Should I learn the Thai Alphabet First? Start off writing....

[puukao]

I now believe it is better to learn the alphabet first, as long as your tones are taught and corrected by a teacher. The school I went to, which I enjoyed and took 4 classes, didn't care if you learned how to write first. I still enjoyed the language and speaking to whomever, but I am pretty sure (after now studying another language and learning the alphabet first) that the "better" way to learn is start writing while memorizing all the consonants, vowels, etc...

Thoughts? I only ask because if I do spend more time in Thailand and most of you agree with writing first, I will change schools when I return. If not, then no worries.....I know we all learn differently....

[Sattphalat]

It is not so difficult to learn the alphabet. A few weeks you read most of the words you now.

I think listen, talking, reading and writing is the way to go.

I am not fluent, but I working on it. After I learnt to read and write a bit, a new world open op. Besides it is much easier to remember the stuff you want to learn.

[puukao]

I agree with the 'new world opens up' phrase after learning how to read and write. I'm just surprised my school went half a year without going over the alphabet. Honestly, I don't remember when I studied Italian or Spanish, since I wasn't focused back then and likely put my energy elsewhere. It's amazing what motivation can do.

[AyG]

As you say, we all learn differently. When I was taught French at school there was no reading/writing in the first year. Five lessons a week, and I made very little progress. Things were much easier for me when writing was introduced in the second year. However, that's simply what works best for me.

That said (and I'm sure people will disagree with me), I believe that the best way to start learning Thai is using IPA-style script (preferably the Marry Haas system). This allows a decent amount of usable language to be built up quickly. Otherwise you'll spend a lot of time trying to decipher Thai script and progress will be slow and probably disheartening.

Reading Thai is not easy for a number of reasons, such as lack of clear word boundaries, irregular tones, irregular vowel length, unwritten linking syllables, what looks like a consonant cluster actually being separate syllables, consonants which are written but not pronounced, etc.. Even though I've been reading Thai for many years now at a reasonably high level (I can read newspaper articles fairly well, for instance), it's still much faster for me to read IPA-style script.

[tgeezer]

it is very difficult to learn a language if you are not literate so I would advise learners to get on and learn to read and write. Both consonants and vowels are set down very logically and there is plenty of cheap primary school material to help learning by rote.

If you don't already know a popular phonetic system you will have to do extra work learning one.

Edited December 22, 2014 by tgeezer

[rijb]

Walen has a good flashcard app for learning the basics.

http://www.thaiwalen.com/en/

[AyG]

it is very difficult to learn a language if you are not literate

Really? Babies don't usually wait until they can read and write before learning a language.

And plenty of people pick up languages without being able to read or write them. I remember meeting a young Indian boy, perhaps 11 or 12 years old, a few years ago who spoke excellent English and very passable Sinhala (my travelling companion was from Sri Lanka). He was the son of a roadsweeper and his family couldn't afford to send him to school, so he was illiterate in his own languages (Hindi and Magahi). He made a living by acting as an illegal tour guide for tourists.

The very successful Pimsleur approach is based upon learning a language initially just by listening and repeating.

So, it's not necessarily "very difficult" to learn a new language without the written word.

If you don't already know a popular phonetic system you will have to do extra work learning one.

The amount of effort required to learn a phonetic system such as the Mary Haas one or the Benjawan Poomsan Becker one is trivial. 30 minutes max.

[tgeezer]

it is very difficult to learn a language if you are not literate

Really? Babies don't usually wait until they can read and write before learning a language.

And plenty of people pick up languages without being able to read or write them. I remember meeting a young Indian boy, perhaps 11 or 12 years old, a few years ago who spoke excellent English and very passable Sinhala (my travelling companion was from Sri Lanka). He was the son of a roadsweeper and his family couldn't afford to send him to school, so he was illiterate in his own languages (Hindi and Magahi). He made a living by acting as an illegal tour guide for tourists.

The very successful Pimsleur approach is based upon learning a language initially just by listening and repeating.

So, it's not necessarily "very difficult" to learn a new language without the written word.

If you don't already know a popular phonetic system you will have to do extra work learning one.

The amount of effort required to learn a phonetic system such as the Mary Haas one or the Benjawan Poomsan Becker one is trivial. 30 minutes max.

You said in your earlier post how much easier for you it became to learn French after reading a writing was introduced.

Are you just trying to pick a fight?

When I first started learning Thai the phonetic system had two E s backwards representing some vowel; แอ I think, it had letters showing tones (h) so I decided that it was too cumbersome and decided that it would be easier to learn Thai. Not all the systems are the same so very often if people write in phonetics, it is difficult to recognise the word. Difficult for me that is; I forced myself from the beginning to ignore the phonetics when I encounter them on Laguage sites like this.

