Speaking Without Reading

[jdinasia]

My personal observation would be no .... People seem to be able to manage surival Thai only without being able to read it. Personal opinion for the reason why is that when you read something in Thai you know the tones etc.

Edited May 10, 2006 by jdinasia

[ArtfulD]

I would say yes..as im sure most Thai children learn to speak Thai fluently before they are literate, as do most cultures.

[Thaiquila]

I would say no, because we don't come to Thailand as babies.

[revdrfisher]

Very simply put, yes it is very possible to speak Thai and not read it. To spite the fact many, many Thai’s are not literate. The Thai spoken word is nothing like the Thai written word in fact if you were to speak Thai the way it is written you would sound like a Shakespearian play and people would look at you like you just asked them for a toasted weasel.

[terdsak_12]

No way need to learn to read Thai, I speak it just fine, keep meaning to getting round to reading, but can't be bothered/find the time.

[RamdomChances]

No way need to learn to read Thai, I speak it just fine, keep meaning to getting round to reading, but can't be bothered/find the time.

Me to, although I think my Thai would improve if I took the time to learn how to read and write. My mother-in-law can't read or write Thai, but speaks it perfectly.

[Thaiquila]

I am still very skeptical.

Native born Thais of course can speak well, literate or not.

The fact that they speak well proves nothing; they learned as babies, when the brain is wired to take it all in.

We are talking about Westerners learning a very difficult tonal language. Since the writing system provides a quite accurate guide to the pronunciation, I still don't think most Westerners could become fluent without learning the basics of reading.

A better survey would be: If you are very fluent in Thai, do you read Thai or are you illiterate in Thai?

I would be glad to be wrong, but still skeptical.

Edited May 11, 2006 by Thaiquila

[meadish_sweetball]

It is definitely possible, but in the vast majority of cases, it will be a lot more difficult to develop. Why? Because of the limitation in using only your hearing to memorize new words.

Once you know how to read, you can ask for the Thai spelling of each word instead of inventing your own spelling in Roman letters (which does not tell you the tone).

(Naturallly, you could also use the AUA or Haas transcription to get exact representations of a Thai word. But the people who do not find it worthwhile to learn the Thai alphabet would be even less motivated to learn those.)

To speak Thai clearly, learning the alphabet helps a lot. If you are reasonably gifted and your teacher is any good, learning to read will enable you to better understand the difference and importance of the phonemes used in Thai.

Children and grown-ups do not acquire language in the same way.

[withnail]

I voted yes although I would have to add that in my opinion to become completely fluent without being able to read or write would require a partcularly talented ear. I personally don't think my Thai would be any good at all if I hadn't learnt to read (and it's still not that great ) Although I do know of one foreigner who is fluent and cannot read or write at all. He has been here 25 years or something like that.

We are of course talking about adult foreigners learning Thai not children or native speakers and I do agree that a large number of them would have difficulty becoming fluent without also becoming literate. It is possible though.

Of course that doesn't mean to say that their Thai, although fluent, is perfect. I'm sure you could bee 100% conversational but struggle to grasp the language on other levels, or perhaps speak badly.

[Rikker]

Taking the Thai writing system too much at its word will sometimes lead you to incorrect pronunciation, though.

A few examples:

แถว = short vowel

เล่น = short vowel

คอมพิวเตอร์ = [คอม-พิว-เต้อ]

ส้อม = short vowel

ถอย = short vowel

ป้องกัน = short vowel in the first syllable

อินเทอร์เน็ต / อินเตอร์เน็ต = [อิน-เทอ-เหน็ต] or [อิน-เตอ-เหน็ต]

เท้า, เช้า, เปล่า = long vowel

น้ำ = long vowel (but also sometimes short)

ได้ = can be either long or short

หนังสือ = [นังสือ]

shortening the vowel in the first part of a reduplicated word, e.g. เฉยๆ, มากๆ

Sure, there are some patterns and tendencies we can observe with respect to such apparent anomalies, but they're not quite "rules," and I'm not sure how well the Thai learner's literature covers this sort of thing. The point is that things like this can be perfected best by placing an emphasis on mimicking actual speech patterns of native Thais, and realizing that you can't believe the spelling 100%.

