How YOU learned to speak Thai Language?

[WinnieTheKhwai]

^ Well, maybe as a go-between between using the full alphabet versus a transliteration system based on Latin characters. The latter is completely pointless, and they are all either very imperfect, or so complex that you might as well learn the real thing.

Focussing on the more common consonants could flatten the learning curve. I'm not sure I'd actually throw them out, but rather focus first on words that don't use the less common ones, and introduce the rarer animals later. I was mostly replying to the notion that all 44/42 consonants contribute something unique in defining sound; they don't.

[jayceenik]

I went to AUA for several months to learn Thai, but never did get fluent and never learned reading or writing. Learn the Thai alphabet and the sounds each letter makes, then you can sound out any written Thai word and have the visual as well as the aural senses working, ....

AUA is an excellent way to improve your Thai. The classes usually consist of two teachers conversing with each other in a very animated way, using mime and gestures and drawings. You can get the gist of what they're saying from their actions, and they limit the vocabulary and sentence structures to just the right level; plus each lesson is focused on a single topic - so you get to learn a lot just from the context.

There is no need for you to write anything down, to learn/memorize anything, or to speak. It's supposed to be similar to how children learn their own language, initially just be listening before speaking and reading/writing.

HOWEVER, the "ALG" approach in its purist form is not particularly efficient (apologies to Dr Brown). It takes around 600 hours over six months to achieve a certain level of comprehension. And then another 600 hours to get to the next level. All in all, about three years (at 3,600 hours!) to achieve a decent level of everyday fluency. Who has so much time?

IMHO, the approach used at AUA is ideal for training your ear after you've already learnt to read and understand some basic Thai. At AUA, they will recommend that you join a class at slightly above your level of proficiency - so as to "stretch" your mind as you struggle to understand the conversation.

I recommend joining the class one or two levels lower than this, the idea being to simply enjoy being able to immerse yourself in a conversation and allow your ear to attune itself to real-speed spoken Thai.

Then, at home, read through colloquial texts around the topic of the class that you plan on attending, learn the vocabulary using Anki (spaced-repetition flashcards) and practice speaking the words and phrases out loud until you can do so fast and accurately.

No need to attend every AUA class, just a few each week will do - so long as you do the mental and physical preparation beforehand.

And then just go and enjoy yourself, the sheer pleasure of being able to listen in on a fun and entertaining Thai conversation and hear and understand most of it!

PS, I think only the AUA schools in Bangkok have these classes (with the two teachers and the ALG Method).

FYI, AUA schools in Bangkok and Chiang Mai have totally different curricula. The school in BKK teaches the ALG method (observing but not participating) and Chiang Mai has textbooks and teaches in levels. One can go online and watch a huge amount of the ALG videos on YouTube for free. They are great for picking up the rhythm of the language plus vocabulary and are quite fun to watch. I thoroughly enjoy them. They are progressive so you can start from day one and spend hours and hours listening. In Chiang Mai, there is one teacher for a class and they use their own materials but are similar to any other school in Chiang Mai. Participation is required and there is homework. Classes are for five days a week and are intense. The OP is an older learner. So am I. For me, it was too much information, too fast. It is luck of the draw on which teacher you end up with. Some are good and some are not. You do not know until after you pay your money and the class begins as to who your instructor is. I think one really needs to do their homework researching schools if they are going to invest a lot of time (and money) in learning. Most of the Chiang Mai schools will let you sit in on part of a class prior to committing. If they don't, I would be sceptical. I'm assuming the OP is from Chiang Mai since that is the forum that this was posted in.

Thanks Hummingbird for mentioning those ALG VDO.

I didn't know about ALG and those very practical VDOs.

I Googled for the sites :

http://auathai.com/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/algworld

I'll use them to improve my Thai.

I self studied Thai with the AUA books and tapes (they still had tapes then !!) and got a reasonable mastery of the tonal system but in spite of my best efforts never got to the point where I can read other than simple instructions and road signs. No newspapers and literature for me !!

Still I can speak useful conversational Thai with my TGF and understand most of what she says (she's got a nasty temper and gets quickly upset if I ask her to repeat a word LOL).

[SimonI]

Vocabulary, vocabulary and vocabulary... language structure itself isn't really a rocket science unless you are committed to learn reading and writing

[chrissables]

^ Well, maybe as a go-between between using the full alphabet versus a transliteration system based on Latin characters. The latter is completely pointless, and they are all either very imperfect, or so complex that you might as well learn the real thing.

