Thai And Mandarin

[gadg]

Hi ...

My primairy goal is to gain a basic level of Thai and on top of that I would also like to learn to speak Mandarin, also at a basic level. I've once read (I think it was The Nation) an article that these are similar in structure, which would lead me to believe both can easily be learned at the same time and it's just a matter of building a vocabulary.

My schedule currently allows for me to get into learning both at the same time. When I was in school I was learning 3 different languages at the same time, apart from my native tongue, so I would think it's possible. But perhaps I'm mistaken.

Any comments?

thanks,

Rob

(for both, I aim to only learn how to speak ... so not how to read and/or write)

[bmore99]

Hi ...

My primairy goal is to gain a basic level of Thai and on top of that I would also like to learn to speak Mandarin, also at a basic level...(for both, I aim to only learn how to speak ... so not how to read and/or write)

As a multilinguist myself, I wonder why you want to do both at the same time? When I was learning Spanish and French I would many times mix up the two. Same happens to me with Indonesian and Thai. The moment a word or structure gets too similar to the other language, I mix them up. In Thai and Mandarin there are many similar words.

Anyway, for learning I like the Rosetta Stone method of drilling expressions while changing individual words in them, they come with an image. I use image memory as my meta-language, this is faster and more correct than the translation method most people use.

Sorry I can't answer your question about the structure, but I'm very interested to know which learning method you use.

Ben

[doctormann]

Hi ...

My primairy goal is to gain a basic level of Thai and on top of that I would also like to learn to speak Mandarin, also at a basic level. I've once read (I think it was The Nation) an article that these are similar in structure, which would lead me to believe both can easily be learned at the same time and it's just a matter of building a vocabulary.

My schedule currently allows for me to get into learning both at the same time. When I was in school I was learning 3 different languages at the same time, apart from my native tongue, so I would think it's possible. But perhaps I'm mistaken.

Any comments?

thanks,

Rob

(for both, I aim to only learn how to speak ... so not how to read and/or write)

Hi

I can only give you some secondhand experience, so to speak:

When I started to learn Thai, which I found very difficult, there was a fluent Mandarin speaker in the same class. She made very rapid progress and soon left the rest of us way behind.

I suspect that this has something to do with the tonal nature of both languages. Thai has five tones and I think that Mandarin has seven (and Cantonese has even more, I think). So, maybe you can learn both at once and maybe it's not a good idea. When my daughter tried learning Spanish and Italian, which are closely related, she found it very confusing - now fluent in Spanish but doesn't speak Italian.

I don't know if the grammatical structure of Thai and Mandarin are similar - Thai is certainly quite different from any European language that I have tried. Good job that you don't want to read / write Mandarin - I believe that you need to know 30000 pictograms to be considered basically literate! At least Thai has an alphabet, albeit a pretty complex one!

Good luck

DM

[Axel]

Actually 4-5000 characters will make you literate in Chinese. Although this does not mean that you can speak, as same characters are pronounced completely different in Mandarin, Cantonese, Fukien etc. etc. and even Japanese. Even just 500 will help to understand much better and the combinations help.

E.g., if you know in English (for understanding) rail and road, you know two 'characters'. Put these together as railroad you know 3 already.

The OP does not give a location, but if in Thailand, I would go for Thai at least colloquial without writing/reading. If not, one should think how much the knowledge of Thai helps out side of the country if there are no (personal) connections.

For a better understanding of the language, and more so in Chinese, a bit knowledge of the characters goes a loooong way. It is irritating, to pronounce a word perfectly correct in Mandarin and the native speaker will only understand after having drawn some different characters on paper (or on the hand) and than pronounces same way.

V.v. it can be fun travelling and to see/understand the characters. Take the sign for 'middle' which is a rectangle with a vertical line through and over it. You'll find it in Japan, e.g. for in (there), in Hong Kong on traffic signs going to Central, in China in the coutry name (Middle Kingdom)

However, just for some phrases in pidgin it's ok to know the sentences. I can do that in a couple of languages where I lived over the years and it helps. Still regret that I did not study more, but suggest take one by one, not two languges from the beginning.

