Video of Me Speaking All the Thai I Learned With Pimsleur Thai in 10 Days

[Mole]

Yes, but he spent 10 days and it's already good enough to be understood.

Now the best way to learn a language is to use it as often as you can. So if one starts to use the language, one will also automatically start noticing the subtle differences in tone and vowel length and improve with time. In additional by speaking with another person, one will also tend to imitate the words one hears.

This why I think it's a waste of time to concentrate on getting the tones and vowel length right from the beginning. One's first goals should be able to get to a level of conversational speak as quick as possible, then speak it as often as one can. Of course this assumes that one lives in a country which speaks that language already.

But if you are not able to talk with anyone, but are learning a language by yourself, then I guess you might as well concentrate on tones and vowel length. But I doubt anyone will be able to speak a language fluently just by merely learning it by themselves without ever speaking it with anyone.

Edit, sorry, my bad. I thought you meant the OP's video...

He's also saying the "d" sound in Chinese slightly wrong. He's pronouncing it kinda like English d or ด but it's supposed to sound like the Thai ต

Also, I kinda got totally lost and confused after a couple of Dennis, mom, Dennis, mom....

As far as I could hear, his falling tone ม่า sounds about right. His Mandarin is excellent too.

When he does say things in a sentence or many words at once, his speech is fast and sounds almost like a native.

It's when he say the words in isolate, that's when one can hear that some of them aren't quite right.

He does say หมาย wrong though. He says it with too short vowel, so it sounds more like หมัย or ไหม (silk).

Edited November 27, 2013 by Mole

[Mole]

Now, before you're gonna say "See? How important mastering tone and vowel length is" because of his หมาย mistake.

Well, when you do say it in a sentence, he would be understood even if he did say หมาย like หมัย

หมัยจับ ความหมัย would still be immediately understood.

[Ajaan]

great work.you be speaking fluent in 6-12 months for sure!

I prefer the second video; everybody speaks about the tones, but I have noticed, in speaking with thai people, that the vowels ( long and short ) are very important, too; short vowel used instead of a long one, they don't understand, for example, สระผม must be pronouced with a short " a ", not a long one.

for the rules, it's not so complicated, and to understand why a word is pronounced this way and not an other way, you must absolutely know the rules.

To speak fluently, you need some vocabulary; it's not only a question of pronounciation ( which is very important, of course, but if you know only 100 words, you can't go far )

There's much more to being fluent than vocabulary and pronunciation...you need to be able to respond appropriately, in real-time, to typical social situations, AND be understood by native speakers not used to hearing foreigners speak Thai...you also need to be able to understand the language coming at you in real-life social situations. That's fluency, and it takes years. And it only comes with communicative practice in a wide variety of settings. Not to diminish the OP's accomplishments, mind you, it's a great start!

[GotR1GHT]

Yes, but he spent 10 days and it's already good enough to be understood.

Now the best way to learn a language is to use it as often as you can. So if one starts to use the language, one will also automatically start noticing the subtle differences in tone and vowel length and improve with time. In additional by speaking with another person, one will also tend to imitate the words one hears.

This why I think it's a waste of time to concentrate on getting the tones and vowel length right from the beginning. One's first goals should be able to get to a level of conversational speak as quick as possible, then speak it as often as one can. Of course this assumes that one lives in a country which speaks that language already.

But if you are not able to talk with anyone, but are learning a language by yourself, then I guess you might as well concentrate on tones and vowel length. But I doubt anyone will be able to speak a language fluently just by merely learning it by themselves without ever speaking it with anyone.

Edit, sorry, my bad. I thought you meant the OP's video...

He's also saying the "d" sound in Chinese slightly wrong. He's pronouncing it kinda like English d or ด but it's supposed to sound like the Thai ต

Also, I kinda got totally lost and confused after a couple of Dennis, mom, Dennis, mom....

As far as I could hear, his falling tone ม่า sounds about right. His Mandarin is excellent too.

When he does say things in a sentence or many words at once, his speech is fast and sounds almost like a native.

It's when he say the words in isolate, that's when one can hear that some of them aren't quite right.