Focussing on the more common consonants could flatten the learning curve. I'm not sure I'd actually throw them out, but rather focus first on words that don't use the less common ones, and introduce the rarer animals later. I was mostly replying to the notion that all 44/42 consonants contribute something unique in defining sound; they don't.

I understand

Yes, maybe leave out the rarely used letters until the frequently used ones are learnt.

coincidentally my Thai lesson today has the word พัฒนา (develop), using the the rarely used Taw phu tao.

So good to learn new things!

[timmyp]

^ Well, maybe as a go-between between using the full alphabet versus a transliteration system based on Latin characters. The latter is completely pointless, and they are all either very imperfect, or so complex that you might as well learn the real thing.

Focussing on the more common consonants could flatten the learning curve. I'm not sure I'd actually throw them out, but rather focus first on words that don't use the less common ones, and introduce the rarer animals later. I was mostly replying to the notion that all 44/42 consonants contribute something unique in defining sound; they don't.

I think using the International Phonic Alphabet is fine (IPA). If you don't know it before starting to study Thai, then you'll have to learn it, but it's transferable to any other language, it's fully accurate, and it can ease the pain of learning the Thai letters. To someone who doesn't know the IPA, it may seem like too much extra unrelated stuff to learn, but it's quite similar to what you are already familiar with in the roman script. Also, it will come in handy when: 1) reading words that have exceptions (that includes inherent vowels, long/short vowels that aren't indicated in the Thai spelling, and tone exceptions), 2) looking up words by the sound when you don't know the spelling (as Benjawan Becker's "Talking Thai Dictionary App" allows)

I learned the letters from the very start. But I don't think that's necessary to do. You definitely gotta learn to read early on, but I think it's ok to put it off for a few months in the beginning. There are alot of rules to learn with the Thai alphabet, so it makes more sense to me to concentrate on basic vocab and speaking in the beginning, then move on to reading and writing.

But definitely don't bother with some goofy transliteration system that doesn't accurately reflect the pronunciation, that will screw you up in the long run for sure.

[LarryBird]

Some of the advice on here is absurd. It's kind of like a guy at Best Buy selling the top of the line desktop with all of the bells and whistles to your Grandmother who's gonna do nothing but use it for email and facebook. If someone wants to get to know Thai like Joe Cummings or Andrew Biggs, they will definitely probably have to learn how to read and write. As daunting of a task as it seems at first, reading and writing is NO BIG DEAL, and most people can get the hang of it in about a month. But, for someone just learning, it's not necessary.

If OP really wanted to learn Thai, he would just go and buy a beginner's book and a dictionary like the rest of us.. That should cost about 800 baht I would guess Skip the dictionary, as thai2english.com is a fantastic site for translating.. While I'm at it, Becker's Thai For Traveler's is another one of their awesome resource, that also comes with a CD for listening to proper pronunciation.

And of course, one of the advantages to taking a course is a structured environment, one you paid for, so you will probably do the bare minimum and show up. Sometimes I am under the impression that people will just show up to a course, or a private tutor, and expect to not have to put any effort into the process... Like, 'here I am, can you inject the USB into my brain, so I don't have to think?'

I will take a picture of the bazillion flashcards I used for studying, to give you an idea of the type of work that should be put in..

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I think using the International Phonic Alphabet is fine (IPA). If you don't know it before starting to study Thai, then you'll have to learn it, but it's transferable to any other language, it's fully accurate, and it can ease the pain of learning the Thai letters.

Right... though for me IPA for Thai would also fall in the category of 'so complex that you might as well just learn the Thai script'.

I Wikipedia'd it, and for example "Chang Phuak" would become: tɕʰáːŋ pʰɯə˩k

At that point I think I might as well learn the Thai. And I'm not actually sure I was able to get the low tone marker correct in Phuak.. (˩ ?) (Which incidentally I wouldn't need to worry about when just using Thai script, as the low tone is already established just by virtue of starting with a high class consonant and a dead (k/p/t) ending.)

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Thai_and_Lao ; as an aside, this is also a great page to see Thai and Lao similarities side by side)

And it can get even more awkward, such as the ISO 11940 standard used by Google Translate. This manages to turn "Chiang Mai" into "Cheīyngh̄ım̀". (Yes, really.)

So anyway, I agree that if you plan to learn a lot more languages then there is some benefit in knowing IPA (although it seems to have local rules for the peculiarities of each language too), but I don't think this outweighs the massive benefit of 'not being illiterate'. In any location/society, it is of massive benefit to be able to read.

Edited July 23, 2015 by WinnieTheKhwai

[jayceenik]

After I had completed on my own the AUA course I also studied the FSI Thai language manuals cum audio.