How do they show ร ? Normally 'r' I think, which it isn't unless your language is Italian for instance. So to learn how to say ร you need a teacher, once you have a teacher, game on, if you can resist the urge to express your innermost thoughts within a week, get on and learn to write, it is fascinating and rewarding.

Phonetics is a tributary, it doesn't lead to the sea. When you say it takes thirty minutes to learn phonetics; true, but then you have learnt 'khow (f) =rice, better to learn ข้าว=ข้าว .

I can't go on with this, the programme keeps refusing to let me write what I want to write; computers!

Edited December 22, 2014 by tgeezer

[bikerlou47]

Don't bother it's a waste of time!

[tgeezer]

Don't bother it's a waste of time!

As is living, because we all know where we are going to end up!

[AyG]

Are you just trying to pick a fight?

How do they show ร ? Normally 'r' I think, which it isn't unless your language is Italian for instance. So to learn how to say ร you need a teacher, once you have a teacher, game on, if you can resist the urge to express your innermost thoughts within a week, get on and learn to write, it is fascinating and rewarding.

but then you have learnt 'khow (f) =rice, better to learn ข้าว=ข้าว .

Not trying to pick a fight. As I said in my first posting, people learn differently. Some people learn better through hearing, others through reading. I happen to fall into the latter category which is why the first year of French was painful for me.

When it comes to Thai, the Thai script is difficult. With a word like ข้าว one has to make a number of calculations. What class is the first consonant? How long is the vowel? Is it a live or dead syllable? And what is the tone mark? That's quite a complex process and for a beginner is undoubtedly very slow. The beginner certainly isn't going to be able to read text at anything like a normal conversational pace, possibly even with a year or two of learning. However, if written as khâaw (the Mary Haas way), once you know that kh means a hard "k" sound, the doubled vowel symbol means it's a long vowel, and that the circumflex means it's falling tone, then it's trivial to read. No need to consider consonant class, live or dead to determine the tone. Also, with such a system there's no need to worry about all the irregularities where pronunciation doesn't match spelling. According to J. Marvin Brown, only 77% of Thai words are spelled regularly - 23% aren't. And many very common words/syllables are irregular (e.g. เงิน, ช่าง, ต้อง, น้ำ, เก้า, ได้, เปล่า, ไม้, เขา, ไหม, หนังสือ, ตำรวจ, อันตราย). Better to learn the correct pronunciation first and worry about the spelling later in my opinion.

For someone starting out, learning Thai is going to be a long, longer process to become fluent in reading/writing/speaking, so (again in my opinion) there's really no hurry to learn to read & write.

[tgeezer]

มะโน ตัสสะ ภะคะวะโต อะระหะโต สัมมา สัมพุทธัสสะ ( my God you wouldn't believe what the HELPFUL predictive text made of that!,)

Do you know it? Few of the words mean anything in Thai มะโน สัมมา you can find in the dictionary, it is difficult to remember until you know that you are asking of four nouns, permission to give respect.

I post because I know what you mean by Pimsleur. (oh shit can't get past That last word, without a full stop it gets erased) you just mimic what is said and knowing the context it makes sense. Marvin Brown from AUA used to do a course like that; immersion I think it was, the idea is that you don't try to translate. The problem with most learners is that they are desperate to translate: "Do you think that the socio-economic system practised in the West will, in the end..... etc. or " do you love me for myself or is it only my money" and get frustrated when the language course doesn't equiptment them to do it.

[kokesaat]

You can learn all the consonants and vowels of the language and not be able to read a single word. A better method, IMO......start reading Maani. From lesson one, you are reading Thai script and learning the alphabet. Maani is available free pdfs, mp3 on the internet.

[tgeezer]

Are you just trying to pick a fight?

How do they show ร ? Normally 'r' I think, which it isn't unless your language is Italian for instance. So to learn how to say ร you need a teacher, once you have a teacher, game on, if you can resist the urge to express your innermost thoughts within a week, get on and learn to write, it is fascinating and rewarding.

but then you have learnt 'khow (f) =rice, better to learn ข้าว=ข้าว .

Not trying to pick a fight. As I said in my first posting, people learn differently. Some people learn better through hearing, others through reading. I happen to fall into the latter category which is why the first year of French was painful for me.

