Is knowing 5000 words considered as advance level?

[CaptHaddock]

Sorry, Sir, but:

"Learning Thai is harder for a native English speaker than learning another European language for sure, but it is a lot easier than Chinese or Japanese because of the alphabet (actually an abugida.)"

Is not true.

"but it is a lot easier than Chinese or Japanese because of the alphabet (actually an abugida.)" "

This part is NOT true.

I could be mistaken, but then the Foreign Service Institute of the US State Dept, which has for a long time been in the business of teaching an exceptionally wide range of languages to native English speakers, is similarly confused:

[CaptHaddock]

I have memorized over 9000 words and expressions ... Every newspaper article I read has more than one word that I have to look up or ask my teacher.

...Learning Thai is harder for a native English speaker than learning another European language for sure...

You who knows over 9000 words and expressions and who can read almost fluently thai newspapers, can you tell us why thai language , in your opinion, is harder than other European languages ?

apart from the tone rules, the big alphabet and how to pronounce correctly the tones ( everything here is question of memory and ear ), I don't think that the structure of the language is very difficult : grammar is not very difficult, and when you master it, there is no surprise at every corner of the sentences

I am certainly wrong somewhere, you are much more advanced than me ( I am only interested in every day language and chidren books , not by newspapers: I read Manee and Mary Haas books )

Without claiming to be any kind of expert, I have naturally thought about what makes Thai harder for us to learn than, say, French. A large part of it is probably due to the dissimilarity between the languages. English is a West German variety among the Indo-European language group while Thai belongs in the Tai-Kadai group which belongs either in the Sino-Tibetan group or the Austronesian group, depending on who you ask. Either way, the "language distance" between the two languages is much larger than between Germanic English and Romance French, which are both in the Indo-European group. "Language distance" is apparently an accepted concept in the linguistics literature, but is not considered to be measurable at this point. We would expect that languages that are more closely related and therefore share more features would be more easily acquired and there is data to support this although with exceptions.

In my experience Thai is vastly different from English, French or Spanish and in sometimes surprising ways. Here are some differences that I have noted so far:

1. new phonemes: tones, long and short vowels, unaspirated consonants, the "ง", the open "u" of เรือ and ตึก, etc. According to Marvin Brown, these phonemic additions result in a variety of vowel sounds in Thai amounting to 105 as compared to 35 for English. Unfamiliar phonemes are both especially difficult to pronounce and difficult to remember, the latter because we tend not to pay attention to them. Tones in English, which operate at the discourse, not phonemic, level have meaning certainly, but seldom affect word recognition. So, we pay too little attention to them in Thai and then find that we can't remember the tone. With practice, especially at reading and writing, we become able to remember tones and vowel length and distinguish the closed "u" from the open "u" readily, etc. The mistake many of the failed learners of Thai make is thinking that because they don't get it readily they can't learn it at all. Just takes more work than they expect. A lot more.

2. Yes, there is less grammar. Thai lacks verb tenses, gender, number in nouns, articles, subjunctive mode, punctuation, word separation, capitalization, and probably more. In addition, there is not a strong distinction between a verb and an adjective. But it becomes less clear to me that less grammar makes the language easier to learn rather than harder. Syntax means more regularity and it means learning a few rules allow you to generate and recognize thousands of specific examples. Whereas narrative time is explicit in French or English, it is not absent from Thai, but is implied. The Thai reader has to infer it from the semantics mostly in the absence of syntax. Consider an analogy: pronouncing written Thai is a lot easier for the Thai language learner than pronouncing written English is for the English language learner. Written Thai language has clear rules of pronunciation which you can learn in a month. There are exceptions that have to be learned individually, but a lot fewer of them than there are in English. Similarly with grammatical structure. Latin which has more grammatical syntax than English, having noun declensions in addition to complete verb conjugations which are only residual in English, is very seldom grammatically ambiguous. The role of each word in the sentence is easy to determine from the word ending no matter where the word happens actually to be positioned. (Please note I am not saying that ambiguity is a defect. Indeed, it may be rather a language resource. But it poses difficulties for the Western learner.)