Even in European continentl schools they start with, let's say English, than after a few years go into French, Latin, Greek, but never at the same time.

Just my 2 RMB or Baht and I do not speak enoough nor can I write.

[mbkudu]

Hi ...

My primairy goal is to gain a basic level of Thai and on top of that I would also like to learn to speak Mandarin, also at a basic level...(for both, I aim to only learn how to speak ... so not how to read and/or write)

As a multilinguist myself, I wonder why you want to do both at the same time? When I was learning Spanish and French I would many times mix up the two. Same happens to me with Indonesian and Thai. The moment a word or structure gets too similar to the other language, I mix them up. In Thai and Mandarin there are many similar words.

Anyway, for learning I like the Rosetta Stone method of drilling expressions while changing individual words in them, they come with an image. I use image memory as my meta-language, this is faster and more correct than the translation method most people use.

Sorry I can't answer your question about the structure, but I'm very interested to know which learning method you use.

Ben

I am using the Rosetta Stone Mandarin Level 1 cd rom and it is better than any language learning tool I have ever used. It really works and has enabled me to learn fast. I've got the Level 2 as well and will continue with it once I feel confident that that I really know the the first level well. There is only one level in the Thai version. I have it, but I don't use it at the same time as the Mandarin. Many words in both languages are very similar, 'san'=3, 'saam'=3; 'xiang'=elephant, 'chang'=

elephant, ect, but the word order is not the same. Adjectives preceed nouns in Chinese, like English, but the opposite in Thai. Chinese, 'chang toufa'= long hair; Thai, 'pom yao'= hair long.

[Rikker]

That's very astute of you to notice the similarities in Chinese and Thai. The words you mention are borrowed into Thai from Chinese. In fact, most of the Thai numerals are, although some have changed quite a bit over the centuries.

For example, in Mandarin, the sound /m/ at the end of words became /n/. So the Thai is actuallly closer to the Old Chinese than Mandarin is now in this respect!

[uhuh]

Hi ...

My primairy goal is to gain a basic level of Thai and on top of that I would also like to learn to speak Mandarin, also at a basic level. I've once read (I think it was The Nation) an article that these are similar in structure, which would lead me to believe both can easily be learned at the same time and it's just a matter of building a vocabulary.

My schedule currently allows for me to get into learning both at the same time. When I was in school I was learning 3 different languages at the same time, apart from my native tongue, so I would think it's possible. But perhaps I'm mistaken.

Any comments?

thanks,

Rob

(for both, I aim to only learn how to speak ... so not how to read and/or write)

As others have mentioned, if you learn these two languages at the same time you are going to mix them up because they are too similar. If you are currently in Thailand learn Thai first.

If you are a native speaker of English or another Indoeuropean language you will find the structure of Thai and Mandarin grammar quite similar. I was fluent in Mandarin when I started to learn Thai and a lot of Thai grammar feel quite obvious when you are used to Mandarin grammar.

Phonology and especially tones (Thai has 5, Mandarin 4) are another similarity. It is very hard for speakers of non-tonal languages to learn them, and I don't think it is a good idea to learn the the tones of Thai and Mandarin at the same time - they are not identical and you will mix them up.

[gisele]

I lived in China, I was learning Mandarin just by immersion, I took some courses for some basic grammar and generally learned from a book on my own, I never got fluent but I could manage.

When I moved here, I found that`having learned some Mandarin was not useful at all to learning Thai. Trying to find similar words is not usefull either. I never learnt characters so only recognised about 50 or so, totally useless apart from reading the toiulet signs and numbers.

I am learning Thai through immersion as well, used a book for a while but I don't have time right now, I can't read anything at all and that is really hindering progress eventually I hope to learn to read and write.

When I was in college, I took courses in Italian and Spanish at the same time, that was a mistake, Spanish was easy and I did well, while I made mistakes in Italian.

[meadish_sweetball]

Hi ...

My primairy goal is to gain a basic level of Thai and on top of that I would also like to learn to speak Mandarin, also at a basic level. I've once read (I think it was The Nation) an article that these are similar in structure, which would lead me to believe both can easily be learned at the same time and it's just a matter of building a vocabulary.