You'll find it here : https://www.livelingua.com/fsi-thai-course.php

They use the Mary Haas phonetic system devised for the FSI, the Peace Corps and the AUA.

Edited July 23, 2015 by jayceenik

[timmyp]

I think using the International Phonic Alphabet is fine (IPA). If you don't know it before starting to study Thai, then you'll have to learn it, but it's transferable to any other language, it's fully accurate, and it can ease the pain of learning the Thai letters.

Right... though for me IPA for Thai would also fall in the category of 'so complex that you might as well just learn the Thai script'.

I Wikipedia'd it, and for example "Chang Phuak" would become: tɕʰáːŋ pʰɯə˩k

At that point I think I might as well learn the Thai. And I'm not actually sure I was able to get the low tone marker correct in Phuak.. (˩ ?) (Which incidentally I wouldn't need to worry about when just using Thai script, as the low tone is already established just by virtue of starting with a high class consonant and a dead (k/p/t) ending.)

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Thai_and_Lao ; as an aside, this is also a great page to see Thai and Lao similarities side by side)

And it can get even more awkward, such as the ISO 11940 standard used by Google Translate. This manages to turn "Chiang Mai" into "Cheīyngh̄ım̀". (Yes, really.)

I think you just aren't aware of the merits of the IPA.

I recommend a simplified IPA, which is generally used for Thai, and not the "pure" IPA in your example. A common simplified system was introduced by Haas. Once in the context of a language, the IPA can be simplified to contrast phonemes, and doesn't have to be on the phonetic level (as your example is).

Most decent courses will use the Haas system or something very close. An almost identical system is used by the TPA Press in all their books aimed at Japanese people.

There are a couple of ways of doing tones with IPA, and your example has the two different ways in a single word.

The Google example you gave is obviously transliterating the way that the Thai letters are written, which only makes sense if you already know how to read Thai (I'm sure you figured that out).

[arunsakda]

Thai can't be that difficult to learn,if nearly 68 million Thai's can learn it,,what more can i say!

Joking aside it linguistics has studied first language acquisition for decades. Does not seemed to have helped second language pedagogy much at all

Amazing how quickly kids attain such fluency in only a few years, starting as infants who understand nothing and cannot even make proper sounds, but that s probably part of it.

[Craig krup]

Does having an ear for accents, and a tendency to mimic people, help? First day in Thailand I met a bloke who I'd have sworn on a stack of bibles was a Geordie. Turned out he was Finnish and had covered the miners' strike in the North East of England in the 1980s; he sounded like a Newcastle United season ticket holder. His Thai also seemed blindingly good.

The thing I instantly noticed is that (for example) rice, knee and nine aren't anything like the same word. Khao - as the bar girl on the train showed me - is actually said with your lips apart the whole way through (no pursing on the "w"), and you flatten your tongue to make the last syllable.

The US special forces have a language aptitude test. If someone was thinking of emigrating - and assuming these tests are robust - something similar might be worth trying before making the move.

My bad 300 words of Thai was learned in two weeks with a couple of free Android Thai learner apps - repetitively go through seeing the English word and hearing the sound until you can anticipate it. It's brilliant when you actually manage to ask someone where the sky train station is, ask about straight ahead, right and left, and then thank them. Using it is very rewarding, and by rooting it in the context - you order, the food arrives - it really springs from your mouth without any effort the next time.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Craig krup

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Does having an ear for accents, and a tendency to mimic people, help?

Maybe, but it also helps to know/realize which things are actually the most relevant to get right, and which things are just due to a person's individual way of speaking and/or his/her regional background. A good teacher (not necessarily one in front of a classroom that you paid money for) will have the skills to point this out to you and correct you. By far most Thai people won't correct you even if you ask.

So of the major attention poins for Westerners to get right, we've so far highlighted tone, consonant asperation and vowel length in this topic.

Vowel length seems especially challenging to English speakers, but comes more natural to Germans, French, etc. who already have this in their langage, e.g. words with 'a' versus long 'aa'.

And then for tone a lot of people take this to mean they need to hear or speak an exact musical note or frequency or whatever, which is not the case; it's just the pitch of your voice relative to the rest of the words/syllables. And of course tones exist in English just fine too, for example tone is used to indicate a question (rising) or command (falling, more or less.), or emotion. Only difference is that in a tonal language the tone is part of the semantic meaning of a word, and the meta-information that indicate questions, commands or emotions are in additional words used. Like "Mai?" at the end turns it into a question. And lots of little single-syllable endings indicate emotional state. There are loads of those in Thai, where they end a sentence with 'na', 'sa', 'la' 'ja' and several more colorful ones to add urgency, doubt, anger or other emotions.