3. The roles of vowels and consonants are not the same! Big shocker. Marvin Brown, the Cornell linguistics prof, also pointed out that in English as in other European languages, it's the consonants that carry the information. Indeed, if we remove all of the vwls frm pg f txt n nglsh t trns t w cn stll rd t prtt wll. The same is true of all European languages. The word "vowel" itself comes from the French voix elle meaning "little voice." The little voice merely enables the consonants to speak. Without vowels we can read and understand the page of text that lacks them, but we cannot read it out loud. By contrast, Thai needs all those 105 vowel sounds, because that's where the information is, not in the consonants. The reason there are only 8 final consonant sounds in Thai is that the purpose of the consonant is merely to cut off the sound of the vowel preceding it. In addition to having fewer of them, Thais pronounce the final consonants much more briefly, less clearly, than we do in English. When Thais speak English they habitually drop final consonants or speak them too indistinctly making it hard for us to get the word, since we are listening just for those very consonants. The result is that we Thai learners pay too much attention to the wrong part of the word, the consonants, and tend to pay too little attention to the vowels, which is where the meat is.

The experiment of subtracting the vowels from a page of text, by the way, cannot even be performed with the Thai abugida, since the vowels are mostly not written at all.

4. The different cultures and history result in a far different role for speaking, especially public speaking, between Thai and European/American cultures. There is no historic culture of public speaking in Thailand. There are no published collections of the speeches of famous political leaders. There is no Gettysburg Address, no speech of Napolean inspiring his troops to victory in Italy ("Soldiers! Your country owes you everything and can give you nothing!") No heroic public speakers from antiquity like Demosthenes who overcame his speech impediment by practicing with pebbles in his mouth over the roar of the waves of the sea. There are no ruins of ancient fora where the citizens met to debate publicly or amphitheaters where they enjoyed public performances that depended entirely on speech. Rhetoric was not a critical component of classical education. All this basically because there was no public, collective decision-making. Troops were not exhorted; they were simply commanded.

In my own education, we began to practice making classroom presentations at about age 10 which continued up through graduate school in a scale of increasing importance, the importance of being able to express our ideas being ever impressed upon us. Thais don't do this. Their business leaders have no platform skills by and large, which they don't need anyway since they don't give speeches. I first noticed this absence when I began to watch videos of university professors and politicians being interviewed. They mumbled like cab drivers or else spoke as informally as if they were sitting in the kitchen with the family. I was hoping at first for the slow, measured pronunciation of Charles De Gaulle whose speeches I used to like to listen to as a beginning French student. Thai politicians aren't like De Gaulle. The result is that Thai public speakers speak very quickly, mumble, don't make their points very clearly, do not make clear pauses between words to assist their listeners, and mix colloquialisms indiscriminately all of which makes them hard to understand for us Western learners. Thais speak faster than pokey Americans, but then nearly everyone does. I remember reading somewhere that Spanish speakers were clocked at 40% faster than Americans.

5. The most important language skill to Thais is not what we expect. One of my Thai teachers, a smart guy and a philosophy PhD from the Sorbonne, once recounted to me the response of a French friend to whom he had asked the question, "What does it mean to speak French well?" The Frenchman replied, "To make the liaisons and enchainements correctly." I have experienced this myself when, after a few days of tutorial on that very subject at the Alliance Francaise in Paris, French people suddenly started complimenting my French, forgiving in the process a host of grammatical and usage errors. So, this teacher followed with the question, "What then does it mean to speak Thai well?" His answer was, "To use pronouns correctly." I find this answer astonishing. That's not remotely true in any of the European languages of which I have any knowledge. What is says to me is that for Thais the important issue is always to establish the right social relationship with the other speaker, a task for which language is essential, but secondary. The top-level French speaking skills mentioned, by contrast, are mostly linguistic although they do have a social component in that you have to be able to read and spell French in order to make the liaisons and enchainements correctly. So, it's an advertisement of status, also. But for Thai speakers negotiating relative status is foreground at all times apparently. That's why the first order of business when encountering a new person is to establish who is older or otherwise to clarify the nature of the relationship. So, when my current Thai teacher was invited to give a talk to a group of students at a private high school, the first question the students had was, "Should we call you kru or phi?" American students would never bother with such a question. It's also the reason that Thais ask us directly how old we are and are shocked when we explain that the question is not always a polite one in Western society. It's the same reason that Thais complain much more about our using formal Thai language in social situations. It surprised me at first because universities always teach formal language and expect you to pick up familiar and slang usages on your own. So, what would they imagine I would be speaking at first? Among the Thais speaking too formally can be inappropriate to the point of presenting a deliberate insult. So now, in order to speak Thai well, I have to figure out whether to address the cab driver as "Nong" when I ask him if he will go to my destination? And that issue will arise all day long in every interaction? This represents a dimension of language that I had never expected, even though we have all heard about the importance of hierarchy, and face in Thai society.

