great confidence in the value of books and tapes alone to enable you to speak, read, and write Thai. You believe this even though you have never met anyone who has achieved fluency in any language using only books and tapes.

3. Assume that language skills are actually talents, which a person simply either has or does not have, rather than the result of long, tedious effort. The ability to produce the correct Thai tones is a good example. Some people naturally have the "hang" of it and others are destined never to be able to produce those sounds.

4. Do not study Thai at a university.

5. If you choose to study at a school, select the school based on its low price.

6. Believe that learning a language should be stress-free and, indeed at all times, fun. If you sometimes feel uncomfortable in speaking situations for which your level is not adequate or find that remembering the thousands of essential vocabulary words requires never-ending review, and feel stressed-out or even humiliated on occasion when Thai people either laugh at you or ignore you, then switch to another method, book, or school that promises a stress-free, fun learning experience based on its own unique methodology.

7. If possible, start with a low level of educational achievement in general. If you never learned much, you'll find it easy not to learn Thai.

8. Above all, aim low. Since underachievement is always more likely than overachievement in any ambitious learning project, by setting your goal as low as possible you are pretty certain of an even lower, indeed, abysmal result. For instance, you should decide that reading and writing are off the table from the start, especially since you expect neither to read nor write books in Thai yourself. Forget about ever being able to carry on a conversation with a Thai at the same level of complexity as you can in English. As a bonus, enjoy the warm camaraderie of the legions of expats like yourself who insist that competence in Thai in unachievable for expats.

[billd766]

That seems pretty good so far, however IMO you also need

1 to be youngish as your memory retention is better

2 to have good hearing as it is much harder if you cannot hear properly

3 to be able to discern the difference in the 5 tones

I am 68 and I can speak some Thai and understand a bit more but quite often when I talk to my Thai wife or Thai friends what I think I said may not have been what they heard as I may have got the pronunciation or the tone wrong. Neither of us are at fault really but at times it makes discussion difficult.

[Zooheekock]

9. Being tone deaf to cultural differences is always helpful or, better, having granite-like certainty in the innate superiority of your own way of doing things, regardless of what or who or where or when.

10. Repeat to yourself at least once a day and on forums like this whenever the opportunity arises the following handy mantras:

All the Thais worth speaking to speak English already.

Thai is a monkey language.

No matter how many decades one might end up living in Thailand for, learning Thai has zero utility.

11. Stay firm in the knowledge that being able to order a plate of ข้าวมันไก่ and pay for it using only Thai marks the ne plus ultra of linguistic achievements.

12. Finding a partner whose educational accomplishments are even lower than your own is undoubtedly helpful.

13. Supreme indifference to what is happening in your environment can be very, very useful in not learning Thai. If, by some misfortune, you do become interested in the country, convince yourself that the English-language media fairly and accurately reflect what is happening in Thailand.

14. Above all, soak yourself in the stereotypes which are endlessly circulated on forums such as this; the more dog-eared, threadbare or outlandish, the better.

[kokesaat]

What worked for me for several years (Tips On How To Fail To Learn Thai) was thinking I had to memorize all the consonants and vowels before I could start reading. Thank you Maani!