My schedule currently allows for me to get into learning both at the same time. When I was in school I was learning 3 different languages at the same time, apart from my native tongue, so I would think it's possible. But perhaps I'm mistaken.

Any comments?

thanks,

Rob

(for both, I aim to only learn how to speak ... so not how to read and/or write)

As others have mentioned, if you learn these two languages at the same time you are going to mix them up because they are too similar. If you are currently in Thailand learn Thai first.

If you are a native speaker of English or another Indoeuropean language you will find the structure of Thai and Mandarin grammar quite similar. I was fluent in Mandarin when I started to learn Thai and a lot of Thai grammar feel quite obvious when you are used to Mandarin grammar.

Phonology and especially tones (Thai has 5, Mandarin 4) are another similarity. It is very hard for speakers of non-tonal languages to learn them, and I don't think it is a good idea to learn the the tones of Thai and Mandarin at the same time - they are not identical and you will mix them up.

Fully agree with your observation. It would be much better to focus on either one of the languages and learn it to a reasonable level before starting on the other.

Learning languages like Thai and Mandarin well takes quite a bit more than to learn another European language. If you are going to do two Asian languages at a time, pick one that is not tonal as well - perhaps bahasa melayu/indonesia, Khmer or Japanese. The risk of confusion is probably greater with Thai and Mandarin.

[Rikker]

A non-tonal language that is similar in many ways to Thai is Khmer (or Cambodian, if you prefer). The grammar is nearly identical (from centuries of mutual borrowing), and most of the upper-level vocabulary is similar, since it comes from Pali/Sanskrit, too.

I find it easy to study Khmer, but then again I'm coming into it already fluent in Thai, so the grammar feels second nature, although the pronunciation for Khmer is harder for me (so darn many diphthongs). Chinese and Thai are nowhere near as similar as Khmer and Thai, despite the fact that both Chinese and Thai are tonal languages.

Let us know what you decide to do!

[samran]

A non-tonal language that is similar in many ways to Thai is Khmer (or Cambodian, if you prefer). The grammar is nearly identical (from centuries of mutual borrowing), and most of the upper-level vocabulary is similar, since it comes from Pali/Sanskrit, too.

Can you give an example of upper level vocab which is similar? Sounds interesting. Maybe if you could write out a set of words and sentences in either language (though using Thai script) that are similar, we could see where the similarities lie. Everytime I listen to someone speaking Khmer, I struggle to hear any words which are recognisable. Maybe that is because they are going too darn fast!

[Rikker]

Can you give an example of upper level vocab which is similar? Sounds interesting. Maybe if you could write out a set of words and sentences in either language (though using Thai script) that are similar, we could see where the similarities lie. Everytime I listen to someone speaking Khmer, I struggle to hear any words which are recognisable. Maybe that is because they are going too darn fast!

There are some systematic dissimilarities. It's easier to recognize them on paper than in practice, I'm sure. I've written the Khmer in Thai script, as close as I can approximate it.

For example, there is a correspondence between Thai /th/ and Khmer /t/.

For example the word for 'sun':

Thai อาิทิตย์

Khmer อาตึ๊ด

A lot of words which end in ร in Thai (and are thus pronounced with final /n/) have Khmer equivalents, but the Khmer drops the final consonant entirely. Thais pronounce 'Khmer' as เขมร /kha-meen/, while the Khmer pronounciation sounds more like "Khmai" (although it is actually not quite that).

There are some shared numbers:

'zero' T:ศูนย์ K: ซูน

'ten' T: สิบ K: สับ

The multiples of ten beginning with thirty are similar, because both Thai and Khmer borrow them from Chinese:

'thirty' T:สามสิบ K: ซามสับ

'fifty' T:ห้้าสิบ K: ฮาสับ

Etc.

Khmer for 'school' is /saalaa-rian/, and of course we recognize /saalaa/ from Thai ศาลา.

Khmer for 'library' is /bannaa-lai/, which actually would be perfectly understandable in Thai. บรรณา means 'book', and we see it in the words 'editor' บรรณาธิการ and 'librarian' บรรณารักษ์. And the last syllable is comparable to Thai ลัย meaning 'dwelling place,' as seen in words like มหาวิทยาลัย. Thus, บรรณาลัย would be a great Thai word. In fact, the Khmer word for 'college' is /mo-haa-vi-tia-lai/.

