Which language is more difficult to learn to speak: English or Thai ?

[Neeranam]

Someone mentioned about foriegners speaking English badly and being able to understand them meant Thai was a harder language.

I think its because English speakers are more introspective and have more foresight than their Thai counterparts so we work out in our heads what someone might be saying.

If your in a restaurant here and you ask for khao souwai it doesnt take a rocket scientist to guess what you are trying to say.

Instead you get a blank look

I mean

Sometimes i get the same result when asking for a bottle of water. I always turn to my kids and ask if i pronounced it that bad and they tell me I was correct and the waitress is just stupid.

Maybe the poster that said thais do not listen when a falang speaks thai is correct.

I stood outside a restaurant in Bangkok with a friend who has been here 18 years longer than me and speaks Thai fluently. Three waitresses couldn't understand both of us asking if they had a table free. Eventually the manageress came and asked in English.

Today I went to a csr shop to buy some part. The girl was determined to speak English to me so I obliged. Her father, who I know, came and I spoke Thai to him for a couple of minutes. She then tried to translate what he had said after I had been conversing with him!! Some Thais think that Thai is impossible for foreigners to learn. Strangely though, when I've been out with Indians or Fillipinos, the Thais will always turn to them first.

[Neeranam]

and then the writing... all words attached, characters are not read in the order they are written... or not written in the order they are pronounced, your choice!

the alphabet... 44 consonants, 15 vowels!

the writing fonts!! sometimes I can't recognize a character I know because it looks so different in the font used - that's actually very frustrating.

and how many variants of t,d and k does one really need??

So Thai has seven more letters than English? We like to forget that English has 52 letters, not 26, because we have upper and lower case. So this comparison of "all those Thai letters" and "a mere 26" in English is a silly excuse and not true. Though the combinations of vowels are tricky for a beginner, I admit.

Thai has 32 vowels, I think but they are formed by mixing up 7 base symbols.

How many ways can you use A,E, I, O, U to get unique sounds? Phoneme I think they're called.

Ou, for example can be different in pour, wound, fought, soup, and sour etc

Even words with the SAME spelling can mean different things and sound different. Wound for example. I wound up my watch is totally different to I dressed his wound.

It is much easier learning to spell Thai words but did take a few years to get the tones sounding ok.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Neeranam

[khrab]

Maybe I can answer this question by popping another one:

What is easier to learn, driving in Thailand or in the "civilized" world?

[Neeranam]

Maybe I can answer this question by popping another one:

What is easier to learn, driving in Thailand or in the "civilized" world?

I think learning to drive in Thailand is more of a challenge and makes one a better driver. After driving here for a few years then going to Scotland - driving was so simple, although rather frustrating at times, waiting for people to cross the road etc.

[Robert2006]

I think a lot of the challenges for English speakers trying to learn Thai are the poor teaching methods available to them and unrealistic expectations of the students.

If you’re going to learn the language I think most people should project about a 5 year learning curve and understand the first 6 months are going to be very confusing, you just have to push through and not give up.

In my opinion you should learn to pronounce the consonants and vowels and then concentrate on the theory of the language which means you will have to master and completely understand the tone rules. You have to know how the three consonant classes (high, mid and low) the long and short vowels, live and dead ending and the tone marks affect on the pronunciation of each word. This is why the first 6 months is confusing but after you finally understand the theory you can pronounce any work correctly and it’s really not that hard to learn.

It is also why you need to read and write because it’s very difficult to remember all the different pronunciations if you can’t see the word. After you learn the theory except for a few vowels and consonants most of the characters sound and are pronounced just like the ABC’s.

Just stay with it, don’t drive yourself crazy, give it time, hang in there and it will come eventually. If you need a mental break for a while take one, just don’t give up.

ขอให้โชคดี

[Neeranam]

I think a lot of the challenges for English speakers trying to learn Thai are the poor teaching methods available to them and unrealistic expectations of the students.

If youre going to learn the language I think most people should project about a 5 year learning curve and understand the first 6 months are going to be very confusing, you just have to push through and not give up.

In my opinion you should learn to pronounce the consonants and vowels and then concentrate on the theory of the language which means you will have to master and completely understand the tone rules. You have to know how the three consonant classes (high, mid and low) the long and short vowels, live and dead ending and the tone marks affect on the pronunciation of each word. This is why the first 6 months is confusing but after you finally understand the theory you can pronounce any work correctly and its really not that hard to learn.

