Reading & Writing Thai Language Tuition 2016

[lychee]

Hi, I am interested to do an introductory Thai reading & Writing course &/or private tuition.

I have done some Thai vocab/speaking courses here in Chiang Mai and want to progress onto reading and writing.

I'm not after an academic course or an educational visa program. 

I'd be interested in forum members comments about classes or recommendations of teachers offering private tuition.

[Slip]

Have you considered doing it privately? (On you own).  The initial stages are not that taxing.

[Johpa]

Have you looked at courses at AUA?

[Denim]

2 hours ago, Slip said:

Have you considered doing it privately? (On you own).  The initial stages are not that taxing.

 

I agree. It is not that difficult if you have determination and are willing to work at it. I taught myself and could read pretty quickly even if I didn't understand what I was reading !

Throwing money at it doesn't work unless you also put in the effort in your private time.

[anotheruser]

Having a teacher is good as it will speed up the process and if nothing else force you to actually keep it at. Learn some of the basics first as others said it isn't that hard. After that have a teacher to hep you with irregular spellings and the smaller nuances. Don't bother learning to write it unless you really want to. This is more difficult and you will find there is little to no daily use or advantage to writing it. 

 

Teach yourself 2 or 3 characters a day and just through rote learning what class they are in. A month later you will be reading basic signs and stuff. The vowels are a bit harder but if you know consonants you can often guess the vowels and words if seen in context like on signs. You can go everywhere using the signs as flash cards. Words like kai ya and rong rian will begin to pop out at you from everywhere.

 

Good luck.

[DavidHouston]

3 hours ago, anotheruser said:

Having a teacher is good as it will speed up the process and if nothing else force you to actually keep it at. Learn some of the basics first as others said it isn't that hard. After that have a teacher to hep you with irregular spellings and the smaller nuances. Don't bother learning to write it unless you really want to. This is more difficult and you will find there is little to no daily use or advantage to writing it. 

 

Teach yourself 2 or 3 characters a day and just through rote learning what class they are in. A month later you will be reading basic signs and stuff. The vowels are a bit harder but if you know consonants you can often guess the vowels and words if seen in context like on signs. You can go everywhere using the signs as flash cards. Words like kai ya and rong rian will begin to pop out at you from everywhere.

 

Good luck.

 

Would you recommend learning to type Thai in place of learning to write?

[anotheruser]

Just now, DavidHouston said:

 

Would you recommend learning to type Thai in place of learning to write?

 

Well do you plan on writing in Thai often? Learning to write or type isn't much different. The difficulty isn't really writing the language per se. It is the irregular spellings and use of vowels. In this  regard typing is the same. It seems the only way to learn these are through endless hours of rote learning. Go for it if you want to but for most the ends don't justify the means to make writing a worthwhile investment. 

 

I guess the question is do you have any real reason to learn writing or typing it? 

[CaptHaddock]

On 9/6/2016 at 9:46 PM, DavidHouston said:

 

Would you recommend learning to type Thai in place of learning to write?

 

Most written communication goes through a keyboard these days, so typing is more important than longhand, but there is no reason not to learn both.  There are programs to teach touch typing in Thai.  I use the Anki flashcard program which lets you specify that the response to the English prompt will be a typed Thai word.  As long as you use the correct finger for each key, which is the same as touch typing English, you will learn to touch type Thai automatically just by rehearsing the flash cards.  A big benefit of this method is that you focus on Thai spelling since Anki flags misspellings for you. 

 

[bannork]

If you can read you can write and what a shame it would be not to be able to reply to your Thai wife's relatives and Thai friends on social media!

[muzmurray]

On 9/10/2016 at 10:19 AM, CaptHaddock said:

 

Most written communication goes through a keyboard these days, so typing is more important than longhand, but there is no reason not to learn both.  There are programs to teach touch typing in Thai.  I use the Anki flashcard program which lets you specify that the response to the English prompt will be a typed Thai word.  As long as you use the correct finger for each key, which is the same as touch typing English, you will learn to touch type Thai automatically just by rehearsing the flash cards.  A big benefit of this method is that you focus on Thai spelling since Anki flags misspellings for you. 

 

 

I touch type in English, (was taught as part of my Army training), and I never "spell" words as I type them, I just type single letters in fast succession, in fact if I look at a word and try to "spell it by typing", I normally make a mistake. (We also learnt to type Cypher, which is just groups of 5 random letter blocks, so spelling those would have been impossible).

[Ron19]

A number of posts that are in foreign language and contain links to a gambling site have been removed.

[lychee]

Hi, Thank you for the replies. 

I have started with the basics and as you've all mentioned, it takes time and perseverance.

At least now, i am looking at Thai signs and recognising some of the easier words, if not the consonants.

 

Cheers.

[Cedric28]

I am trying to teach myself as well. It is really tough however. Where can I find decent priced private tuition in Bangkok? 

[1FinickyOne]

Hi Lychee...

 

AUA has a pretty good course. I have had more friends quit learning language when they took courses due to bad teachers who created frustrations... 

 

As mentioned above, do you really need to read much other than basic signs? Or would your time be better spent in becoming conversational... 

[futsukayoi]

On 9/6/2016 at 9:46 PM, DavidHouston said:

 

Would you recommend learning to type Thai in place of learning to write?

 

I would.  Learning to type is much quicker than writing especially with spell checker.