When it comes to Thai, the Thai script is difficult. With a word like ข้าว one has to make a number of calculations. What class is the first consonant? How long is the vowel? Is it a live or dead syllable? And what is the tone mark? That's quite a complex process and for a beginner is undoubtedly very slow. The beginner certainly isn't going to be able to read text at anything like a normal conversational pace, possibly even with a year or two of learning. However, if written as khâaw (the Mary Haas way), once you know that kh means a hard "k" sound, the doubled vowel symbol means it's a long vowel, and that the circumflex means it's falling tone, then it's trivial to read. No need to consider consonant class, live or dead to determine the tone. Also, with such a system there's no need to worry about all the irregularities where pronunciation doesn't match spelling. According to J. Marvin Brown, only 77% of Thai words are spelled regularly - 23% aren't. And many very common words/syllables are irregular (e.g. เงิน, ช่าง, ต้อง, น้ำ, เก้า, ได้, เปล่า, ไม้, เขา, ไหม, หนังสือ, ตำรวจ, อันตราย). Better to learn the correct pronunciation first and worry about the spelling later in my opinion.

For someone starting out, learning Thai is going to be a long, longer process to become fluent in reading/writing/speaking, so (again in my opinion) there's really no hurry to learn to read & write.

Our posts crossed didn't they. I feel that to try to learn with nothing written down would have been beyond me, when I hear a word I always ask for the spelling because without that, it's gone; you're not going to get phonetics from a Thai.

[tgeezer]

You can learn all the consonants and vowels of the language and not be able to read a single word. A better method, IMO......start reading Maani. From lesson one, you are reading Thai script and learning the alphabet. Maani is available free pdfs, mp3 on the internet.

Of course, the poster was asking if he should learn to read, the first step in this process is learning all the characters representing the sounds; consonants, vowels and tone marks. When you learn the consonants you are exposed to a lot of Thai similar to Mani Mana books.

ก เอ๋ย ก ไก่ ออกไปหากิน คุ้ยเขี่ยตามดิน กินหนอนและมแลง.

(Does anyone use 'chrome'? Look at that crap; I try to write แมลง and I get that shit! God it is frustrating. )

I digress; look at all the words you learn and that is only one of forty four letters of the alphabet.

[puukao]

I think schools teach the basics first so you can get some confidence and feel like you actually learned something. Oh, I just said I am full after eating. Fun!! And a few other phrases that make the day go easier. I don't think we had more than a few people in their 20's, so with that demographic in mind, the key is to sell more classes not discourage. However, I am convinced you must learn to write first. Write, pronounce, and write some more. Then, at least for me, my mind can picture the characters instead of "kuun choop aarai na krap." And they just laugh when I say stupid stuff like that all day, and if we were in another country they would not laugh as much. Usually (prosopgaan,or something) I start off with "Phom kitwa..." and they smile.....i know i say soo many unnecessary words, but this is how i talk to my thai friends, not strangers. To me, it's the most fun language to speak. However, it's hard to get people to correct you so you learn properly. In China, or if you meet Chinese people and speak Mandarin, they will instantly correct you and look at you like you are an idiot. Which is great....I learn that way.

I stand corrected: Everytime I said bike (jakkyayan or whatever) I was corrected. 1,343,252 saying that word and I never got it right. ah......mai bpen rai. LOL

Edited December 22, 2014 by puukao

[loloal]

Learning to read on your own is OK too, took me 3 weeks to know most "symbols" and 3 days to get the tone rules. Just 1 or 2 hours every night, after work. No teacher.

So you might do it by yourself without changing school. Knowing everything about special clusters etc. might take a little more time but this also comes naturally while learning vocabulary.

I'm an average learner and I guess most people can do the same.

One very good reason NOT to wait too long before starting to read thai, in my opinion, is that you would take the risk to memorize too much romanization. I was really upset when I started writing, because the first thing that came to my mind was the romanization of the words I wanted to write.

By example, now when I think about กิน I instantly visualize กิน. For a long time after learning how to write thai, I still visualized GIN or KIN. It took me a while to replace the romanization by the actual thai words in terms of "instant memory".

There are still many words for wich my brain first thinks about the romanized word. It also leads me to pronunciation mistakes in everyday oral communication (writing is OK because I can take some seconds to think over the romanized version and remember the actual thai word)

If I had learned to read thai earlier, at least the basics, I wouldn't have this problem.

I would also add that I find the Thai alphabet beautiful and actually love looking at it

Good luck

[Sattphalat]

I am a non native English speaker, not fluent, but working on it .

Take a look at English. That is a language difficult to learn.

Reading and writing is no way near pronouncing as I se it thai is more logical. A letter is a sound, and the sound is what you pronance.

