How much time took you to learn Thai?

[GarryP]

Most non thais I come across think I speak thai fluently but that's not the case. Fooling some of the people and fooling all of the people is very different.

Exactly the same in my case. I have run across farangs stating they speak Thai fluently, but apart from rare exceptions I think this statement would sound ridiculous to Thai people who have heard them speaking Thai.

I have met a number of "fluent" Thai speaking foreigners over the years, and of those there is only one who I would rate fluent. They may have the vocab and grammar down pat, but many of them are screwed up by weak pronunciation. On top of that, you have those who speak in such a convoluted way it is clear they have no idea about colloquial Thai. Speak formal Thai to a motorcycle taxi chap or just about anyone else in an everyday setting and they will look at you as if you come from Mars, but still tell you that you speak Thai very well.

I have even met Thais who say such and such a person speaks Thai very well when I know fact such person speaks only poor but understandable Thai with a vocabulary of a first year primary school kid. Thais can be very forgiving in this regard.

[keestha]

Impossible to judge anyway how well a person speaks a language if you don't speak that language yourself. I am sure if anybody posting in here would move to Northern Canada to live among the Eskimos, stay there for a year and go through a lot of effort to learn the local language, and me visiting him after a year, I would be impressed by his linguistic skills, whilst in fact his communication ability is still quite limited.

[LarryBird]

For me, learning a language is a journey, and not a destination. I actually enjoy the process. If I was doing it for the sole functional purpose of speaking Thai really well and being more productive in society, I think the required work put into it would be far greater than the reward.

[Om85]

Your OP says you perfected Thai in an additional year of self study. Now you say it's far from perfect.

Most non thais I come across think I speak thai fluently but that's not the case. Fooling some of the people and fooling all of the people is very different.

Well I am fluent, if I weren't I couldn't do my work in which 40% of the time I must to speak in Chinese and the rest in Thai, of course my Thai isn't perfect, like my English, Chinese and Japanese, sometimes I commit mistakes, but that's normal, everyday I learn new words there is no shame in that, I am a humble guy

[Aforek]

Ability to learn a foreign language is a gift, for sure : but to be fluent, what does it means ? for me, it's to understand and read every thing people say, newspapers, televison, in the street as easily as the locals , without hesitation and no dictionnary

Before I thought that a foreigner ( any foreigner ) could'nt be fluent in a language which is not his mother language , but , as a French man, I have worked many years with two women from Poland ( married with French guys ), I had numerous conversations with them and I can tell you they speak as good French as I, without accent !! I have heard that when they came to France the first time, they didn't know a word !

as for Thai, I have read the comments from a professional translator Thai-French, who said that learning a foreign language is a never stop task, every day he learns something , I like humble people

as for me, I speak , write an understand a big part of every day thai language , but I am very far to be fluent , I learn something new every day , like the translator above

[SlyAnimal]

I think becoming fluent is very very very difficult unless you come here at a young age.

Particularly as many jobs are restricted (both by law and because the low income makes them simply undesirable), so most interactions with Thai people in the workplace will be in English, and total immersion (or at least regular speech over an extended period) is what's required for fluency. E.g. If I was working in the market instead of as an English teacher, I might eventually become fluent over time.

[siam2007]

how fast you learn is up to you - you have to find your very own pace.

1) learn the basics using transcription

2) learn to read and write Thai soon after that

3) continue to learn only using Thai characters

4) READ as much as you can and everywhere you are. start with topics you are familiar, then continue trying to read more complex texts or about topis you are not familiar with

5) have a THAI partner wife/husband and do not converse in English with her - that I think helps most

the key really is to learn reading and writing quickly, only then you will find out that you have pronounced many Thai words completly wrong or that the transcription from Thai to English (or what they think is English) is in 80% complete rubbish.

[cooked]

Some of these posts remind me of when I spent six months brushing up my German only to discover that the peasants in Switzerland didn't understand me. At agricultural college the teachers nervously asled me if they could continue instruction in Swiss German. Same thing before I arrived here, in a region where Isaan (Lao) and Cambodian are the preferred languages. I get by but I'll never master Thai, even my wife, who is quite clever, has difficulty with Thai so I have to depend on the 8 year old granddaughter, who is also picking up Lao without realising it. At least I fill up with E20 and not diesel and know where Krungthep is.

