Foreign teachers in Thailand hope for stability amid education overhaul

[LecheHombre]

I am wondering if the Thai alphabet is partially to blame for poor education.

I read somewhere it takes 5 years for Thai children to learn the Thai alphabet.

Rubbish. Took me 5 weeks to learn to read and write Thai.(as an adult). It's actually easier to master than the English alphabet and spelling rules. i.e...it has rules and they don't "change" ...as not the case in English.

But poor old English is bastardised with foreign input. e.g "resume" ... a French word. Not pronounced with English rules.

Overall..The Thai alphabet and spelling/tone rules are MUCH easier to learn than the English alphabet and it's mangled contradictions.

If you learned to read and write Thai in 5 weeks, you've got a much higher talent for languages (and probably a much higher motivation to learn) than the average person.

On the other hand, I 100% agree that a lot of things about Thai are easier than English. English has such weird spelling because we incorporated words from many many different languages, and all of them have different rules about what sound/phoneme different letter combinations should represent. Thai, on the other hand, has 44 consonants, 15+ vowels, and 4 tones which can very concretely and phonetically designate the proper sound of Thai words. So if one does learn the Thai alphabet properly, it is easy to read a word that you've never seen/heard before correctly / with the correct sound. That doesn't work at all in English unless one gets very very good at making educated guesses as to the root origin of English words, and even then it is spotty.

To answer the grandparent post in the quote, I personally don't believe that the "difficulty" of the Thai alphabet has any negative impact on the education system here. Whatever failings exist are systemic, not a result of the language. BUT, I think that the Thai system actually is worried about that, much more than I am. I've spoken with Thai teachers in government Anuban schools who have been told to NOT start intentionally teaching reading/writing in English until their students are in Pratom, and when I asked about that they specifically said it was because there are concerns that kids will prefer English writing to their native Thai because they think it is easier. Fortunately, as a parent in a bilingual house that thinks that concern is nonsense, I can teach my kids to read English as soon as they are ready for it; and my wife can do likewise with Thai.

The Thai alphabet has 46 consonants, 28 vowels and 5 tone marks. If you are writing how easy it is to learn the Thai alphabet please get your facts right. With your displayed knowledge about it I really doubt that you have learned it and are able to read and write Thai.

Thank you *ever* so much for pointing out my woefully inadequate comprehension of the Thai alphabet, and my pathetic mental faculties in general. I will forever be in your debt for setting the record straight. Please, I beg of you to continue to sacrifice your time and grant the gift of your resplendent knowledge to the lowly unwashed masses, such as myself. Doing so is an act of such incredible selflessness and charity, and I am sure that only criminally few individuals take the time to properly thank you for it! You must have the patience of a saint to carry on educating such an unappreciative audience.

And please, while you are at it, set the record straight for other individuals or organizations that would pass themselves off as "authorities", yet obviously don't have the benefit of your superior intellect. For example, http://www.thai-language.com/ref/consonants claims that the Thai language has 44 consonants, as I did. Idiots! The dullards at wikipedia even have the gall to claim that Thai script has "15 vowel symbols that combine into at least 28 vowel forms" and "four tone diacritics", similar to my figure of "15+ vowels and 4 tones". Please, continue to altruistically benefit all of mankind by contributing your corrections the wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_alphabet to rectify those obvious errors.

Although I know that your post was made as a purely magnanimous gesture to inform those less fortunate than yourself, I am afraid that I do disagree with one portion of it; but only on a mere technicality. You said, referring to me, "With your displayed knowledge about it I really doubt that you have learned it and are able to read and write Thai." I think that given your clearly superior and logical mind, you may find upon re-reading my post that I technically never claimed to be an expert, or even fluent or near-fluent in reading/writing Thai. Nor did I imply or state anything about it being "easy to learn the Thai alphabet". I did claim that "a lot of things about Thai are easier than English", providing the example of weird spelling that uses different letter combinations for the same sounds/phonemes in English, compared to Thai being in general a much more phonetic language. If you, oh wisest and most learned among us, disagree with that claim I am sure everyone would just LOVE to hear about it.

[Scott]

Please stay on topic. One post has been removed, but the topic isn't about the Thai language. There is an entire section of the forum for that.