Mary Haas, however, was very clever to take note of the discrepancies between spelling and pronunciation, which is one reason (of many) why her dictionary is so useful. She marks an asterisk next to the phonetic pronunciation of words which differ from what the writing would lead us to believe.

[meadish_sweetball]

True.

The Thai spelling system, like any spelling system connected to a living language, has its exceptions.

But relatively speaking, these exceptions are very few compared to the exceptions in the spelling systems of for example English, French and Swedish (the English spelling system being the most irregular of all the languages I have been in contact with).

I found the literature I used when studying Thai (the AUA books and 'Beginning Thai' from Australian National University) covered most of these exceptions well. In the few cases where they didn't, obviously our teacher would step in instead.

[Rikker]

This debate is interesting. Clearly it's possible to be fluent and illiterate, from a native speaker perspective. From a second language learner's perspective, I believe that's it's definitely possible, too, like Meadish said, but probably more difficult to learn accurately. Reading early on helped me to realize errors I'd been making, or to solidify my understanding of pronunciation.

I'd have to conclude that it totally depends on the person, though. And I still believe the key is listening and mimicking. I know people who can both read and speak, but neither particularly well, because they don't notice (or perhaps can't yet tell) the difference between their pronunciation and native speakers. Thais are so polite, they often will passively correct you by repeating a troublesome word or grammatical structure, in hopes that you'll catch on. If you're not sensitive to careful listening, that might not be of any use. Of course, they'll often correct you right out, too.

I have to believe that there are people out there with such a good ear that they could become very fluent and very native-sounding without ever picking up a book, but people with such a knack you'd think would be bright enough to naturally also begin to pick up some reading without much effort.

So in summary.... um... there's no reason not to learn to read. It's extremely helpful. Just do it! (With a grain of salt, because I don't really believe that English spelling is more chaotic than Thai.)

[ColPyat]

It depends very much on the individual's talents.

I have always had difficulties with the traditional book learning due to a learning disability. But i have a talent to pick up languages simply by hearing and repeating. It took me for example only three weeks in an isolated indian village to pick up basic survival hindi (mostly forgotten now).

I think that colloquial Thai is very simple to learn in this method as there is comparatively very little grammar. My method is that i do not memorize or speak single words, but only full expressions, and remember single words in the context, which also helps to overcome the tonal difficulties.

I avoid, if possible direct translations, but memorize expressions in Thai context. Often direct translations do not justice to the full meaning of a word, and can only be seen in a full cultural context. Perfect example in Thai are the expressions for emotional conditions, with often very sublime differences that have no real equivalent in western languages without a long drawn explanation.

I am crap at literal translations as i think in Thai when i speak Thai. I do not know the translation for the words i use and have to search for a possibly right translation, if that makes any sense.

It's a different learning method which i feel more comfortable with.

[iamguava]

It depends very much on the individual's talents.

I am crap at literal translations as i think in Thai when i speak Thai. I do not know the translation for the words i use and have to search for a possibly right translation, if that makes any sense.

When I first started to learn Thai I was very fortunate in having a teacher that understood this method of learning and memorising vocabulary. For instance to teach colours she would bring to class a pack of coloured crayons and some line art. She would ask me to colour say the boat in red etc. Or for numbers she would bring coins or dice and have me perform simple maths. Each lesson she would reinforce past vocabulary by for example, asking me in the midlle of a class to stand up and raise my right leg, or sit down and close my left eye to reinforce the vocabulary for parts of the body that we had learned during prior lessons. Sometimes she would produce 3 dice, roll them and ask me what the total was.

I believe that this repetition of use and using the vocabulary in real(ish) situations helped me to retain more than if I had learned purely from reading Thai (I do now have that ability after many years of hard slog). I still have friends who although they can speak basic Thai, if they wish to use a number they have to mentally count (1,2,3,4.... oh the next one is 5) or a day of week they do the same (sunday, monday, oh the one I need is Tuesday).

Hope the above makes sense although it may be slightly off topic.

[Farma]

I can’t read Thai or tried to convert Thai into karaoke English. Over the years I listened to Thai people talking and my thoughts recognize the sounds for what they represent rather than trying to convert them into the English equivalent.