[daij1944]

having spent 6 months in school and studying on my own, i have to admit that there was a certain shock when i realized there was no magic bullet, no moment at which thai would suddenly become easy.

nevertheless:

does anyone have any recommendations?

what did make a difference?

or do you just have to put an awful lot of time in? for most of us, it's clearly a far harder slog than any european language

and, the 64K question: is there a best way to learn the tones?

Edited June 9, 2015 by daij1944

[brewsterbudgen]

Never studied it and in 10 years have only picked up the very basics. Fortunately in Bangkok most people speak enough English, so it's never been an issue.

[chubby]

thing its neung bpan , know that much smile when you say neung

Everyones different, not everyone can play the piano even with training, Im rubbish at languages , have a memory like a sieve, have a friend who speaks/writes/reads it he has ben learning it for about10 years, he is fluent Im just abysmal after years of trying, even simple words I still get the "what the heck are you saying look"

I wish it was different but it isn't, I am what I am.

Absolutely, the only people who can understand my Thai are my wife and son and even they sometimes look nonplussed.

It is the tones that are difficult for me , a native English speaker. I know most basic words and can follow a conversation spoken by Thai, but open my mouth and I might as well be speaking Celtic ! I do not speak Celtic either.

My French is passable.

Ask in a restaurant I visit at least once a week for moo sen yai, Kap and a blank stare. OK let's use English, the usual please!

get the same at the gas station, wind down window "deeeeeeesel pan nung" blank look off some, others are ok or they will say it as deeeeeeeeeeesel nung pan, either way I still get a vacant look at times.

Once theyve been horsewhipped it all becomes clearer, pls note I have to add this last bit as apparently Im a colonial bwana ass type something or other??

[chubby]

is this some congradulatory post, what's the point, ok how nice for you

Maybe the OP really does have an extraordinary gift for languages, but I've personally never met anyone who mastered Thai in anywhere near that short of a period of time. I doubt any of the heavy-hitter Thai experts on this forum will report that level of mastery after their early years of study either.

I have studied Thai diligently for 21 years and have a deep love for the language, but I don't think I will ever describe my Thai as "perfected," and only after around 12-14 years of study did I even begin to regard myself as "fluent." And that's with a "life's work" approach and dedication to learning the language.

At about the 3-4 year mark, I began to feel comfortable enough to travel without a dictionary on my person.

I'm only recounting this for those curious about a real life example.

Well, my Thai is far from perfect but I know that I speak well enough since the Thais get what I say without effort, I also work doing marketing so most of my clients are Thai and we do all the talking, contracts etc in Thai, I think that the reason why I got it so fast is because I am fluent in Chinese and that helps a lot. my mother language is Spanish, another factor is the age, I came here when I was 23, now I m 29 and after my first week here I knew that if I wanted to live here I must to be able to learn the language and the culture, so I put a lot of time and effort in learning it.

[Om85]

is this some congradulatory post, what's the point, ok how nice for you

Maybe the OP really does have an extraordinary gift for languages, but I've personally never met anyone who mastered Thai in anywhere near that short of a period of time. I doubt any of the heavy-hitter Thai experts on this forum will report that level of mastery after their early years of study either.

I have studied Thai diligently for 21 years and have a deep love for the language, but I don't think I will ever describe my Thai as "perfected," and only after around 12-14 years of study did I even begin to regard myself as "fluent." And that's with a "life's work" approach and dedication to learning the language.

At about the 3-4 year mark, I began to feel comfortable enough to travel without a dictionary on my person.

I'm only recounting this for those curious about a real life example.

Well, my Thai is far from perfect but I know that I speak well enough since the Thais get what I say without effort, I also work doing marketing so most of my clients are Thai and we do all the talking, contracts etc in Thai, I think that the reason why I got it so fast is because I am fluent in Chinese and that helps a lot. my mother language is Spanish, another factor is the age, I came here when I was 23, now I m 29 and after my first week here I knew that if I wanted to live here I must to be able to learn the language and the culture, so I put a lot of time and effort in learning it.

