How did you become proficient at speaking Thai?

[stoli]

I have tried to get through the responses that you have received, but most are from non-Thai learners. Anyone can learn Thai, just as the Thai bar girls have learned English, or are they smarter than you? Find a good school, (I use PLC on Pattaya Tai, and you can learn Thai. Just like in the states if you studied Spanish, it takes several years, but it is worth it. Much easier if you live with a Thai lady, but not mandatory. School worked in your previous life, and it will work now. If you live here, learn to speak it, and it will make your life much better.

[samran]

Have you got that precious Thai passport yet?

I'm on my 7th or so....

[macburiram]

Still learning Thai basics....picking up very slow...

[FritsSikkink]

1) Bought a dictionary

2) Studied a bit online http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Thai/maanii/menu/default.htm

3) Went to school and got private lessons learning to read and write

4) Talk and listen to my wife, kids and family.

5) Talk and listen to other Thai people.

[Robert2006]

I hired a private teacher to help me learn the alphabet and to pronounce each consonant and vowel correctly, and then I mastered the tone rules. I think most people try to learn Thai by memorizing the words, not focusing on the theory of the language in my opinion is a mistake. Learn to read and write first give yourself 3 to 5 years, and don’t give up!

[macburiram]

Still learning Thai basics but very slow picking up....as the going gets tough...the tough gets going. Pai pai....

[platofrank]

Did someone of you study Thai at Ramkhamhaeng Univ? I was advised to go there.. it seems you can combine studying online and follow classes.

Hope to get some usefull referals.

Thanks in advance.

[Greg Nixon]

In Bed

Chai Chai chai

[The Man Who Sold the World]

Hours, hours, hours ...

1) Learn the consonants

2) Learn the vowels

3) Learn the tones (tone marks)

3) learn to combine the consonants, consonant clusters, vowels and tone marks into words.

Now you have the foundation to learn Thai.

4) Build up a vocabulary.

5) Learn sentence structure.

6) Compile basic sentences.

Begin speaking (conversational Thai) with, teachers, significant others, Thai friends and Thai strangers.

Practice, practice, practice ...

Its all about the hours.

[Buakaw]

Highly recommend the course by learnthaipodcast.com.

The structure and content is superb. From beginner to advanced (includes reading and writing material), the course has hundreds of short video clips for every topic imaginable.

The best part is you can download the videos onto a smartphone or tablet and listen to them wherever you are. Each sentence spoken in English then Thai then dissected word by word. Videos include interviews with Thai natives (male and female) and always show the written Thai as well as the English transliteration.

Anyone who is serious to learn Thai language properly, the LTP course is the best I have come across. YouTube has a lot of their videos for free and actually, the small fee of around £60 for the course is a real bargain.

Apologies if this sounds like a sales pitch, but after years of struggling with books and DVD to no avail, this course restored my confidence and I am now well into the advanced module.

Best of luck to all, the Thai language is certainly not easy to master but once you get going it becomes easier and possibly even fun!

http://learn-thai-podcast.com

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[foxteen]

My first word of Thai was bum bum..and i use everyday

[Aforek]

Can't be bothered, so waiting for Thais to learn English, a proper language!

Knowing only one language is very sad ; try and learn Thai, it's a very interesting language and you can speak with beautiful girls in their own language ( I know 3 languages, and I feel rich for it )

as for Thai language , the most difficult are the five tones , the rest is only learn by heart; as said above, practice and read, read, read...

[CaptHaddock]

Initially I used the self-learning course highspeedthai to learn the alphabet, tone rules, and some vocabulary, and get some

Electronic flash cards ??

Can you enlighten me on this please.

http://ankisrs.net/

[SlyAnimal]

I'm far from "proficient" in Thai, but I can usually express what I want in Thai, and depending on the topic, can usually hold a conversation for quite some time (Although it also depends on who I'm speaking with, a lot of people simply don't listen e.g. I had to say น้ำตกหมู 3x while ordering tonight, even though I usually don't have any problems, and when I do, it seems like every single word which comes out of my mouth is misunderstood, so I figure it's a listening rather than speaking problem).