He does say หมาย wrong though. He says it with too short vowel, so it sounds more like หมัย or ไหม (silk).

Yeah i'm talking about this video from Stuart Ray Jay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV1F8ZE_AyA.

I came across that video few weeks ago and i was suspicious about his falling tone,i thought that something was wrong with it.So i ask my thai girlfriend and also shared the video with two thai friends and everyone said falling tone is definitely wrong. He's pronouncing it from high and instantly falls to low.It should be high-> going bit higher-> falling at the end (like a mountain) , but he's pronouncing it like other side of the mountain (high->immediately falling down)

[Ajaan]

Now, before you're gonna say "See? How important mastering tone and vowel length is" because of his หมาย mistake.

Well, when you do say it in a sentence, he would be understood even if he did say หมาย like หมัย

หมัยจับ ความหมัย would still be immediately understood.

WHOM one is speaking to is also very important in predicting whether pronunciation, vocabulary or tone mistakes will be understood from context. Many Thais are not used to hearing foreigners butcher their language, haha...meaning they've only ever heard Thai spoken perfectly (by other Thais). These people will often NOT be able to read between the lines when a foreigner makes seemingly simple and "easily understood" mistakes (easily understood by an educated Thai/Thai who is used to hear foreigners make mistakes).

When I first came to Thailand, I regularly found myself completely misunderstood in situations where one would think people would have been able to "read between the lines" and see beyond my mistakes (i.e. figure out what I meant from context). And I had a huge advantage in learning Thai: I was already fluent in Khmer, which has all the vowels of Thai plus about 10 more, AND shares about 30-40% of the vocabulary of Thai (though often pronounced very differently, they are the same words).

Some of my communication problems: trying to buy fruit in a market without knowing the proper classifiers. Even when pointing to said fruit, and giving the number of them I wanted in Thai, one time the vendor simply could not understand what I wanted, and in retrospect it was solely because I was omitting the classifier for the fruit in question. Another experience: trying to say น้ำเปล่า and not absolutely nailing the tones on each word...this led to utterly confused looks from vendors several times, even though as I was saying the words, I was pointing to bottles of water for sale in front of them!

The point being, don't underestimate the inability of Thais who have never heard foreigners speaking Thai before to understand foreigners when they speak to them! When one can easily be understood by those people, that's how one knows one is making serious progress with the language, haha.

[ryanwiley]

I don't believe he's pronouncing falling tone correctly in this video.Falling tone doesn't instanly drop from high to low but it's going from high to a bit more higher and than falls down a bit on the end

You're definitely right. In fact, there are lots of tones I'm not pronouncing correctly (I'm surprised I got any right at all). There are also lots of vocabulary words I use incorrectly.

I don't really mind that, though. This is what I know (for better or worse) after 5 hours of study (10 days-30 minutes a day). I got a teacher now to teach me the reading, writing, tones, consonant classes, long & short vowels. This is my first learning tool for that...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/684278-cool-velcro-board-for-learning-the-thai-alphabet/

There is, as you point out, improvements that need to be made, but I'm happy with this start.

[ryanwiley]

I don't believe he's pronouncing falling tone correctly in this video.Falling tone doesn't instanly drop from high to low but it's going from high to a bit more higher and than falls down a bit on the end

You're definitely right. In fact, there are lots of tones I'm not pronouncing correctly (I'm surprised I got any right at all). There are also lots of vocabulary words I use incorrectly.

I don't really mind that, though. This is what I know (for better or worse) after 5 hours of study (10 days-30 minutes a day). I got a teacher now to teach me the reading, writing, tones, consonant classes, long & short vowels. This is my first learning tool for that...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/684278-cool-velcro-board-for-learning-the-thai-alphabet/

There is, as you point out, improvements that need to be made, but I'm happy with this start.

Oops....thought you were talking about my video! ...should have read the whole thread before responding!

[Commander Tamson]

Respect!

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[asiaexpat]

The internet, especially YouTube, have a ton of instruction in basic Thai. Some are good and some a little misleading. Just do not neglect daily contact with Thais to practice what you have learned. Most Thais are very considerate and will politely correct any errors. However, keep in mind all this is pretty basic stuff and serious study is needed if you want to really communicate in Thai. Good beginning, keep it up.