Add to that the fact, that although every Thai word has an implied usage level (government, spoken, written, half-government, poetical, legal, doctor, etc.) and that Thais attach great importance to establishing and maintaining the appropriate degree of closeness in conversation through appropriate word selection, the dictionaries don't report that information. There is no Petit Robert or OED for Thai. The dictionaries don't provide usage information nor do they always even provide examples of usage. Makes it tough for us.

6. The quality of nearly all Thai language schools for foreigners is abysmal.

7. Standard English in America is what midwestern news announcers speak. There is no Standard Thai. Therefore you cannot judge the educational level of the Thai with whom you are speaking by his pronunciation or language usage, for instance.

So, that's some of the differences so far. There's more: stringing together verbs in narration, the frequent implication of direction in concepts whose English translation does not incorporate direction, and so on, but that's enough for a starter. I hope it doesn't discourage anyone, which is not my intention. In fact, although language learning always involves a high degree of frustration, learning the Thai language is, in fact, what I like most about Thailand, just because it is so far from English. When I read French these days, by comparison, it seems to me to be just English with a slightly different vocabulary. I remember that French seemed exotic as an undergraduate.

So, Thai is hard. In my limited experience the key difference between successful language learners and the failures is motivation, rather than intelligence or language ability. Learning a language is a long grind. The fun increases only gradually, like learning to play the piano. If your goal is to achieve full, near-native competence which might require a vocabulary amounting to 17,000 words, then learning the first 5,000 will be, if not easier, then more bearable and won't leave you wondering why it is you can't yet banter as wittily as the Thais.

[zeichen]

"

Sorry, Sir, but:

"Learning Thai is harder for a native English speaker than learning another European language for sure, but it is a lot easier than Chinese or Japanese because of the alphabet (actually an abugida.)"

Is not true.

"but it is a lot easier than Chinese or Japanese because of the alphabet (actually an abugida.)" "

This part is NOT true."

I don't understand GLOP GLOP. Are you saying that European language are harder to learn for Native English speaker than Thai? The original statement said that learning Thai is harder for English speakers than European languages like French and Spanish. Which is a true statement. It takes less than a year for and Native English speaker to be fluent in Spanish or French, Italian perhaps a little longer for German. About 2 years for Russian, Greek.

Chinese is quite hard especially the written language as it is not phonetic at all. You need to memorize 1000's of characters and their hidden meaning.

I will agree with you that Japanese is easier to learn than Thai though. The easiest language in Asia is Korean especially the written language.

I will reiterate though with my above statement. Many are confusing active language ability with just passive skills. You cannot just memorize 5000 words and think that you can have meaningful conversations. language just doesn't work like that.

Context, cultural knowledge, etiquette all play a part in language also.

[CaptHaddock]

"

Sorry, Sir, but:

"Learning Thai is harder for a native English speaker than learning another European language for sure, but it is a lot easier than Chinese or Japanese because of the alphabet (actually an abugida.)"

Is not true.

"but it is a lot easier than Chinese or Japanese because of the alphabet (actually an abugida.)" "

This part is NOT true."

I don't understand GLOP GLOP. Are you saying that European language are harder to learn for Native English speaker than Thai? The original statement said that learning Thai is harder for English speakers than European languages like French and Spanish. Which is a true statement. It takes less than a year for and Native English speaker to be fluent in Spanish or French, Italian perhaps a little longer for German. About 2 years for Russian, Greek.

Chinese is quite hard especially the written language as it is not phonetic at all. You need to memorize 1000's of characters and their hidden meaning.

I will agree with you that Japanese is easier to learn than Thai though. The easiest language in Asia is Korean especially the written language.

I will reiterate though with my above statement. Many are confusing active language ability with just passive skills. You cannot just memorize 5000 words and think that you can have meaningful conversations. language just doesn't work like that.