I’m by no means an expert Thai speaker but manage to get by easily with many Thais asking me how many years I have lived in Thailand and where I studied the language. Despite having no formal language training I find myself thinking in Thai when in a conversation with Thai people. For some unknown reason I find mental mathematic calculations easier in Thai than English.

I know I have limitations when trying to pronounce certain tones. A bit like a jock trying to speak the queens English. I feel in my case I will never be able to pronounce these tones correctly, I just can’t get my tongue to move in the right direction.

So to me I feel a person can learn to speak Thai without the ability to read Thai.

[Rikker]

Good news for your tongue: tones are controlled by your vocal cords. Tongue movements are the same no matter what the tone is. So don't throw in the towel yet!

[skylar]

Reading and writing opens up a new world - it exposes you to emerging contemporary culture and current issues. You're limited with the culture that surrounds you and the people you communicate with verbally. So sure, it's fine to be fluent and illiterate in Thai if that's all you need and that's what you are happy with, but I couldn't function in modern Thai society without the ability to read and write. I couldn't read or write Thai before I went to uni, and suddenly being able to read magazines and newspapers and write emails made me feel like I was more connected with contemporary society, rather than just hearing about something from somebody.

[Steve2UK]

I voted "no". OK, accepted that it's theoretically possible to acquire fluency without reading if your brain is still receptive enough and you have long enough immersion with Thai speakers. But, in practice, the reality is that the deck will be stacked against you and you'll (probably) only get so far - and that would almost certainly be short of fluency. For most of us, the extra effort of learning to read/write early on will pay big dividends later on in the learning curve - not to mention the highly valuable personal benefits of picking up info from seeing rather than only being told (as Skylar already described).

Edited May 11, 2006 by Steve2UK

[ColPyat]

Reading and writing opens up a new world - it exposes you to emerging contemporary culture and current issues.

Well, i always thought that i could do that just by meeting and talking with as many many people as possible from all walks of life.

I may be the last one who gets to know the latest fashion fads, and not be able to read the latest gossip about stars and starlets, but then, having been around that scene professionally for some time in the past i found them not inspiring enough to make an effort to read about them in the gossip columns.

But yes, sometimes i wish i would be able to read Thai for some particularly esoteric topics i would like to get more knowledge about. Still though - i believe that i can function very well in Thailand being illiterate. I just ask.

[skylar]

You wouldn't say that if you could read silpa lae wattanatham - Art & Culture Magazine. The amount of explanation that this periodical has given me for things that I previously took for granted is amazing. You know how in the English language there's certain knowledge pertaining to each era we've gone through... the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s... we may not have been there and we may not know someone who has, but we've read about it and somewhat understand it even though we weren't in on the action... so if someone refers to it, you still know what they are talking about... that to me is really being part of a culture.

Edited May 11, 2006 by skylar

[Richard W]

What influenced my 'yes' vote was books like the "diplomat's language course" at Thai-language - now apparently out of print. That would appear to be aimed for people who have learnt (or played with) several languages. It has writing, but in a very IPA-based scheme - see Glenn's comment 'This book has not a single Thai character in it, and the transliteration used is the strangest of all the systems I've seen. For example, on pg. 1, khun sabaajdii rý'. Apart from the substitution of 'y' for 'm' rotated 180 degrees, there are people for whom that writing system is exactly what they want. There's no extra effort to learn the transliteration scheme - they already know it. Those using it do have written back up - but it's just not the Thai script.

[bannork]

This is an oft repeated topic, for the OP I would say learning to read Thai is not difficult, it's far, far more phonetic than English and the exceptions are limited.

I say do an experiment, learn to read and then observe if more Thais comment on the clarity of your pronunciation, I'll wager they will.

And as mentioned, the whole written world is opened up to you. Imagine living in the UK or USA and you couldn't read English, oh my.

And if you're not living in Thailand you can still learn new vocab by yourself.

To answer the question, in my view reading is of immeasurable help.

[jdinasia]

Thanks for all the replies ... when I started this thread I didn't think it would have "legs" so to speak.

I know lots of people that have been here for awhile that are illiterate in Thai ... and that think they can speak it <and they can muddle through ... but only because the folks they deal with are guessingtheir meaning 80% of the time since their use of tones are all wrong (and they tend to leave off the question particles etc at the end and use rising tone <<which makes for some FUNNY sentences!! "your friend will come?" becomes friend will horse?