The above is why people claiming they can't speak Thai 'because I just don't have a musical ear' don't really get it. You don't need a musical ear, and neither are all Thai people genetic descendants of Mozart.

What also makes tone difficult is that you've never used tone in that way. Especially in questions, people's voice still tends to go up, they have to un-learn not to do that. (It helps to construct a question ending in 'mai?' for that reason because it fortunately has a rising tone already due to the word.

And avoid doing questions that are actually statements, where the only indication in English that it is in fact a question is that your voice goes up. In English "Do it like this?" makes it a question due to your rising tone. This of course throws Thai people learning English because they're not used to do it that way. They can easily take it to mean "Do it like this!" as a statement.

Those little tricks and points of attention you do learn in a good class, of course. Or just experience. Or even my posts here.

Edited July 23, 2015 by WinnieTheKhwai

[Thailand]

Some years ago now.Drove around for some months with CDS playing non stop then tried to use what I had picked up by using it with the locals whenever I could and they were very helpful in correcting the mistakes.

Seemed to work up to a point as I can get by without too much trouble most of the time. Certainly not afraid to ask for help and certainly not afraid to try to use it.

[RapidMethod]

Does having an ear for accents, and a tendency to mimic people, help?

Maybe, but it also helps to know/realize which things are actually the most relevant to get right, and which things are just due to a person's individual way of speaking and/or his/her regional background. A good teacher (not necessarily one in front of a classroom that you paid money for) will have the skills to point this out to you and correct you. By far most Thai people won't correct you even if you ask.

So of the major attention points for Westerners to get right, we've so far highlighted tone, consonant asperation and vowel length in this topic.

Vowel length seems especially challenging to English speakers, but comes more natural to Germans, French, etc. who already have this in their langage, e.g. words with 'a' versus long 'aa'.

And then for tone a lot of people take this to mean they need to hear or speak an exact musical note or frequency or whatever, which is not the case; it's just the pitch of your voice relative to the rest of the words/syllables. And of course tones exist in English just fine too, for example tone is used to indicate a question (rising) or command (falling, more or less.), or emotion. Only difference is that in a tonal language the tone is part of the semantic meaning of a word, and the meta-information that indicate questions, commands or emotions are in additional words used. Like "Mai?" at the end turns it into a question. And lots of little single-syllable endings indicate emotional state. There are loads of those in Thai, where they end a sentence with 'na', 'sa', 'la' 'ja' and several more colorful ones to add urgency, doubt, anger or other emotions.

The above is why people claiming they can't speak Thai 'because I just don't have a musical ear' don't really get it. You don't need a musical ear, and neither are all Thai people genetic descendants of Mozart.

What also makes tone difficult is that you've never used tone in that way. Especially in questions, people's voice still tends to go up, they have to un-learn not to do that. (It helps to construct a question ending in 'mai?' for that reason because it fortunately has a rising tone already due to the word.

And avoid doing questions that are actually statements, where the only indication in English that it is in fact a question is that your voice goes up. In English "Do it like this?" makes it a question due to your rising tone. This of course throws Thai people learning English because they're not used to do it that way. They can easily take it to mean "Do it like this!" as a statement.

Winnie-the-cwaai, I couldn't agree more (or less).

But firstly, please change your name. You're talk about vowel lengths from the outset and you surely don't want to be a "cwai" or "cuay" (do you)? (Or do you?)

I can't post my picture that helps you to remember the difference between the two long and short versions of this word. Please PM me with your email address if you'd like me to send it to you. (Warning: I'll add you to my email list so that you get more bizarre but useful tips for remembering and speaking Thai...)

1. In the Rapid Method, I gloss over short and long vowel sounds. But it can be a big problem. I tend to speak English with short vowels (so I have to be careful when talking about sheets, for instance). I noticed that Singaporeans spik Inglish with even shotter vowels.Be extra careful to make the vowels super staccato when telling Thai people about snow (หิมะ / hi-ma) otherwise you will be forever shunned by your friends and in-laws - either that, or you will be the butt of all future jokes concerning your potty-mouth!

In fast speech, most vowels get squeezed anyway, but some words get prolonged colloquially. So in order to get around this potential inconsistency, I recommend memorizing a series of sentence patterns (Everyday Thai for Beginners is ideal or this) and mastering each one as a tongue twister, saying it over and over again until you can say it fast and accurately. It helps to mimic your Thai teacher (or the recording) as closely as possible.

