Easy to Read Thai but how to understand what you read?

[laislica]

We Farang are told that it is impossible to learn to read/write Thai because their alphabet and vowels are so different to European alphabets.

Having paid a subscription to The Rapid Thai Method On-Line, it took me only a matter of a few days to be able to (slowly) read Thai.

The Rapid Thai method is very well thought out and a fun way to learn.

I am 74 BTW

Now the problem begins:

Reading only gives me the ability to get better pronunciation.

Reading does not help me understand what I read!

About 15 years ago I started to learn Spanish, I could read it and it didn't take long to learn the correct pronunciation of each letter (or combination of letters like ii being yu)

Again, I couldn't understand most of what I read.

Eventually, I came across the Michel Thomas CD's where you listen to him teaching a Brit chap and an American young lady to speak Spanish.

He would teach them a few words and then ask them to construct a sentence, sometimes, you could hear them groan, but they eventually managed it.

They made every mistake possible in grammar and pronunciation and they got feedback to correct the mistakes.

This method worked very well for me.

I would let CD's play whilst driving without really listening and over time I was amazed at how much I had "soaked up".

Conjugations were easy so with a few verbs and nouns, it wasn't too hard to start a converstaion.

Does anyone know of a Thai tutoring course like this?

I find that repetitious Anki vocabulary groups are boring and of limited value.

I also have the Learn Thai Podcast course.

Again, just tons of stuff to memorise.

I would like to learn how to construct/deconstruct sentences and take part in conversations.

.

[Denim]

I learnt Thai in England from Thai friends there. My method was similar to the one you have mentioned. I would make a list of about 30 words I wanted to learn. They would read this list slowly while I taped them. This was so that when I was at home I could practice the correct pronunciation . After they had read each word twice I would get them to use the word in the shortest possible sentence ( 4 or 5 words ) to give me an idea of the correct syntax. Found this method both easy and fast.

All you need to do is get one of your own Thai friends to do the same for you.

I also used this method to learn some Tagalog and boy....were they ever impressed that anyone would bother. Made you look like an old hand even if you had only been there a day.

[SoiBiker]

Who says it's impossible to learn to read Thai? It's pretty simple if you're willing to put a little effort in.

[laislica]

The Learn Thai Podcast course has videos of words and sentences with the correct pronunciation, correct Thai spelling Correct English and phonetic spelling as well.

There are also MP3 sound only files.

What I would really like is to understand the grammar and how to say I eat, you eat we eat, they eat she eats, he eats etc.

[laislica]

Who says it's impossible to learn to read Thai? It's pretty simple if you're willing to put a little effort in.

Another helpful post - thanks.

How are your recreational drugs going?

[Richard W]

What I would really like is to understand the grammar and how to say I eat, you eat we eat, they eat she eats, he eats etc.

Is this meant to be a clever joke? Knowing the proper words to use for 'I' and 'you' is an extremely difficult part of Thai grammar, and I suspect the rules change fairly rapidly. Elementary books tend to stick at safe words for foreigners to use.

[johnatong]

It is not a matter of learning words it is having the ability to produce the correct 'tone'

Ma,Ma or Ma ?

[Oxx]

What I would really like is to understand the grammar and how to say I eat, you eat we eat, they eat she eats, he eats etc.

Well, get a grammar book, then. By far the best for beginners is Thai: An Essential Grammar by Smyth. If you search you'll find a free PDF download on t'Internet.

[laislica]

What I would really like is to understand the grammar and how to say I eat, you eat we eat, they eat she eats, he eats etc.

Well, get a grammar book, then. By far the best for beginners is Thai: An Essential Grammar by Smyth. If you search you'll find a free PDF download on t'Internet.

Just the job, many thanks.

[p_brownstone]

I taught myself to read Thai - in the beginning mainly from highway roadsigns etc. - and did not find it particularly difficult, however there was certainly a very frustrating period when I could read a word or a sentence but could not understand it simply because my vocabulary was limited. Over time and with frequent usage obviously my vocabulary grew and grammar and syntax were learnt naturally; I'm not at all sure a book would have helped.

Patrick

[laislica]

It is not a matter of learning words it is having the ability to produce the correct 'tone'

Ma,Ma or Ma ?

Strange that you don't need to know what they mean 555

The "Tone" IMO, is just another meaning/word to learn.

[laislica]

What I would really like is to understand the grammar and how to say I eat, you eat we eat, they eat she eats, he eats etc.

Is this meant to be a clever joke? Knowing the proper words to use for 'I' and 'you' is an extremely difficult part of Thai grammar, and I suspect the rules change fairly rapidly. Elementary books tend to stick at safe words for foreigners to use.

No joke. It's the basis of how I learned Spanish.