[Richard W]

มะโน ตัสสะ ภะคะวะโต อะระหะโต สัมมา สัมพุทธัสสะ ( my God you wouldn't believe what the HELPFUL predictive text made of that!,)

Try setting your input language to Pali.

[tgeezer]

มะโน ตัสสะ ภะคะวะโต อะระหะโต สัมมา สัมพุทธัสสะ ( my God you wouldn't believe what the HELPFUL predictive text made of that!,)

Try setting your input language to Pali.

I know that it's Pali Richard but that isn't in Google, my book does give an interpretation but I am curious to know are ถะคะวะ อะระหะ 'greats' like สัมมา ? What does ตัสสะ say?

[Richard W]

I know that it's Pali Richard but that isn't in Google, my book does give an interpretation but I am curious to know are ถะคะวะ อะระหะ 'greats' like สัมมา ? What does ตัสสะ say?

To use the proper spelling, ภควา means 'fortunate, blessed' and อรหํ means 'worthy, meritorious'. (For those with no Pali, ภควโต and อรหโต are dative singular forms.) ตสฺส means 'to him' - it's the dative case. You'll find entries for ภควา and อรหัง in the RID. Don't ignore the entries for the Sanskrit-derived forms.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Richard W

[SlyAnimal]

I think schools teach the basics first so you can get some confidence and feel like you actually learned something. Oh, I just said I am full after eating. Fun!! And a few other phrases that make the day go easier. I don't think we had more than a few people in their 20's, so with that demographic in mind, the key is to sell more classes not discourage. However, I am convinced you must learn to write first. Write, pronounce, and write some more. Then, at least for me, my mind can picture the characters instead of "kuun choop aarai na krap." And they just laugh when I say stupid stuff like that all day, and if we were in another country they would not laugh as much. Usually (prosopgaan,or something) I start off with "Phom kitwa..." and they smile.....i know i say soo many unnecessary words, but this is how i talk to my thai friends, not strangers. To me, it's the most fun language to speak. However, it's hard to get people to correct you so you learn properly. In China, or if you meet Chinese people and speak Mandarin, they will instantly correct you and look at you like you are an idiot. Which is great....I learn that way.

I stand corrected: Everytime I said bike (jakkyayan or whatever) I was corrected. 1,343,252 saying that word and I never got it right. ah......mai bpen rai. LOL

Definitely learn to read/write early on if you can. I learn the basics of reading/writing when I first moved here and the only regret I have is that I initially only learnt the basics (I didn't learn with tone markers etc, basically just consonants/vowels).

If I'd put in just a few extra hours 4 years ago, the extra stuff would likely have just become second nature to me by now.

In general, learning to read/write assists with your immersion into Thailand, as then you'll start reading the Thai signs and menus etc. This will then passively increase your fluency and teach you new vocab at the same time, all without much effort beyond the time it took to initially learn.

[tgeezer]

I know that it's Pali Richard but that isn't in Google, my book does give an interpretation but I am curious to know are ถะคะวะ อะระหะ 'greats' like สัมมา ? What does ตัสสะ say?

To use the proper spelling, ภควา means 'fortunate, blessed' and อรหํ means 'worthy, meritorious'. (For those with no Pali, ภควโต and อรหโต are dative singular forms.) ตสฺส means 'to him' - it's the dative case. You'll find entries for ภควา and อรหัง in the RID. Don't ignore the entries for the Sanskrit-derived forms.

The book I have is for primary school kids, probably can't expect the kids to read without the vowels at that stage.

Too much for me too without a teacher.

[naboo]

I learned to speak before reading and writing. The tones came to me by imitating the sound of the people I hear. When I try to read the sounds, remembering the tone rules I find very difficult, still can't.

I learned reading (can't write) about three years later. The reading then improved my pronunciation of some of the "d, dt, t" differences, and the "b, bp, p", as well as highlighting the importance of the length of vowel in so many words I'd never even thought of.

And reading does open up a new world. I always new "lang rot" wash to was the car, but the sign says "lang, chit rot". Today I was in a store and asked where the nearest car wash was, though I had never vocally said "lang, chit rot" and could only see the sign in my head. As I tried to visualise it, I came out with "ab, ob nuwat" for some unknown reason. I couldn't talk my way out of that one.

I would recommend learning to read, yes. I've met so many people struggling to pronounce because they have no understanding of the sounds the words are made of. Reading teaches you this before you start learning the words, so you get your pronunciation right from the word go. I hate to think how bad my pronunciation was prior to reading.

Edited December 24, 2014 by naboo