Context, cultural knowledge, etiquette all play a part in language also.

Most of what you claim is wrong. Are you by any chance a monolingual American?

[zeichen]

Captain Haddock. I was agreeing with you. The statements that I quoted were what GlopGlop said. I was saying that the European languages were easier to learn for English speakers. Isn't that what you said?

I love the insult too. Thank you for proving that you are a wiki guru.

Those charts you said are not 100% accurate. As Korean written language is the easiest written language in the world to learn. Anyone can learn to read and pronounce all Korean words in less than 1 week. It only took me 12 hours. I can read any sign, book etc. Now that doesn't mean you know the language just being able to read, spell the language.

It is common knowledge that for Native English speakers that Spanish is quite easy to learn and usually takes less than a year to become fluent.

Some of my statements are from things that I studied in Linguistics, some things that I have read and from my personal experience. Having lived in all of the countries that I stated and speaking at least a basic conversational level in each one and being fluent to a high level in several of them, I stand firm that I don't just spout crap I find on Wiki. Like it seems you do.

[CaptHaddock]

Captain Haddock. I was agreeing with you. The statements that I quoted were what GlopGlop said. I was saying that the European languages were easier to learn for English speakers. Isn't that what you said?

I love the insult too. Thank you for proving that you are a wiki guru.

Those charts you said are not 100% accurate. As Korean written language is the easiest written language in the world to learn. Anyone can learn to read and pronounce all Korean words in less than 1 week. It only took me 12 hours. I can read any sign, book etc. Now that doesn't mean you know the language just being able to read, spell the language.

It is common knowledge that for Native English speakers that Spanish is quite easy to learn and usually takes less than a year to become fluent.

Some of my statements are from things that I studied in Linguistics, some things that I have read and from my personal experience. Having lived in all of the countries that I stated and speaking at least a basic conversational level in each one and being fluent to a high level in several of them, I stand firm that I don't just spout crap I find on Wiki. Like it seems you do.

You have a rather muddled way of thinking about the subject. So, you learned Hangul in a few hours. You could probably teach yourself the Russian alphabet in the same amount of time. Then what can you do? Not very much. You can transliterate words without understanding anything. You can't say anything meaningful. You can't read even a sign and understand its meaning. For languages that have an alphabet, the task of learning that alphabet represents a tiny portion of the effort necessary to master the language. Doesn't everyone know that already?

On the one hand you claim that the Korean writing system is the easiest, which is trivial, if true. On the other hand you claim that Korean is the easiest Asian language for an English speaker to learn, which you seem to be the only one in the world who believes. So, as I say, muddled.

You also make the claim that remembering the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of vocabulary, is somehow "just" passive and therefore negligible. There is nothing passive about memorizing vocabulary. No ones believe that memorizing vocabulary is all there is to language learning. It is certainly not "passive" nor is the benefit negligible. Cold recall, the skill you develop by using flashcards which do not provide context, develops a vocabulary that you can actually use since remembering does not depend on context. But even those words that you can only recognize and not use without prompting, however you learn them, are a vital part of language learning including your mother tongue. Why would anyone think that portion of your vocabulary is negligible? It must be the most important component of reading comprehension which would be among the most important learning skills in general.

So, no, you do not sound to me like someone who has put in serious time to master another language, but like someone with a smattering of language knowledge of the kind that only appears sufficient to my countrymen.

[zeichen]

Change your name to captain confrontation.

I bow to your superiority. I wonder where you got your masters in linguistics. WIKI U.

[kriswillems]

I can't add much more to this thread than my personal opinion.

I find the word counting a very abstract hard to define thing.

In my opinion it's pretty useless to learn 5000 words of a language without the context in which they are used.

I am not a big believer in flash card training, unless the flashcards contain 4 or 5 meaningful and useful example sentences.

A native speakers may know 17000 words, but he uses much less than 17000 words.

I can speak rather long with a native speaker before I run into a word that I don't know, and I know less than 5000 words - which kinda proves native speakers don't use 17000 words when they speak.

What is knowing x words? .... it's a mystery to me.

[Neeranam]

How do you count the number of words you know?

Finnish was by far the hardest language I learnt. Thai is a dawdle compared to that.

[CaptHaddock]

Interesting. Why was Finnish so hard? And why were you learning it? Looking for a job at Nokia?