If you don't get my point then ....

[phuketsub]

I think the OP's reported is very impressive and I wonder just how much having another tonal language as a mother tongue is an advantage.

When I started studying Thai some 30 years ago all I could get as resources were some AUA tapes, the Mary Haas dictionary, TV and (most important of course)

the Thai people who were almost always keen to help.

Nowadays there are amazing resources on-line everywhere (this forum included), but since they are just a tiny fragment of the "info overload" I think a lot of people who

might have otherwise had the time, patience and aptitude to learn Thai may be following other pursuits that simply weren't available back then.

It seems to me that many if not most of the young expats I meet here have little, if any, desire to learn Thai. Some are even proud of the fact.

I certainly learned a lot more, a lot more quickly, in my early days here and a lot of it just came through "forced exposure". I remember going to see

all the Jackie Chai movies, which were dubbed into Thai, in cinemas....now I never go to cinemas and just watch spend most of my time obsessively analyzing the NFL, watching Game of Thrones, and so on.

I guess you could say my Thai is in a holding pattern, but I do consider myself fluent...but of course it is a work in progress.

All that said, I do agree with the previous posters that we really need a working definition of the term 'fluent'.

[RickBradford]

I think the OP's reported is very impressive and I wonder just how much having another tonal language as a mother tongue is an advantage.

I would say very much an advantage, the tonal familiarity, the similar grammar, similar sounds and even some shared words from Chinese.

I learnt Vietnamese a while back, another similar tonal language, (with things such as 'ng' at the start of a word, and equivalents of 'sara eu'/'sara euu') and that certainly made learning Thai much easier.

I'm sure the OP would admire the ease at which English speakers can pick up other European languages, or even glean information from languages they don't actually know. Is there much doubt what 'Motociclista de 51 anos morre em colisão com carro' means?

[chubby]

well, seems kind of obvious, yes chinese -> thai is easier, as english-> french would be ; is that's what the OP's point is ? not the most breaking news, and the tone seemed more one, of 'how easy it is, why would it take anyone any effort' but maybe something lost ... in translation so to speak

[kriswillems]

I think it will take me forever.
I feel like I am improving and I can talk about most things in Thai at a normal speed, read books and newspapers and such (a bit slower than I read English), but I think I am still very far from being fluent.
My pronunciation is still not very good (but most people understand me).

I am here for 7 years.

Edited June 24, 2015 by kriswillems

[leosmith]

How well your Thai is understood, also depends on the person you are speaking to. Your handicap is that you look like a Westerner. I definitely speak better Thai than French, though I can effortlessly conduct a conversation in French, constantly finding ways around the words I cannot find. I am European so the French speakers will be completely open minded about how well I master their language, though sometimes being slightly surprised because French has become less common as a second (?third etc.) language. But Thai is a different matter. Sometimes Thai people see your face and immediately assume they will not understand you, you speak Thai but the person might not even register that, he keeps looking at you like you are speaking John the Baptist's native language. You run into surprises, maybe the woman working in a tourist area gets a big problem expression on her face as soon as you start speaking Thai to her, whilst you effortlessly have a chat with the Isaan rice farmer you run across in the fields.

My Thai pronunciation is so-so, but I rarely have the "white face" issue you experience. My Mandarin and Japanese pronunciation are pretty good, and I never have this issue with them. The logical conclusion is that your Thai pronunciation is pretty bad. Most likely you aren't paying attention to tones or vowel lengths the way you assume you are. I suggest recording yourself then play it back. You might be shocked. If you aren't, then have a native Thai teacher listen to it and tell you what's wrong. The problem is unlikely to be your face.

[GarryP]

How well your Thai is understood, also depends on the person you are speaking to. Your handicap is that you look like a Westerner. I definitely speak better Thai than French, though I can effortlessly conduct a conversation in French, constantly finding ways around the words I cannot find. I am European so the French speakers will be completely open minded about how well I master their language, though sometimes being slightly surprised because French has become less common as a second (?third etc.) language. But Thai is a different matter. Sometimes Thai people see your face and immediately assume they will not understand you, you speak Thai but the person might not even register that, he keeps looking at you like you are speaking John the Baptist's native language. You run into surprises, maybe the woman working in a tourist area gets a big problem expression on her face as soon as you start speaking Thai to her, whilst you effortlessly have a chat with the Isaan rice farmer you run across in the fields.