It is also why you need to read and write because its very difficult to remember all the different pronunciations if you cant see the word. After you learn the theory except for a few vowels and consonants most of the characters sound and are pronounced just like the ABCs.

Just stay with it, dont drive yourself crazy, give it time, hang in there and it will come eventually. If you need a mental break for a while take one, just dont give up.

ขอให้โชคดี

Good post, Choke Dee!

[laobali]

Also, OP, if you are serious about learning to speak Thai, you should go ahead and learn to read it as well. Reading Thai and understanding how words are formed will help you immensely with your pronunciation.

I feel incompetent at the moment. Your replies make me feel this way. I will try to read Thai at a later time. Now I just want to talk. But when I listen to Thais talk it seems like a losing battle. Throw in the slang they have and I'm in big trouble since I do want to know what they are talking about.

But in many cases they don't want you to know.

[laobali]

I am pretty sure he wouldn't care or even know the difference.

[maccaroni man]

Any tonal language is more difficult as they do not allow the margin of error for accents.

[nithisa78]

We're talking about two languages. One with A through Z and A E I O U Y. The other with near one hundred fifty consonants and fifty vowels. My dear bride picks up on English as well the new family, quickly. I'm still just hotel and restaurant Thai.

[nithisa78]

We're talking about two languages. One with A through Z and A E I O U Y. The other with near one hundred fifty consonants and fifty vowels. My dear bride picks up on English as well the new family. I'm still just hotel and restaurant Thai.

[sustento]

Thai, certainly harder to actually learn the sounds. English certainly a more complex language:

It's harder to learn the sounds of the Thai language if you learnt the sounds of English first and vice versa.

[quiuvo]

English teachers in here? Please help! How many words in the English language v Thai ? Also tell us about grammar and any other things that might help me? I know English is more difficult. I had a great example above fm neeranam. Any more? Oh, forget out lazy people.

I am an English teacher, and I agree that English is the more difficult language. In Thailand, pronunciation is more difficult for Thais than it is for English speakers, because the Thais are listening to a wide variety of dialects and accents. Native English speakers can't even understand each other sometimes. English has more vocab and more grammar rules.

Thai doesn't have articles (a, the). They are fiendishly difficult. If you don't believe me, look at every noun in what I have just written and explain why some have articles and some don't. Why is there an article for "The Titanic", but not "Market Village"? It's because "the Titanic" is a boat, so the full name is "The Motor Vessel Titanic". "Motor Vessel" drops, but the article remains. "Market Village" is a shopping mall, and there is no article in the name. That's crazy-making.

Also there's plurals and countable and non-countable nous--the difference between "sugar" and "a sugar cube". More fun with articles.

As well English has twelve tenses, not including things like "going to" and "used to". Things like, "I will have been living here three years in February." It gets worse: "Aren't you going to make it up to me?" That last one is a seven-part verb form with couple of pronouns tossed in. It's got an inversion, a negative, a contraction, and an idiomatic phrase. When spoken half of it disappears. It's something like, "Arn cha gonna makitup t'me" Nasty. I don't think we can make it up to them.

As for pronunciation,consider:

How do you tell a phone from a fax machine? (How do you know the difference?)

How do you telephone from a fax machine? (How do you make a call?)

English speakers would understand the difference in meaning because the first sentence is spoken more slowly and the stress pattern is different.

And English has tones. Consider:

A: It's $20 extra.

B: That's okay.

If B speaks with a rising tone, he's going to pay the extra $20. If he speaks with a falling tone, he isn't.

And:

A: I'm from Canada

B: Where?

If B uses a rising tone, he didn't hear A. If he uses a falling tone, he wants to know where in Canada.

I could go on. I don't think people who try to learn English are lazy, but I understand why some of them get frustrated!

Thank you. That is just one example among others here, that makes me believe English is more difficult.

[andrewrooney]

We're talking about two languages. One with A through Z and A E I O U Y. The other with near one hundred fifty consonants and fifty vowels. My dear bride picks up on English as well the new family, quickly. I'm still just hotel and restaurant Thai.

150 consonants? Holy smokes, man, what language are you learning? Sounds like a tough one!

[sustento]

We're talking about two languages. One with A through Z and A E I O U Y. The other with near one hundred fifty consonants and fifty vowels. My dear bride picks up on English as well the new family, quickly. I'm still just hotel and restaurant Thai.

150 consonants? Holy smokes, man, what language are you learning? Sounds like a tough one!