How do you count the number of words you know?

Finnish was by far the hardest language I learnt. Thai is a dawdle compared to that.

[CaptHaddock]

I can't add much more to this thread than my personal opinion.

I find the word counting a very abstract hard to define thing.

In my opinion it's pretty useless to learn 5000 words of a language without the context in which they are used.

I am not a big believer in flash card training, unless the flashcards contain 4 or 5 meaningful and useful example sentences.

A native speakers may know 17000 words, but he uses much less than 17000 words.

I can speak rather long with a native speaker before I run into a word that I don't know, and I know less than 5000 words - which kinda proves native speakers don't use 17000 words when they speak.

What is knowing x words? .... it's a mystery to me.

It's certainly not necessary to use flash cards to learn a language and most people don't. But those of us who are enthusiastic about the tool use do not use it in the way your question implies. So, let me give an example of how I use Anki. Recently, in a news story about political developments I encountered the ratchasap expression, ทูลเกล้าทูลกระหม่อมถวย, which means (for a commoner) to give to the king. I know that I will probably never speak this phrase myself nor will I even hear it spoken. But my goal in learning Thai is to read the kind of academic books that I read in English on subjects like history, politics, economics, and occasionally literature. And certainly newspapers where I first encountered the expression. Having looked it up in an online dictionary once it may be a year or more until I encounter it again. If I don't make an effort to remember it, the next time I encounter it I will have to start learning it all over again. To avoid wasting my current effort I enter it into Anki where the English meaning will pop up to prompt me in the next 10 minutes, then a day later, then several days later, etc. at increasing intervals. This is a more efficient way of retaining vocabulary that I have already learned. I would never try to memorize a word from a flashcard that I have not encountered in conversation or reading beforehand. Therefore, I don't have to construct a full OED entry supplying everything I need to know about the word in order to use it correctly since I will probably remember the original usage if I can remember the word at all. I will also practice typing the word, which Anki will correct if I get the spelling wrong. In addition, I notice the word หม่อม looks like a keyword in rachasap vocabulary that I have encountered in the transliterated phrase mom luang, but haven't seen yet in Thai. So I look that up and add it to Anki giving me a twofer, which will help me in remembering the expression since its component words will now be meaningful rather than arbitrary for me. In addition, I am building a semantic network of meanings that reinforce each other, an important part of language learning.

The next book I read will be ประวัติศาสตร์ไทยร่วมสมัย by Chris Baker and ผาสุกพงษ์ไพจิตร. I might encounter the expression in there. Eventually I will surely read สี่แผ่นดิน in Thai and might come across it there as well.

If your interest is limited to conversational Thai, using flashcards may not add much value since you can expect to encounter the relevant vocabulary frequently. When I was studying Thai at Chula there were a couple of Japanese guys and one Korean guy who also scoffed at flashcards. I don't know what method they used to retain vocabulary. Indeed, they didn't seem to make any effort at all. Nevertheless, their retention was outstanding, way better than my own. But then they were also about 35 years younger than I. So, go figure. Whatever works is good.

[kriswillems]

I agree with you that flashcards are a useful way to remember words that you seldom use. You'll recognize those words next time you read them. But I am not sure you'll be able to use words when writing and talking.

While I was studying I studied vocabulary this way:

- I read a text which was slightly above my level.

- I tried to ask the teacher to explain the words that I didn't know (in Thai only).

- If that didn't help I looked up the words in a dictionary.

- I asked the teacher for more example sentences, if it was still not clear to.

- The teacher gave me homework and let me write a story in which all the new words appeared.

- We would discuss this story with the teacher and the teacher would tell me if I used the word in the wrong context.

CaptHadDock until which level did you study at Chula?

I am interested in some extra study but I want to use my time and money efficiently (and Chula is expensive, so I've to check if it's worth the money).

Also, I want to be sure to step in at the correct level. Did they show you the course books before you decided to start studying.

Can you do an entrance test and look into the course books before you decide to pay?

PS. it should be ถวาย not ถวย. ถวาย means to give, used with monks or royals.

[CaptHaddock]

I agree with you that flashcards are a useful way to remember words that you seldom use. You'll recognize those words next time you read them. But I am not sure you'll be able to use words when writing and talking.

While I was studying I studied vocabulary this way:

- I read a text which was slightly above my level.