My Thai pronunciation is so-so, but I rarely have the "white face" issue you experience. My Mandarin and Japanese pronunciation are pretty good, and I never have this issue with them. The logical conclusion is that your Thai pronunciation is pretty bad. Most likely you aren't paying attention to tones or vowel lengths the way you assume you are. I suggest recording yourself then play it back. You might be shocked. If you aren't, then have a native Thai teacher listen to it and tell you what's wrong. The problem is unlikely to be your face.

Actually I have come across the same thing. In some cases the person you are about to talk to believes you will speak to them in English and that is what they focus on. So when you speak Thai they do not realize you are speaking their language and as a result cannot understand what you are saying. In a few cases over the years I have said to the other party in English that I will speak in Thai as it will be easier for them, and then the conversation proceeds in Thai without any problems at all.

There are also cases where Thais just cannot get their head around the fact that you speak Thai and will not understand what you are saying no matter how fluent you are, or at least to begin with. And other cases where a Thais will speak to you in English even though your Thai is far superior to their second language abilities and they know that. Now I just go with the flow and if anyone wants to speak in English I will do so without saying that I speak Thai. But sometimes what happens in those cases is a lot of embarrassment to the Thai I am speaking to if one of my Thai colleagues or friends comes along and joins in the conversation, speaking to me in Thai.

Please note that I am not trying to put anyone down, just explaining my experience after more than 30 years here. BTW my spoken Thai is pretty good.

[leosmith]

Actually I have come across the same thing. In some cases the person you are about to talk to believes you will speak to them in English and that is what they focus on. So when you speak Thai they do not realize you are speaking their language and as a result cannot understand what you are saying. In a few cases over the years I have said to the other party in English that I will speak in Thai as it will be easier for them, and then the conversation proceeds in Thai without any problems at all.

There are also cases where Thais just cannot get their head around the fact that you speak Thai and will not understand what you are saying no matter how fluent you are, or at least to begin with. And other cases where a Thais will speak to you in English even though your Thai is far superior to their second language abilities and they know that. Now I just go with the flow and if anyone wants to speak in English I will do so without saying that I speak Thai. But sometimes what happens in those cases is a lot of embarrassment to the Thai I am speaking to if one of my Thai colleagues or friends comes along and joins in the conversation, speaking to me in Thai.

Please note that I am not trying to put anyone down, just explaining my experience after more than 30 years here. BTW my spoken Thai is pretty good.

I'm not trying to put anybody down either, so sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. Humor me. Make a recording (video is best) as I suggested. It's an eye opening experience. You'll probably not be nearly as strong of a believer in the "white face" theory after that.

[GarryP]

Actually I have come across the same thing. In some cases the person you are about to talk to believes you will speak to them in English and that is what they focus on. So when you speak Thai they do not realize you are speaking their language and as a result cannot understand what you are saying. In a few cases over the years I have said to the other party in English that I will speak in Thai as it will be easier for them, and then the conversation proceeds in Thai without any problems at all.

There are also cases where Thais just cannot get their head around the fact that you speak Thai and will not understand what you are saying no matter how fluent you are, or at least to begin with. And other cases where a Thais will speak to you in English even though your Thai is far superior to their second language abilities and they know that. Now I just go with the flow and if anyone wants to speak in English I will do so without saying that I speak Thai. But sometimes what happens in those cases is a lot of embarrassment to the Thai I am speaking to if one of my Thai colleagues or friends comes along and joins in the conversation, speaking to me in Thai.

Please note that I am not trying to put anyone down, just explaining my experience after more than 30 years here. BTW my spoken Thai is pretty good.

I'm not trying to put anybody down either, so sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. Humor me. Make a recording (video is best) as I suggested. It's an eye opening experience. You'll probably not be nearly as strong of a believer in the "white face" theory after that.