This act of speaking out loud builds up muscle dexterity and a "muscle memory" that will help you speak naturally and correctly. And then you will discover (and I'm not sure why yet) that you can more clearly understand what people are saying also. Glossika might be good for this, but I would restructure it with this in mind. Pimsleur is a good start also as a way to develop your muscle memory, even though you will learn very little else.

2. I think "tones" are hopelessly misunderstood and incorrectly taught. You DO NOT need a musical ear to be able to hear or pronounce tones. I read the study quoted above (about "amusia") and I believe it was fundamentally flawed. Tones appear in a context. It's very difficult to pick out tones in isolation (and very often there aren't any).

In fact, in the Rapid Method I don't really refer to tones at all (other than as a defining concept). I use the "tones" that we have naturally in English. No doubt people with amusia are perfectly capable of speaking and understanding their own language - which is full of tones/intonations - so it's not necessarily a frequency thing. Indeed, if you try to speak Thai using frequencies to pronounce the tones then you'll end up sounding like an opera singer with a tummy ache (or a drunk Swede)!

When you listen to Thais carefully, they mostly tend to speak in a monotone (and if you ask most Thai people - who don't know what "tones" are - they will tell you that Thai is a monotone language)! There are only a few points where the tones do matter - and then it's usually (but not always) important to pronounce them.

As you point out, we have to be careful NOT to use English tones when speaking Thai. In English, we use tones to speak "between the lines" and to express emotion, amongst other things. Thais do not understand us when we speak sarcastically or make ironic jokes. They will either be hurt or offended if you do. In English (and most European languages) we can usually tell that our meaning might be opposite to the actual meaning of the words by our use of tones. Moreover, English becomes almost incomprehensible if one misplaces the stresses. I've had this experience often in Singapore, not being able to make any sense out of the (fluent) English speakers that I met... until I translated the stresses (and staccato vowels) into my internal representation of English. It's still slow-going, but eventually one can develop an ear for how a foreigner speaks and become accustomed to it.

3. When it comes to figuring out the tones when reading Thai, there is only one situation where it matters whether the vowel is long or short. I reduced the very complicated table of dozens of tone rules to a simple flowchart consisting of 13 outcomes, which you will quickly arrive at by working through no more than 4 mental steps (usually less).

4. That's why I strongly recommend that one learns to read Thai as a matter of priority. The only Thais who can understand our "phonetic" version of Thai are those who have been with us for a while and have become accustomed to our rather mangled way of speaking. If you can read then this will help you to pronounce Thai far more clearly than otherwise.

It's not really a compliment to be told that you speak Thai "keng" (เก่ง), your friends are just being polite, at least you're making an effort is what they're really saying - you want to be told that you speak "chad"/"chud" (ชัด)... rhymes with "bud".

[dao16]

A lot of good ideas on this thread. One thing I would recommend (along with many of the suggestions above) is carrying a small notebook--a smartphone would work, I guess. During your regular day here, you will pick up words and think "ok, now I know that" but then you go on with the rest of your day and forget it. Jot it down immediately. It only takes a few seconds and you'll be happy to have it to review later or to ask Thais about the proper pronunciation and usage. Once it's in your head, you can delete it or whatever.

By the way, you're never too old to learn a new language. It gets more difficult, but still very, very possible. When I was in my late teens, there was a guy who was 92 taking a French course with me. Of course, his memory wasn't what it had been in the past, but he still made progress!!! Look up some tips for older learners online and you'll find some interesting ideas, too.

[Metanoia]

I've learnt basic conversation in a classroom many years ago, didn't practice since then; and am only re-learning in recent months.

This time I focused on learning to read the alphabets and getting their pronunciations correct. So when I need to look up a word in the thai-english dictionary, I am able to use the pronunciations/tones right rather than rely on the dodgy transliterations.

I speak using short phrases rather than long sentences in the beginning, so that i would not be bogged down by grammar until another level of competency is reached.

Youtube is also a great source of videos on Thai language learning.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Metanoia

[WorkingTourist]

I know not how to do it. By listening and copying any ex-bar girl........Never ceases to amaze be hearing a guy speak his version on half english mixed with half barthai....takes 20 IQ points off the top.

Don't really understand why you say that...many Thai people understand small English words in everyday use but don't understand a lot of words that they do not hear in everyday chat. I find it makes life a lot easier when making conversation if I can say the word they don't understand in Thai....only common sense really?

I don’t follow NickJ either, but he might be referring to how they pronounce R like L or only pronounce the first consonant in a consonant cluster.

This however is not “bar Thai”, it’s just how many Thais speak, though presumably people with a higher education (which bar girls would generally not poses) are more likely to pronounce Thai as it is written.