Whatever it is it's certainly not Thai...

[chingching]

The wiring of your brain (and likely most other species) is programmed to learn language very early in life. This ability is quickly lost. If you grow up as a child never hearing the "D" sound (as opposed to "B", or "P" ) you may never be able to distinguish the different sounds as an adult , no matter how intelligent you are, or how much you study. The same with pronunciation. If you grow up never speaking "D", it will be very hard to speak it, (since you can't hear it, how can you imitate it?).

It seems to me foreigners who grow up multi - lingual have a much easier time learning Thai, than say Americans who usually speak only one language. It is sort of opposite to "You never forget how to ride a bike". If you aren't exposed to certain sounds as a child, you will never hear them as an adult.

There was an experiment done with cats a while back. Baby cats were raised in an environment that had no vertical lines.- only horizontal lines. As adults, the cats could not see vertical lines and would run into things like table legs.

[chingching]

The wiring of your brain (and likely most other species) is programmed to learn language very early in life. This ability is quickly lost. If you grow up as a child never hearing the sound (as opposed to ) you may never be able to distinguish the different sounds as an adult , no matter how intelligent you are, or how much you study.The same with pronunciation.

If you grow up never speaking , it will be very hard to speak it, (since you can't hear it, how can you imitate it?).

It seems to me foreigners who grow up multi - lingual have a much easier time learning Thai, than say Americans who usually speak only one language. ;It is sort of opposite to "You never forget how to ride a bike;If you aren't exposed to certain sounds as a child, you will never hear them as an adult.

There was an experiment done with cats a while back. Baby cats were raised in an environment that had no vertical lines.- only horizontal lines. As adults, the cats could not see vertical lines and would run into things like table legs.

[maccaroni man]

Here is what I challenge natives speakers to say and without fail it turns into a banter: nine, white, rice.

[wprime]

It depends on the background of who's learning, but assuming an English person learning Thai vs a Thai person learning English. English is easier to get the basics of (enough to understand and be understood), but far more difficult do perfectly (written language/proper tense/verb conjugation).

[maccaroni man]

Here is what I challenge natives speakers to say in thai and without fail it turns into a banter: nine, white, rice.

[BlackArtemis]

Speaking for communication I feel English is far easier as at a communication level you still need to learn tones etc for Thai.

But when it comes to speaking a language correctly, English is going to be the harder one. I'll just point to Hecate's post to save myself the time.

Edited December 10, 2013 by BlackArtemis

[Neeranam]

Here is what I challenge natives speakers to say and without fail it turns into a banter: nine, white, rice.

It becomes easy after a bit of practice. Harder for me was to say the 'lonely, sleepy turkey' but granted it hasn't ever come up in conversation.

[Yooyung]

I can speak reasonable Thai at the moment. My Thai should probably be better given the amount of time that I have lived here, but at least I can go everywhere and do most things on my own. I know a few that cant even hold the most basic of conversations, this is after being here for more than a decade....

Is Thai harder than English? I dont know, as a native speaker of English...it all seemed pretty easy to me but learning Thai? I have found it relatively easy BUT I am a musical person. I think that having an 'ear' for music has helped me with the tones. I dont have much of a problem with the tones at all, but I know some that do and I can understand why. I am currently working on my reading. I am forcing myself to chat with some teachers at my school (facebook)while they use Thai to communicate with me. At first it was a headache but I am slowly starting to read more quickly. Its at the stage now where I can read totally new vocab that I dont know the meaning of, and look it up. This is really helping me a lot. I can reccommend a site to anyone wanting to learn to read Thai It breaks down each word and makes it all easier to read. Its a great site:

http://www.thai-language.com/translate/

I think its as 'hard' as you make it. I actually want to learn, and I enjoy learning Thai. In my case it isnt so hard. I can understand the Thai's being daunted by English. I would say once you get over the inital hump of learning how to communicate well in day to day Thai the rest isnt so bad....whereas in English I think that hump just keeps on going.

[Tchooptip]

English teachers in here? Please help! How many words in the English language v Thai ? Also tell us about grammar and any other things that might help me? I know English is more difficult. I had a great example above fm neeranam. Any more? Oh, forget out lazy people.

We find that quicksand can work slowly.

Boxing rings are square.

A guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

The plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth?

One goose, 2 geese; so one moose, 2 meese?