I frankly was pretty useless at anything but survival Thai until I learned to read and write ... from there it has opened up WORLDS of difference in life here ...

Reading political blogs in Thai ... seeing real commentary etc .... <<yes I still have to break out the dictionaries OFTEN in new subject matter but they are Thai-Thai dictionaries >>

My problem now is with slow response time in Thai ... I understand it rather well when someone is speaking ... but I still have to frame my replies carefully ... particuarly in tricky subject matter ... but hel_l ... being in Thailand has done something for me that both my Mom and my teachers always wanted from me .... "Listen more and talk less"

[ColPyat]

Thanks for all the replies ... when I started this thread I didn't think it would have "legs" so to speak.

I know lots of people that have been here for awhile that are illiterate in Thai ... and that think they can speak it <and they can muddle through ... but only because the folks they deal with are guessingtheir meaning 80% of the time since their use of tones are all wrong (and they tend to leave off the question particles etc at the end and use rising tone <<which makes for some FUNNY sentences!! "your friend will come?" becomes friend will horse?

I frankly was pretty useless at anything but survival Thai until I learned to read and write ... from there it has opened up WORLDS of difference in life here ...

Reading political blogs in Thai ... seeing real commentary etc .... <<yes I still have to break out the dictionaries OFTEN in new subject matter but they are Thai-Thai dictionaries >>

My problem now is with slow response time in Thai ... I understand it rather well when someone is speaking ... but I still have to frame my replies carefully ... particuarly in tricky subject matter ... but hel_l ... being in Thailand has done something for me that both my Mom and my teachers always wanted from me .... "Listen more and talk less"

I am not saying that reading Thai is not a huge advantage, but near fluency in colloquial Thai can be reached without that ability. Many people who can read Thai can still not properly pronounce the tones, while people with a good ear can pronounce the tones without being able to read.

You mentioned your slow response time, this is a typical sign of people who learned the traditional way, have to go through translations in their mind before formulating a sentence. I am sure that i may make more mistakes in the tones, but my response time is almost immediate as i do not go through the mental process of translating as i do think automatically in Thai when speaking Thai.

It is just different learning methods.

Obviously i have my good and bad days, on the bad ones i stumble along, and on the good ones it often takes several minutes before people realise that i am not a native speaker who has lived for a long period in a foreign country and who has lost some of his pronounciation abilities. I am regularly mistaken for a person of mixed Thai parentage.

My problem is, and most likely will be for a considerable time, 'pasa radjadgan'. I can understand most movies easily, but i still have to concentrate very hard when watching Thai news.

What helps me is that at home we only speak Thai (no Tinglish - that makes me cringe), and i have many Thai friends with whom i only speak Thai.

I am not a native english speaker either, i have been exposed to different languages and very distinct dialects from an early age on, learned in school apart from english two other languages (mostly forgotten now), and understood a few others related to those to some degree. This makes it far easier for me to get used to new languages.

[sbk]

You wouldn't say that if you could read silpa lae wattanatham - Art & Culture Magazine. The amount of explanation that this periodical has given me for things that I previously took for granted is amazing. You know how in the English language there's certain knowledge pertaining to each era we've gone through... the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s... we may not have been there and we may not know someone who has, but we've read about it and somewhat understand it even though we weren't in on the action... so if someone refers to it, you still know what they are talking about... that to me is really being part of a culture.

Depends on which culture you live in skylar.

I live on a small island that had very little foreign influence (or even mainland influence) until about 25 years ago. All of those cultural events bypassed anyone over the age of 20. Island life was island life up until fairly recently, most local people have only had real major changes in their lives in the past 10 years.

So, reading that magazine may help someone living in Bangkok or another big city but would be absolutely useless to me. I cannot read much, much to my chagrin, but part of the problem is that I speak the local dialect. Unfortunately, very few books are written in Thai South. This was a conscious decision on my part, when I came everyone around me spoke the local dialect, it was far more important to me to understand what people around me were saying to each other than to learn a language that very few people here speak. For example, my mother and father-in-law who do not speak a word of Bangkok Thai. Kind of pointless to learn it for me since I go to Bangkok once a year.