I did not take your post personally. Actually, I agree with you. I know there are a hell of a lot of foreigners who believe their Thai is fantastic when in fact that is very far from the truth. I hear them speaking in a very convoluted way and their pronunciation is far from correct. They speak in whole sentences, but not colloquially, and generally sound like a foreigner trying to speak Thai. I have heard myself speaking Thai, both in a recording of a public speaking engagement and an infomercial. I am the first to admit I sometimes get the pronunciation wrong, but for the most part I am pretty good. I do not translate from English to Thai before speaking. I think in Thai. This comes with learning through total immersion, a more natural way of learning a language but very time consuming.

However, I still stand by my earlier comments too.

[RT85]

i've been learning Thai on and off for 7 or 8 years?

did a basic spoken course for about 3 months at a private school..

but most of my real learning has been at the work place.. with 300 people of which 298 are native thai speakers... it was quite natural to pick up listening skills...

reading and writing has been a slow learn for me though.. can't really put down the time (or discipline) to get thru kor kai gor gai etc..

plus because i've been living and working here for 2 years now without problems... the motivation isn't quite there for me to read and write...

sorry about my type as i think posts.. haha

Cheers

[leosmith]

I have heard myself speaking Thai, both in a recording of a public speaking engagement and an infomercial. I am the first to admit I sometimes get the pronunciation wrong, but for the most part I am pretty good. I do not translate from English to Thai before speaking. I think in Thai. This comes with learning through total immersion, a more natural way of learning a language but very time consuming.

However, I still stand by my earlier comments too.

I don't doubt that you are an accomplished speaker. But like I said, this white face excuse is mostly used by people with poor pronunciation. I see it used all over the world (I speak 8 languages). If it were me, I'd make a random video, possibly with a native speaker, then have it critiqued by someone who has no problem with being objective. Sure, the white face thing happens, but it's somewhat rare and very short lived.

[SlyAnimal]

The white face thing definitely is a "thing", I sometimes get it at restaurants which aren't used to Farang speaking Thai. Although usually after they realise that I'm speaking Thai there aren't any problems (A mate told me that even a guy he knows, who's been here since he was 4 & thus essentially a native speaker, occasionally gets it as well.).

Although there are also definitely situations where a Thai person is unable to understand anything other than absolutely perfect Thai. This doesn't happen very often though, provided that you're saying what they expect you to say (e.g. Ordering food in a restaurant as opposed to say asking the waiter to change the TV channel).

[MatteoBassini]

Since Thai is a tonal language, many people won't understand unless you speak it perfectly because depending on how you pronounce a word, it can mean different things.

One of the ways to test your Thai speaking proficiency is being able to pronounce the word 'kai' to mean 10 different things. Like egg, chicken, sickness/disease, who, selling, spit, boot camp. etc.

IMHO, If you can do that then you speak Thai fluently.

Edited July 12, 2015 by MatteoBassini

[StefanBBK]

I don't speak Thai. I do understand some and generally can make myself understood using simple phrases and word I picked up over the years.

At the beginning I bought phrasebook etc. And found quickly that our alphabet is not able to correctly transcribe how a word should be pronounced.

I do not have the time to attend language school. Does anyone have a good suggestion how to progress best? I know that learning the alphabet is essential, but fear I can't manage without help.

Is there a good online course?

[bearpolar]

try the book by benjawan on libgen, if you like it you can order it off amazon to support the author

[Happy Grumpy]

3 yrs of full-time study.

[leosmith]

Since Thai is a tonal language, many people won't understand unless you speak it perfectly because depending on how you pronounce a word, it can mean different things.

One of the ways to test your Thai speaking proficiency is being able to pronounce the word 'kai' to mean 10 different things. Like egg, chicken, sickness/disease, who, selling, spit, boot camp. etc.

IMHO, If you can do that then you speak Thai fluently.

I just wanted to point out that your "fluency test" involves more than tone differences. ไข่ ไก่ ไข้ ใคร ขาย ค่าย aren't words whose pronunciations are the same except for the tones.

Does being able to pronounce these correctly make you fluent? I'm sure it does by somebody's definition of "fluency". But you might be better off saying if you can't pronounce these correctly you don't have very good pronunciation.

[fang37]

My experience is that you never stop learning.