One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

http://stage-door.org/stampact/traps.html

I have been learning English all my live and still do thanks to TV ( yes thank you every one ) I do learn Thai lets say 3 hours a day, my wife helps me a lot and it seems to me I am progressing faster in Thai than many many year ago in English not sure you all English speakers know how for instance the pronunciation is difficult. Listening to the BBC news I understand 100% not realising it is not my language . Watching for instance some action movies my understanding can drop to 50% even thought I'm sure I "know" almost every single words but pronounced by a Cockney a Texan an Aussie or a Scotsman good luck if its not your mother tongue .

[Tchooptip]

Here is what I challenge natives speakers to say in thai and without fail it turns into a banter: nine, white, rice.

Why you stop to only 3 example? nine, white, rice

knee, to enter, animal horn, fishy, news, he she.

The 10 = kao same same

[aaron ysl]

May i know how many dialects are there in Thai language? Do different parts in Thailand use different dialects? Such as northern, northeastern, central and southern?

Sent from my GT-I9082 using Tapatalk

[aaron ysl]

I found that the most difficult part in learning Thai language is reading their texts. Their sentence have no space between words.

Sent from my GT-I9082 using Tapatalk

[Nignoy]

how anyone can say thai is difficult is beyond me, all the children in the villages speak it but joking aside,in 1963 I was sent to deepest isaan straight from livingwith the Iban in Borneo, to learn thai, get to know the people in the area so that when the rest of my unit arrived , I could explain to them the do,s and donts for farangs in rural Thailand, I thought I was doing great ,even the intonations were getting there more fool me,in 65 I took a group on R&R down to Bangkok, I wondered why hotel staff and officials gave me weird looks when I spoke thai to them,I was at the opening of either the Ambassader or Mandarin Hotels when I was asked if I had learned thai as a joke when I asked I was told I spoke thai like the lowest isaan peasant, a mixture of Laos Khmer and Scouse, Even today my thai is not good, so when I really want to get the point over with taxi drivers or street traders I revert to Lao pimp mode, which is a great experience just to see the faces of all concerned

[ABCer]

Thanks, canman. I've really enjoyed your exploit.

Speaking of comparative difficulty of German language we can quote M. Twain.

Speaking of comparative difficulty of Thai language there are nobody to quote.

Many different languages have their points of difficulty. E.g.

English - phonetics, complex times plus lovely 'why-nots' from canman.

Slavic - when one has to pronounce 4 consonants in a row distinctly plus very complex system of suffixes and endings.

German - when you describe a complex concept by joining words in a long twisted DNA chain losing both ends.

Chinese

Hebrew

Etc.

The difficulty in learning Thai language embraces many difficulties of learning the above plus one more.

NO INCENTIVE.

Unless you are really anxious to know what Thais talk about you between themselves or behind your back.

Personally I couldn't care less.

BTW, English is my second language. That much for its difficulty.

Edited February 11, 2014 by ABCer

[Nignoy]

Thanks, canman. I've really enjoyed your exploit.

Speaking of comparative difficulty of German language we can quote M. Twain.

Speaking of comparative difficulty of Thai language there are nobody to quote.

Many different languages have their points of difficulty. E.g.

English - phonetics, complex times plus lovely 'why-nots' from canman.

Slavic - when one has to pronounce 4 consonants in a row distinctly plus very complex system of suffixes and endings.

German - when you describe a complex concept by joining words in a long twisted DNA chain losing both ends.

Chinese

Hebrew

Etc.

The difficulty in learning Thai language embraces many difficulties of learning the above plus one more.

NO INCENTIVE.

Unless you are really anxious to know what Thais talk about you between themselves or behind your back.

Personally I couldn't care less.

BTW, English is my second language. That much for its difficulty.

You see I was sent to Germany after nearly 5 years in sunny Isaan, first job learn german, after previously learning malay, then trying to to learn the Iban dialect in borneo,Ghurkali(the language of my Unit) before my sojourn in Thailand !!my first language is English,but I seemed to pick up german very easily, after I left the army ,my workbase was Germany , but the World was opened as my workplace, kikuyu and Swahili in Kenya and Uganda, Afrikaans in SA, and of course no language would be as Fxxxxed up as Schwyzer deutch and rhetoromanic, even though I call Australia and Thailand home, Germany always calls me back, in Frankfurt I can Hessische babble,stuttgart schwabische schwatze and my german friends say my german is real Oecher platt, now at 71 allthese languages and dialects bouncing about in my old head, It certainly gets me confused sometimes , but never forget languages are a Treasure never to be forgotten