But anywho, I learnt to read as soon as I moved here to live, I found a translation of the alphabet song and would learn, I think 7 or 8 lines each week for the first month I was here. One of my co-workers would help to check my writing of the letters, and then test me on them. I then got slack for a while, and then when I got a new job, in another province, I got a laminated poster with the Thai consonants + another one with the Thai vowels and put them on my wall. I'd then occasionally refer back to them when I was thinking about a word I'd seen earlier in the day. As I had the proper Thai letters for words, I'd then learn with better pronounciation than if I was just learning from phonetics.

Which is the main way I'd learn, as I was simply surrounded by Thai. So I'd always be seeing signs, and trying to read them, which was good for my vocabulary and my reading. Also every time I wanted to do something, I'd have to speak in Thai, each time I'd pull out the dictionary on my phone (The Paiboon one, by word in the hand), listen to the word a few times and then take a deep breath and go into the shop, armed with my new vocabulary. Likewise I got a few Thai friends, and when something interesting would happen to me during the day, I'd think of a way to tell it to my friends in Thai (and again use my dictionary), they'd then correct me (They spoke English as well).

To assist with my reading, after I got a bit more proficient at reading, I changed my dictionary to only give translations of English words in Thai + Thai phonetics (And the phonetic also shows the tone + can play a recording of the word). I also changed a lot of the names of people in my phone, to the Thai spelling of their name (And I'd put the province they were from in Thai as well behind it).

Later I got a girlfriend, who replaced my talking dictionary lol. Whenever I had a question I could then ask her, and she'd help me, also she knows that I want to learn more Thai, so we often speak Thai to each other (Just basic stuff), which helps me, she also usually lets me order in restaurants and in general ask people for things rather than simply doing it herself (Although she'll step in if it looks like I'm not confident or am floundering a little).

Finally I've now started studying at Chula, which is helping a lot with my grammar + writing/spelling + formal vocabulary (My informal vocabulary is also increasing, but not as much as the others).

[chrissables]

May be the following post belongs to Thai language forums but I will have a shot at it here. My knowledge of Thai is confined to what Pimsleur method has to offer. Having done all 30 lessons 6 times, I consider myself as having mastered that material. However, this is of course not enough and there is no second cd unfortunately. Pimsleur, in my opinion, is by far the best method in learning a language. (This is my true opinion, I do not try to promote anybody. I tried others, Rosetta stone, and many based on the same concept but after a while I came to a standstill. Only Pimsleur carried me seamlessly to the end. As I said, this is what I believe)

I need advise as to the availability of other courses, mimicking or based upon the philosophy of Pimsleur.

Those of you who might have something to suggest, I, in advance, thank very much.

regards

Mario

Take a look at high speed thai, for me by far the best course out there.

[simondan]

Still got a long way to go but enough to hold conversation. Unfortunately not too much time to go to a school. I learn from listening to some radio and watching tv plus talking to Thais (actually that helps the most). Once you are past a certain stage and you can follow part of the radio (not news) you will learn more and more from just listening.

I learned English at school but mostly from cartoons and tv series (all was in English with Dutch subtitles), learned most of my German from watching german movies and yes learned a bit at school.

For me listening and watching tv helps.. Thai soap operas however mind killing are a good source to learn some Thai. Some parts I can follow quite well and other parts not much.

So you watch Thai soaps?

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Yeah 'boing'! Is not a Thai word.

I've heard robblok speak Thai, he's not bad at all.

If you meant 'boring' (given you're talking about Thai soaps its odds on this is what you meant!) I think 'boo-ah' covers it in Thai.

One of the Thai words that gets a pretty good thrashing!

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[phuketsub]

I think 'boo-ah' (เบื่อ) is the perfect word for that feeling. I would say it is pretty onomatopoeic.

Totally agree it's one of those words that gets thrashed by many new learners, just like 'เมือง' (meuang) and just about any word starting with 'ง'