My tones are excellent, which I learned from picking it up. I studied Mandarin Chinese in University and then lived in Taiwan where I learned to hear the tones. Tones have never been a problem for me with the Thai language. I know a man who can read and has a very large vocabulary and nobody can understand a word he says because he speaks atonally. So, perhaps being able to read the tones helps some people but not all.

Would I like to learn to read Thai? Certainly and I do try but it is difficult without a teacher (and I know better than to ask my husband to help me!) and even more difficult running a business that takes up about 15 hours of my day. I will get there, but please, for those who can read lets not be snobbish about those of us who can't read, just because you feel that they can't possibly be speaking correctly doesn't necessarily make it so.

[Johpa]

But of course it is possible to speak Thai without learning to read as one encounters countless ex-pats (not to mention real Thais and resident minorities) who speak Thai quite well but who, although they can recognize some words, are, for all intents and purposes, remain illiterate in Thai.

But if you have made the considerable effort to learn to speak Thai, why would one not make the extra effort to learn to read? I mean it is certainly easier to learn to read Thai than for a Thai to learn to read the bastard language English which has one of the least phonetic writing systems on the planet. Sure it is a bit awkward in the beginning to learn classes of consonants and some tone rules, all of which are soon forgotten after a few years. Like most Thais, I am hard pressed these days to remember which consonant is in which class. But I do know that learning how to read Thai greatly increased my vocabulary and allowed me to form more complex ideas in Thai, such as a noun phrase that consists of more than just a noun and adjectives, especially back when I was younger and had more complex ideas.

[ColPyat]

But if you have made the considerable effort to learn to speak Thai, why would one not make the extra effort to learn to read?

Two reasons:

1) i have a learning disability that makes it extremely difficult to sit down and learn the traditional way (don't remind me of school - it was pure hel_l for me)

2) it actually was no effort for me learning to speak Thai, i am naturally communicative, and i have a talent to pick up languages

[sbk]

But if you have made the considerable effort to learn to speak Thai, why would one not make the extra effort to learn to read?

Because it is far easier to learn thai from friends, neighbors and staff while working. Like I said before, when busy at work I am on for at least 15 hours a day. Sitting down to learn to read takes not only concentration but the time to be left alone long enough to actually absorb something. Listening and learning by listening do not.

Also, I do speak the southern dialect, quite fluently in fact. Would learning to read improve my southern Thai in anyway? Certainly not, and in fact, it would present difficulties because Southerners do pronouce quite a few words differently and use different tones. So, here is one more difficulty added on to the already difficult task of finding enough time to learn to read!

I would love to be able to read Thai. Don't get me wrong on that point, but every time I have sat down and tried to study someone comes along and thinks "well she doesn't look busy, she's only reading!" and interrupts me. Could be staff, hubby, neighbors or guests. Take your pick, I'm a popular lady

[OldSarge]

I have been married to a Thai woman for going on 40 years now and we speak Thai at home and have for that entire period. I have tried, with her "teaching" to learn to read and write and, while I have some of the very very basic spelling rules and the alphabet down, I doubt that I could read to save my life. Let me repeat for you all what my Thai friends in outside of Thailand tell me, for whatever that may be worth.

I am told that my Thai is not especially badly pronounced - although I have an accent of course, unless I'm in a conversation for some time (ten minutes seems to warm up my brain I think), but I speak as an up-country farmer of my age (won't tell you; notice my handle ) who never attended school. Unfortunately, I have a tendancy to be too polite in everyday speech with close friends and have rather more of a expressed sense of humor in Thai than is considered quite proper for a man past his fifth-cycle birthday. All of which marks me, as illiterate; fluent, but illiterate, to my Thai friends. At least, to the ones who will express what appears to be an honest opinion.

So, I suspect that in order to speak Thai as if I were educated, I'll need to learn to read and write and, also, to read a number of commonly-read Thai books, magazines, newspapers, and some of the Thai "classics". That is to say, the Thai equivalent of Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, etc. Not all of them, just enough to catch the literary references!

That's my take on the "speaking without reading" question, based on my experience. Am I any of you? No, of course not: my abilities and liabilities with regard to learning and speaking Thai are uniquely my own, but I relate my experience to you in hopes of adding something to the discussion. Thanks!

[jdinasia]

Sarge ... you'd be amazed what an organized class that has experience MIGHT be able to teach you