[ryanwiley]

The internet, especially YouTube, have a ton of instruction in basic Thai. Some are good and some a little misleading. Just do not neglect daily contact with Thais to practice what you have learned. Most Thais are very considerate and will politely correct any errors. However, keep in mind all this is pretty basic stuff and serious study is needed if you want to really communicate in Thai. Good beginning, keep it up.

I certainly agree about the need to communicate on a daily basis. In my report on using Pimsleur, I mentioned that a big drawback of it is that it does not call for any real communication practice. At the very least, you need to be talking on Skype with a native Thai speaker. It's quite difficult to jump from what you've learned in the controlled setting of an audio program to using the language on the streets. I have been picking small communication situations and trying to spit out what I've learned so far. Sometimes I'm surprised at how well I can do.....sometimes I walk away red-faced!

[GotR1GHT]

The internet, especially YouTube, have a ton of instruction in basic Thai. Some are good and some a little misleading. Just do not neglect daily contact with Thais to practice what you have learned. Most Thais are very considerate and will politely correct any errors. However, keep in mind all this is pretty basic stuff and serious study is needed if you want to really communicate in Thai. Good beginning, keep it up.

I certainly agree about the need to communicate on a daily basis. In my report on using Pimsleur, I mentioned that a big drawback of it is that it does not call for any real communication practice. At the very least, you need to be talking on Skype with a native Thai speaker. It's quite difficult to jump from what you've learned in the controlled setting of an audio program to using the language on the streets. I have been picking small communication situations and trying to spit out what I've learned so far. Sometimes I'm surprised at how well I can do.....sometimes I walk away red-faced!

I used to be shy when i wanted to talk thai just by ordering food or similar.But definitely not anymore..I mean, if thai people can rape english language so badly then there's no shame if i do that to thai language also:-) Joking aside,everytime you go out to buy food or similar try to talk thai,even if it's only two words.

For example, try to order rice,so memorize: Kaao is =rice(Falling tone),and ends up with more O and U.

Kau is =enter(also falling tone but shorter than rice/kaao),and ends up with more U than O.

Just learn tones,that's so much important.That's what makes this language so hard.I would rather know 100 words that i can pronounce correct than 500 words and none of them to pronounce correct except to have bragging rights "i know 500 words"

Edited December 5, 2013 by GotR1GHT

[kriswillems]

I think it's not essential to try to get the tones 100% right from the beginning, but it helps if you concentrate on it, even from the very beginning. The reason is that it's very difficult to "unlearn" what you've been doing wrong from the beginning.

It's true you'll be understood if you make a few mistakes. When I get the tones wrong I sometimes get the comment I talk like a farang or like as if I am from Laos. It's not that you're not understood, you just sound funny/strange.

Also, I think, although the threadstarter does make a lot of mistakes, I am still amazed how he manages to get that many tones correctly, only by using a tape, without feedback. I think he has a talent for Thai language, and he'll improve quickly.

Edited December 6, 2013 by kriswillems

[ryanwiley]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been having a bit of difficulty speaking about time in Thai. The lack of visuals is a big drawback to the Pimsleur Thai course. So, I spent some time studying and making a couple of clocks. I've posted them on a new thread here.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/687423-graphics-for-learning-thai-time/

Cheers,

Ryan

[koeko]

You don't work for them, right? Two if my friends tried it and in one month they still didn't have much at all.

It is better than some schools that tell you to just sit there and listen! No note taking at all. How are they to learn?

Ha ha...no, I don't work for them. In fact, anyone can download their program for free on any torrent site (shhh...don't tell everyone)!

download from where ?

from here.. but sshhhh

[Chippen Dong]

you'd have to be a merri gun to put up with that twang for ten days. other torrents around with many G of stuff.

[Groongthep]

you'd have to be a merri gun to put up with that twang for ten days. other torrents around with many G of stuff.

Now this I mai kao jai (ไม่เข้าใจ). What exactly are you talking about? merri gun? twang? Many G of stuff? You've lost me.