Khmer for 'station' is /sataanii/, compared to Thai สถานี. Again we see the /th/ to /t/ correspondence.

Khmer has a word for 'store' /haang/, which compares to Thai /ห้าง/.

Khmer 'health' is /sok-ka-phiab/, compare to Thai สุขภาพ.

Etc. Etc.

[Richard W]

A lot of words which end in ร in Thai (and are thus pronounced with final /n/) have Khmer equivalents, but the Khmer drops the final consonant entirely.

But not in Surin. (Though some count Northern Khmer as a different language to standard Khmer.)

The multiples of ten beginning with thirty are similar, because both Thai and Khmer borrow them from Chinese:

'thirty' T:สามสิบ K: ซามสับ

'fifty' T:ห้้าสิบ K: ฮาสับ

Etc.

It's usually stated that the Khmer words are borrowed from Thai. The Thai borrowing from Chinese seems as old as the Tai group (or possibly a bit older).

Khmer for 'station' is /sataanii/, compared to Thai สถานี. Again we see the /th/ to /t/ correspondence.

Unusual if true. According to Huffman, สถาน 'place' is pronounced /sthaan/ in Khmer. The /th/ to /t/ rule should only work for ท - you should expect /th/ for ถ and ธ as in /thoa/ 'law', one equivalent of Thai ธรรม.

Khmer has a word for 'store' /haang/, which compares to Thai /ห้าง/.

This is a non-P/S word, and it can be difficult to work out the direction of borrowing. Indeed, Khmer has borrowed some words from Thai that Thai borrowed from Khmer in the first place!

Incidentally, you need a post-XP version of Uniscribe for Unicode Khmer to work. See KhmerOS Installation for the latest version. I did my Khmer installation in December 2004, and had to resort to my non-Windows boot option to update Uniscribe (i.e. USP10.DLL).

[Rikker]

Thanks for your critical comments, Richard.

In looking back, the /sathaanii/ mixup was my error, because I was looking at different books, and one uses /th/ and /t/ while the other uses /t/ and /dt/.

[gadg]

Let us know what you decide to do!

All your responses have been very helpful and I thank you all for taking the time to write them. Based on your feedback, I've decided that it probably would be best for me to indeed not get into learning both Thai and Mandarin at the same time. The question is ... now which one do I pick? I'd be curious what your thoughts are on this, I know that you are hardly in a position to advise me based on the information I'm about to give ... but who knows, perhaps there are some interesting comments.

I've just included a little background in the 'Interests' field of my profile: later this year I will move my 'base of operation' from Amsterdam to Bangkok. I do not plan to work in Thailand (but don't entirely rule out the possibility) but plan to work projects around the whole of east asia. As of now, I have no clue what countries I will be working in. So why these two languages?

• I'll spend quite some time in Bangkok and so it would be nice to be able to communicate in basic Thai
  
• I figured Mandarin was a good language to learn from a business perspective. I don't know if I'll need it in my work, but I figured it could never hurt with the booming economy in China
  

I know I can 'get by' on English in Bangkok, but I prefer a little more immersion. Then again, perhaps I can pick up Thai by immersion and opt for a more formal training in (for instance) Mandarin. Or perhaps I should indeed take some classes in Thai and instead of combining it with Mandarin, combine it with a non-tonal language like Japanese. I could always learn some Mandarin if the need arises.

Curious about your comments. Do let me know!

[Rikker]

If you know your base of operation will be in Bangkok and you'll be spending significant time there, and you're not sure if you'll need Mandarin, I'd go with Thai.

And between the two, Thai has the advantage of being miles easier to learn to read, being phonetic. Sure, you have to learn spelling rules, but I'll take that over memorizing characters any day. And if you ask me, I think it's easier to learn to pronounce. I've only had a little exposure to Mandarin, but all the darn sibilants and retroflexes kill me!

That's a completely biased opinion, however.