BTW, I left school at age 15. We didn't "do" English grammar at our boys only secondary modern school.

Although I speak English very well, I was never taught the proper grammatical terms.

I could trip over a preposition or past participle and never know it 555

Thank God for online spell checkers!

[laislica]

I taught myself to read Thai - in the beginning mainly from highway roadsigns etc. - and did not find it particularly difficult, however there was certainly a very frustrating period when I could read a word or a sentence but could not understand it simply because my vocabulary was limited. Over time and with frequent usage obviously my vocabulary grew and grammar and syntax were learnt naturally; I'm not at all sure a book would have helped.

Patrick

Thanks Patrick.

The reading via The Rapid method came easy, fast and fun.

Now I'm at the "Over time and with frequent usage" stage and at 74, finding short cuts is my aim.

[fire69water]

I think the next logical step is to go to the website thailanguagewiki dot com, which provides Thai script for the FSI Thai course.

[fire69water]

I think the next logical step is to go to the website thailanguagewiki dot com, which provides Thai script for the FSI Thai course. This course is quite comprehensive in the coverage grammar and vocabulary, and can bring to an intermediate level.

[SoiBiker]

I find a good thing to do is install a Thai keyboard on your phone. Then when you come across a Thai word you don't know, you can just tap it into Google translate.

[laislica]

I find a good thing to do is install a Thai keyboard on your phone. Then when you come across a Thai word you don't know, you can just tap it into Google translate.

I don't have a phone in Thailand but I have the Word in the Hand speaking Thai dictionary on the iPad and windows, which I use often and find very useful.

[Johpa]

Just as an aside, but one can learn to read Thai without learning a single tone rule. There are countless academics who learn to read a foreign language without having developed any conversational abilities. Or just look at the Latin scholars. Even I can still read a little bit of French although I can no longer converse at even the simplest level.

[laislica]

Just as an aside, but one can learn to read Thai without learning a single tone rule. There are countless academics who learn to read a foreign language without having developed any conversational abilities. Or just look at the Latin scholars. Even I can still read a little bit of French although I can no longer converse at even the simplest level.

Indeed, as I said in the OP, learning to read was easy, now to try to understand what I read 555

[rgs2001uk]

What I would really like is to understand the grammar and how to say I eat, you eat we eat, they eat she eats, he eats etc.

Is this meant to be a clever joke? Knowing the proper words to use for 'I' and 'you' is an extremely difficult part of Thai grammar, and I suspect the rules change fairly rapidly. Elementary books tend to stick at safe words for foreigners to use.

Elementary books tend to stick at safe words for foreigners to use.

Elementary books stick to this so as to avoid confusion or committing faux pax.

You as well as I know there are plenty of words the newbies to the language should never use.

Its never possible to be too polite in the language.

[GanDoonToonPet]

Just as an aside, but one can learn to read Thai without learning a single tone rule. There are countless academics who learn to read a foreign language without having developed any conversational abilities. Or just look at the Latin scholars. Even I can still read a little bit of French although I can no longer converse at even the simplest level.

Indeed, as I said in the OP, learning to read was easy, now to try to understand what I read 555

Therein lies the rub. Being a CELTA graduate I know the difference between grammar / lexis (vocab) & the 4 skills - Speaking, listening, reading & writing; different sides of the same coin.

I first learnt basic vocab / grammar but also taught myself how to read, including learning the phonemes for each 'letter'. This helped with pronunciation but I too didn't know what I was reading most of the time.

The key is context, especially combined with immersion. I lived near Rangsit when I first moved here & often needed to get home from Central Bangkok in the early hours; hence I learnt directions.

Necessity is sometimes the key. At the petrol station, I eventually learnt the word for 'fill' (dtem) because I was sick of pointing & waving my arms around when I wanted a full tank.

Fast forward 5 years & I had to go to the tax office alone, several times, last month. I'm now fluent in accountancy vocab such as gross income, net income, tax rebate etc. Before that I tried to file my taxes on-line so I know that 'poo chai mai lek' means 'User ID' (not man number LOL) & 'bra-jam tee you' means 'fixed address'.

Edited April 18, 2016 by GanDoonToonPet

[bearpolar]

Books are great and all but its no where near what people speak, the only good way to get really good is to speak speak speak and speak even more with thais that have a good grasp on their language, not some random drunk that does not know his own tones.

Might not apply to the rest of thailand, but in the south a lot of thais don't use tones. Its not good to learn from them if you plan on conversing with the rest of the country.

I started using meuan deum(sorry lost my thai letters on my keyboard) at my coffee spot and the southern woman asked me "moawn tom?" .. yes sure.

Everytime you try to speak and fail, and someone points it out. You can remember that exact moment and the correct way or the new word. It's much easier to learn that way. reading a new word 20 times does not set anything special on your brain's timeline.