- I tried to ask the teacher to explain the words that I didn't know (in Thai only).

- If that didn't help I looked up the words in a dictionary.

- I asked the teacher for more example sentences, if it was still not clear to.

- The teacher gave me homework and let me write a story in which all the new words appeared.

- We would discuss this story with the teacher and the teacher would tell me if I used the word in the wrong context.

CaptHadDock until which level did you study at Chula?

I am interested in some extra study but I want to use my time and money efficiently (and Chula is expensive, so I've to check if it's worth the money).

Also, I want to be sure to step in at the correct level. Did they show you the course books before you decided to start studying.

Can you do an entrance test and look into the course books before you decide to pay?

PS. it should be ถวาย not ถวย. ถวาย means to give, used with monks or royals.

You're completely right. Merely remembering the word is necessary, but not sufficient. Flashcards are not a complete program of language learning, in fact they are the smallest part of it. I only brought up flashcards because the OP raised a question about the size of his vocabulary. The best way to learn a language, including your mother tongue, is to write, receive correction on your text from a competent teacher, and then rewrite until correct. That process is definitely part of my current program along with dictation, reading books and articles (out loud) with the teacher, attending the occasional university lecture together with the teacher, and listening to videos and radio programs which I then summarize to the teacher who corrects me. I recently suggested to me teacher that we go together to a court trial, if possible, for an exposure to legal language. She's looking into that. Reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills all must be developed together. I figured this goes without saying, but that's probably a dangerous assumption here in Thailand.

I completed the first three (basic) levels of the Intensive Thai program at Chula a couple of years ago when the sessions were 100 hours in five weeks. In fact, I had already taught myself to read and write on my own before coming to Thailand and had a vocabulary of about 500 words at the time. I might have tested into a higher level, but I didn't want to take the risk of falling behind the rest of the class which would be fatal in an intensive language class. I didn't regret starting at the beginning, buy you are clearly above that level. Chula's placement test was pretty casual. I wouldn't trust it fully and would probably start lower than the level they recommend. At the time I took the course, they only issued textbooks for the three Basic levels. After that the texts were handouts. The textbooks in themselves were no better than adequate, but, as I say, you wouldn't be interested in them anyway. They wouldn't be willing to show you the text, nor let you sit in on a class. Consumers in Asia get short shrift as you have noticed.

Thanks for the correction. It's correct on my card, but I mistyped it here.

I'll send you a recommendation for study privately.

[mickjn]

I would be happy if I knew 500

[Neeranam]

Interesting. Why was Finnish so hard? And why were you learning it? Looking for a job at Nokia?

How do you count the number of words you know?

Finnish was by far the hardest language I learnt. Thai is a dawdle compared to that.

I did work at Nokia for 3 months in Helsinki.

Can't remember much but ther were no articles and words changed by adding suffixes onto them

[Aforek]

I would be happy if I knew 500

I read something that I never thought before: in French, ( and I think also in other languages ) in a normal day ( no conference to give, no difficult book to read ) , we use between 300 and 600 different words

Provided that you know very , very common words in Thai, you can have already daily conversation with Thaipeople, knowing 500 words

as for me, I don't know how many words I know ( but I can read simple texts already, for instance the sixth book of Manee ), but if I know one day 3000 words, I 'll be satisfied.

English speaking people will be proud to know that English has the biggest vocabulary ( I read a staggering number of one million words : you think it's possible ? )

[tgeezer]

I can believe that someone would say that English has a million words, why not? Nobody is going to count them and most are like 'tits on a bull' ; not used.

I have always felt that apart from nouns I don't know a Thai word unless I know it in Thai. If you look at a Thai /Eng. dictionary you will often get lots of English words for one Thai word, do you count the one word or all the English words to arrive at a number by which you measure fluency?

I also have no idea how many words I know, I can't imagine 500, but I get by.

[liddelljohn]

if u know 5000 words and all 5 tones and the classifiers and differences between males female usages then you vocabulary would be in excess of 25,000 possible words and combinations

but the regional differences ,dialects , and also tonal variants can also confuse even between Thais

[Suradit69]

" 5000 words with knowing proper tones and pronunciation of course "

if you can do that ( correct tones for 5000 words, meaning knowing by heart which tone to use for every syllabe, you are very good, better than me ...); as said above, Thais make allowance: good for me , normally they understand me about 80% , my GF 100%

"normally they understand me about 80% , my GF 100%"

There are times, even when I speak some Thai, that my friend translates from my Thai into real Thai on my behalf. Usually Thais who have been in Pattaya for awhile can fathom my Thai ... after having heard their language mangled by farang for some time.