[sabaijai]

I studied Mandarin for a year after I'd done Thai for about four years. Knowing Thai really helped with learning Mandarin, esp the tones, and I imagine the reverse would be true as well. The grammar has some crossover (lack of tense, use of perfective markers, etc), not a lot but enough to help. Also some semantic fields were transferrable, such as the way [L]yuu (to be located; to be doing X) is used in much the same way as [F]zai in Mandarin.

All in all I found spoken Mandarin to be quite a bit easier than spoken Thai. There aren't as many dipthongs and tripthongs, and every word ends either in a vowel sound or a nasal /n/ and /ng/. Plus there's one less tone.

Of course writing Chinese is more difficult than writing Thai, needless to say.

[wasabi]

am I the only one who doesn't like Rosetta Stone Thai? I like Benjawan's software the best but she only has it for beginning Thai, I'm also using Courage Thai which is pretty good. Rosetta stone seems limited in scope.

[Charis]

If you're staying in Thailand, I'd say go for Thai language. It's much more effective to learn when you're in the environment anyways.

I have a working knowledge of Mandarin and am learning Thai now. I think Mandarin is pretty challenging for foreigners because you need to memorise every character; and about 4000 characters are necessary as basic foundation. There's no alphabetical system so it is tough, even though the grammer itself is fairly simple. Compare to German for instance, Chinese grammer is fairly straightforward. But if you just want to be able to speak Mandarin, it should be easier.

I've learned Mandarin by HanYuPinYin; and that's my recommendation if you decide to learn Mandarin. It's a phonetic system, and you can type Mandarin on computers using HanYuPinYin.

Chinese who learn thai may find it a bit easier than say an English learning Thai because of the tones, and some similar words.

Comparing the 2 languages, I'd bet you will pick up Thai much faster. So go for it!

[Bobcat]

I am fluent in both Thai and Mandarin, although I learned Mandarin when I was a young child. I find Thai a great deal easier than Mandarin. Needless to say, written Thai is simple compared to written Chinese.

Edited April 19, 2006 by Bobcat

[Captain Chaos]

Does anyone know of a decent teacher or venue where Mandarin can be learnt in BKK? I'm interested in it from a business perspective. Thanks.

CC

[Dakhar]

If you want to learn 2 languages at once.... go for it. It can be done, and there are plenty of examples of those that do.

CODA, children born from deaf adults, they learn sign language and the native oral language spoken in their environments all the time.

Then you have the hispanic children living along the border arreas. They are brought up in a bi-lingual environment and do just fine.

Mandarin and Thai have some word/sounds in common. As others have already pointed out, some words are very close, if not the same. As for me, I find that learning Thai to be much easier than when I learned Mandarin. I guess for 2 reasons;

1) I have an established pattern. I know what learning methods worked for me when I had to learn Mandarin. I don't have to try to "discover" so to speak the best methods.... I already know them.

2) Thai, does have it's common ground with Mandarin. Although, I wish the grammar was closer!

[Rikker]

Just a note... child language acquisition is a wholly different process from learned language acquisition. A child will learn multiple language without ever reading a book on the subject or having formal training. In fact, as long as the child receives sufficient exposure to the language, he cannot be stopped from learning it. It's natural.

Past the critical period of 10-12 years, though, learning a language is another ballgame entirely.

While I'm sure there are adults who have learned multiple languages at once, it's invalid to compare their language learning process to a child's natural language acquisition.

[Dakhar]

Just a note... child language acquisition is a wholly different process from learned language acquisition. A child will learn multiple language without ever reading a book on the subject or having formal training. In fact, as long as the child receives sufficient exposure to the language, he cannot be stopped from learning it. It's natural.

Past the critical period of 10-12 years, though, learning a language is another ballgame entirely.

While I'm sure there are adults who have learned multiple languages at once, it's invalid to compare their language learning process to a child's natural language acquisition.

Actually, the critical period, sometimes called the "golden age," is around 5 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

Even the age of 5 is up for debate, some say it is even lower than 5 years old, as low as even 2 years old.

That is one of the main reasons cochlear implants are not used on deaf children that have not been exposed to oral language after 5 years old. In other words, a child born deaf, and uses hearing aids would be a cochlear implant candidate beyond 5 years old, because he/she wore a hearing aid, thus exposing the child to oral language. The child would then have a basis for oral language use, effectiveness etc. before cochlear implant.

