the leap from reading and writing well to speaking well

[CaitlinHappyMeal]

Hi, I started to learn to read and write thai last year, my reading and writing are really coming on, i'm estimating from the apps and book and all material i have that i know about 1000 words plus , however when i come to recall these from memory when trying to speak its like i've got amnesia or something, its not even the tone i forget as once i've been prompted i know the tone straight away, its just trying to remember words fast enough to speak……..did anyone else find the same thing, did you just keep soldiering on and eventually you turned a corner and things just started flowing? is there anything you did to help you make that leap? i feel i am not much further on with my speech that what i was before i had lessons, i want to be forming full sentences and not just 2 word sentences. any handy tips welcome.

Regards

Emma

[CaptHaddock]

You don't suddenly turn a corner. Little by little you turn a vast number of little corners. To do that you have to practice a lot. I use a flash card program, Anki, to practice memorizing words. By typing the Thai response to an English prompt, the program checks my spelling, which must be correct in order to get the tone right. Then you need conversation practice, ideally with a qualified Thai teacher to correct your speaking errors promptly. You also need to learn the typical sentence constructions in Thai that are unlike those in English so that you can construct a sentence that a Thai-speaker can understand.

There is no royal road to second language acquisition.

[kokesaat]

One thing I did that seemed to help.......listening to stories like Mary Haas or better yet, the FSI intermediate materials (all free, pdf and mp3), listen to a sentence several times while looking at the text. Then try repeating the sentence without looking at the text. Then try writing the sentence without looking at the text. You'll be practicing reading, writing, listening, and grammar structure all at the same time. Slowly slowly slowly, you'll notice yourself speaking more sentences and fewer solo words.

One final thing that kept me going....may not be totally true, but who cares......as I progressed, I told myself "you know more Thai than xx% of expats living in Udon (pat on the back)" and as I progressed further, I'd increase that percentage.....another pat on the back and incentive to keep learning. More than anything, I took pleasure in going out on my own and conducting a conversation with a shopkeeper, gas station attendant, or government official (when necessary).

FWITD, I consider myself an amateur.....far from fluent.....but I can handle most any situation as long as I'm in control of the conversation.

keep pluggin'

[CaptHaddock]

I would add that one's ability to pay attention to the tones and remember them increases a great deal with practice. As a native English speaker I tended not to pay enough attention to the tones at first since they seem less intrinsic to the word. Of course, that's completely wrong, but a natural mistake for an English speaker. Eventually, especially through correction by a native speaker, the tones come to be foreground information along with vowels, the length of vowels, consonants and spelling. It takes practice and, I can't emphasize enough, a competent teacher to draw your attention drawn to your errors. My teachers correct my pronunciation constantly while my wife does so only in the worst cases, which isn't often enough.

[CaitlinHappyMeal]

Hi, thanks for the tips, i will check them out. i do have a thai teacher a very good one, she had me reading and writing in 3 weeks, she will not let any mistakes go, she corrects me on everything, however as i described in my original post its not being in a lesson that is the problem, it is memory recall when i am out and about on my own, plus i am only in Thailand 4 months every year so practising with a native speak is limited to that time, was really just wanting to know others experiences of progression. any how there have been a couple of useful suggestions so i will definitely be trying them

[cchina184]

Anyone know of someone in the Lopburi area who could teach an English speaker how to read and write Thai? Or, some type of learning program either online or computer generated.

[Mousehound]

I find that my biggest problem is getting the duration of a word correct. This is a result of my learning to read Thai better than I can speak it. Just got to get into listening to conversational Thai I guess.

[kokesaat]

I find that my biggest problem is getting the duration of a word correct. This is a result of my learning to read Thai better than I can speak it. Just got to get into listening to conversational Thai I guess.

You need someone to listen to you speak.....and smack the table every time you mispronounce a word....bad tone, too short, too long, etc. Thais aren't prone to doing such things (smacking the table), but if you have a private teacher, you might be able to convince her/him that this is the method you prefer.

Read a sentence to your teacher. If you make any mistakes (any), have your teacher smack the table, or say 'ผิด' AFTER you finish the sentence. Then it's up to you to figure out where you mistake is.....was it a bad tone, a long vowel that should have been a short vowel, or a grammar mistake? Try the sentence again......if after the third or so try, you still fail, have your teacher point out the error.

Works for me.....but I'm far from finished learning. FAAAAAR!