Edited April 19, 2016 by bearpolar

[laislica]

Just as an aside, but one can learn to read Thai without learning a single tone rule. There are countless academics who learn to read a foreign language without having developed any conversational abilities. Or just look at the Latin scholars. Even I can still read a little bit of French although I can no longer converse at even the simplest level.

Indeed, as I said in the OP, learning to read was easy, now to try to understand what I read 555

Therein lies the rub. Being a CELTA graduate I know the difference between grammar / lexis (vocab) & the 4 skills - Speaking, listening, reading & writing; different sides of the same coin.

I first learnt basic vocab / grammar but also taught myself how to read, including learning the phonemes for each 'letter'. This helped with pronunciation but I too didn't know what I was reading most of the time.

The key is context, especially combined with immersion. I lived near Rangsit when I first moved here & often needed to get home from Central Bangkok in the early hours; hence I learnt directions.

Necessity is sometimes the key. At the petrol station, I eventually learnt the word for 'fill' (dtem) because I was sick of pointing & waving my arms around when I wanted a full tank.

Fast forward 5 years & I had to go to the tax office alone, several times, last month. I'm now fluent in accountancy vocab such as gross income, net income, tax rebate etc. Before that I tried to file my taxes on-line so I know that 'poo chai mai lek' means 'User ID' (not man number LOL) & 'bra-jam tee you' means 'fixed address'.

Thanks, about how things went when I learned Spanish.

Needs must and the devil drives hard!

4 years ago I bought the Learn Thai Podcast course and was very disappointed.

I had done the free Holiday Thai course which was excellent.

A 300 word vocab and many useful every day phrases.

I learned a lot from that part, free too.

However, the purchased course is in 4 parts.

Basic, intermediate, advanced and reading and in each level there are Conversations, Grammar, Vocabulary and Review.

There are over 3,000 words in the basic vocab.

Delivered as a video clip with the English spelling, Thai spelling, phonetic spelling, spoken English and Thai.

Also available as sound only MP3 file.

However, the English speaker seems to have a German accent so it is difficult to understand the spoken English if you only use the MP3 source.

Did he mean by or buy, see or sea etc.?

The English is spoken, then Thai, then each syllable in Thai, then Thai again.

No repeat of the English, No space/time to allow me to repeat the word in Thai.

In most cases, just the word with no context.

Now the WORST part!

They teach a word in the above sequence and then say,

Another way to say xxxx and give the sequence for that word.

Then

another way to say xxxx repeat, repeat up to five different ways to say the same thing!

This is in the basic level too.

It drove me mad and I never even bothered to open the higher levels.

The Grammar starts off with an explanation about the Thai language, then the tones.

For each tone type they give a group of Werbs (sic), for mid tone: good, to eat, to go,

then for low tones: forest, old, wrong. etc.

There are conversation to learn.

The first conversation to study are a couple of sentences taken from a movie, all in Thai of course, complete with background noises and at full speed.

A really complicated piece. A guy comes home to his wife but brings a little surprise, he brings a woman with him.

In the first sentance his wife says: If we will have a party, I will have to get changed first.

Her husband replied:

I met her downstairs at the bar, she came to wait for her Mom.

They have an appointment with each other at ten o'clock.

Throughout the lesson, they delve into why the person uses their name rather than to say I or me and why a particle is used at the end of the sentence etc.

Talk about info overload!

No I didn't bother with any other conversations either!

Then it gets repeated but the speed has been slowed a little.

A total frustrating waste of time for me.

It is widely recognised that the brain can only remember a few things at once, say 6 or so.

Flash card tools like Anki make better use of this.

They give a total brain overload with the first 5 words in the vocab, no context.....

Needless to say I didn't get benefit from the course and I would not recommend it.

The free course is great though.

So now I'm looking for a method of constructing questions as a way to get into conversations.

I would like to go to Big C tomorrow.

Would you like to go to Big C tomorrow

I need a hair cut but not too short.

I don't like sea food.

Actually, the Holiday Thai did a lot like this, perhaps I should revisit it?

[taninthai]

hi

is this the method you refer to in your first post,I'm half way there can read some thai but need to grasp the vowels a bit more. http://j3.learnthaionline.com/index.php/about-the-rapid-method

if this is not the rapid system you used can you post a link to it thanks

[laislica]

hi

is this the method you refer to in your first post,I'm half way there can read some thai but need to grasp the vowels a bit more. http://j3.learnthaionline.com/index.php/about-the-rapid-method

if this is not the rapid system you used can you post a link to it thanks

The fun reading course is http://j3.learnthaionline.com/

Have a look at the free stuff to get the idea.

The full course is in the same spirit as the free.

Learn Thai Podcast free stuff is great but I found the full course not so good.