On the other hand, there have been a few times when we have been in a different part of the country and some Thai waiter, for example, doesn't fully understand my Thai friend without some repetition and clarificattion, which annoys him no end.

[monkeycountry]

I don't even think I know 5000 words in my own language

[godden]

is this a wind up.

[PJcm]

Vocabulary of 5000 words would put you in high intermediate-low advance level.

In my opinion,thai language is 2x harder to learn than EU/ENG language just because of the tones and it's probably one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn.It takes a lot of dedication and effort to learn meaning/pronunciation/long-short vowel/tone for each word and that is something that most of foreigners fail at,including me.

Honestly,after learning thai for several years(and still very much struggling),learning spanish/italian/german/french feels like a piece of cake.(been learning italian for 4months)

5000 words is a lot, I have no idea how many English or Spanih words I know, however the average conversation consists of no more than seven words. Having lived here for 37 years I speak it fluently but the hardest thing to do in any language is to write coherently. The other thing is the idioms, which took years to conquer them all, my favorite is: Dern Mam kap/ walk, like a white lady shaking. this is in reference to the kapi shrimp when it is caugtt live it wiggles, it was first referenced in the 50's for Marilyn Monroe, now that's an idiom.

[duanebigsby]

I don't know why anyone would equate numbers of words with speaking a language.

I know quite a bit of vocabulary but find it almost impossible to string them together for any conversation..

And those saying Thai people can make allowances for mispronounced tones, I beg to differ. In my experience if you can't hit the tones, they have no clue what you are saying.

I have a coworker who speaks Thai ( in terms of knowing the words) quite well. No one knows what he's saying because of his American accent and missing the tones completely.

[Mudcrab]

The mother in law can't speak English. I can't speak Thai. Win - win situation.

[Mudcrab]

double post deleted

[asdecas]

This is an irrelevant and frankly absurd question; why should knowing x number of words in any language denote anything other than that a person has a good memory? It says nothing about pronunciation, syntax, fluency or comprehension.

In the circumstances, a literal translation of a well-known English idiom (mastery of idiom is one test of competence in any language) might be appropriate: แฮร์ริ่งสีแดง

[1FinickyOne]

I think what you can deduce from these posts is that everyone learns differently and can use their abilities differently. I have no idea how to begin counting the # of words I know, but equally important is using the expressions that they use. What I have found is that I am functional/conversational. After that, to learn a new word that I don't use regularly is difficult.

If you put me in a specific lecture type situation, I am near lost. Put me in any social situation and I do fine, mostly. I have no formal studies and I am often told my tones are good, though I have no idea. I think that speaking in sentences helps for when I don't get the tone correct, which surely happens. It always amuses me when there is one person who cannot understand a word I say and other Thai people who had no problem understanding have to repeat it for the person in what sounds to be exactly the way I said it. Mental blocks? There is a lot going on.

But, I would guess I have abt 5,000 words or more and that is a good level, the glitch would be any subject and I am far from that - - making it work might be another talent that is not related to memorization. I think what helps me too is that most all of my daily interactions are in Thai. You get fluid.

[dotpoom]

I notice when Thai's speak English they always place the emphasis on the wrong syllable...ie., computerrrrrrr....driverrrrrrrrrrrr, etc.,.

[NativeSon360]

I know several North Americans who speak excellent Thai. I've been advised, that if you are not inter-acting with Thai people, on the upper-academic levels, then don't bother to attempt an academic rapport. That will happen only on the most basic, superficial levels of communication. Let your money do your talking. This is not a value judgement. Just an observation of reality. Hope your question was answered. Cheers,

[duanebigsby]

I notice when Thai's speak English they always place the emphasis on the wrong syllable...ie., computerrrrrrr....driverrrrrrrrrrrr, etc.,.

Those words are appropriated from English and they are pronouncing them with Thai tones. Like "soopaaah Hiiiwaaaaay!"

perfectly understandable.