Moving on, if a person has had exposure to a base language, there really is not a "critical period" in regards to learning a second language. Theoretically, a person could learn as many language as they want until they die of old age. They could learn those languages in groups of 2-4-5-6, or individually it does not matter. It is more of a matter of devotion more than anything.

If your are intrigued with language acquisition I would suggest you read, "The Forbidden Experiment" by Roger Shattuck, or another quick read would be "Seeing Voices" by Oliver Sacks. Or if you would like I could loan you some of my texts that I used during graduate school or during my doctorate program on the subject.

[bkkmei]

Hi

Personally, if I knew I was to be based in Bangkok, I'd stick to learning Thai first. I speak Mandarin and learning basic Thai was relatively easy: the similarities in grammar and the fact that there were tones... but I constantly muddle up the tones due to my Mandarin learning (I don't try enough though now).

Once you've mastered as much Thai as you want to then start the mandarin stuff - and if it's only spoken Mandarin and you're taking a class, then make sure you're not including all the reading or writing. Spoken Mandarin is relatively easy. (Though I agree that the writing is fascinating).

[Rikker]

Actually, the critical period, sometimes called the "golden age," is around 5 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

Even the age of 5 is up for debate, some say it is even lower than 5 years old, as low as even 2 years old.

Moving on, if a person has had exposure to a base language, there really is not a "critical period" in regards to learning a second language. Theoretically, a person could learn as many language as they want until they die of old age. They could learn those languages in groups of 2-4-5-6, or individually it does not matter. It is more of a matter of devotion more than anything.

Thanks for the heads up. I only have vague notions of the critical period from a class taken five years ago. Research has gotten better and my memory has gotten worse.

And yes, there is no limit for *learning* a second or fiftieth language, but one no longer *acquires* it as a child would. As long as one is dedicated and studious, it's absolutely possible. But past the initial critical period, it's no longer effortless and natural. Is that fair to say?

[Dakhar]

Actually, the critical period, sometimes called the "golden age," is around 5 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

Even the age of 5 is up for debate, some say it is even lower than 5 years old, as low as even 2 years old.

Moving on, if a person has had exposure to a base language, there really is not a "critical period" in regards to learning a second language. Theoretically, a person could learn as many language as they want until they die of old age. They could learn those languages in groups of 2-4-5-6, or individually it does not matter. It is more of a matter of devotion more than anything.

Thanks for the heads up. I only have vague notions of the critical period from a class taken five years ago. Research has gotten better and my memory has gotten worse.

And yes, there is no limit for *learning* a second or fiftieth language, but one no longer *acquires* it as a child would. As long as one is dedicated and studious, it's absolutely possible. But past the initial critical period, it's no longer effortless and natural. Is that fair to say?

Yes, and no it would not be fair to say that language aquisition is no longer effortless and natural after the critical period. Take for example, accent's. Accents (in most cases) are reduced, or aquired naturally and effotlessly regardless of an individuals age.

Seriously, if lang. aquisition fascinates you, as it does me... there are a lot of new feral child cases out there that you may like to read about. Just Google it out, and you will find them. One of the reasons there have been more found, is because the net has opened the world up. But that is another topic.

Cheers,

Dakhar

[phibunmike]

I figured Mandarin was a good language to learn from a business perspective. I don't know if I'll need it in my work, but I figured it could never hurt with the booming economy in China

As an interesting aside to that thought:

I recently read "The River's Tale - A year on the Mekong" by Edward Gargan (an excellent book).

Gargan is an American who had lived in Hong Kong and could speak a couple of Chinese dialects (can't remember which ones or how fluently, but I think he was pretty good).

He took a year off and travelled through Tibet, China, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Much of his journey was seriously off the beaten path, and he did not speak Tibetan, Laos, Thai, Khmer, etc. - but everywhere he went he found Chinese people, whether restaurant owners, traders, or whatever, and so could ALWAYS find someone he could speak to and understand. Reading that book re-enforced just how useful Mandarin could be, and not just for dealing with China....