How hard is thai to learn

[Natgun]

I think the benefits of learning it would be great 

 

 

[Oxx]

Not as difficult as Arabic or Mandarin.  Harder than Greek and Russian.

 

About 1400 hours of serious study to become generally proficient in reading and speaking for a typical student.

[Kwasaki]

Easier to learn English. 

[marko kok prong]

I can speak basic Thai,enough to buy stuff,have a basic conversation ect,i could not really have an in depth conversation,but as i live in the country i don't know what we would talk about anyway.Luckily my girlfriend speaks excellent English.

[Xaos]

I dont have much prob speaking english here.

Recentely went Tokyo I was surprised how bad it is, 0 they run away from you when you open your mouth.

Went DJI get a Mavic drone, once I opened my mouth guy ignored me and did a runner, I followed him and told him I know you dont speak eng but dont run away from me I want to buy drone now. There was no one who could speak eng. Big shop. Managed to buy it without talking.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Oxx]

50 minutes ago, Xaos said:

I dont have much prob speaking english here.

 

In a tourist ghetto, perhaps? Pattaya, Bangkok, Phuket?

[Natgun]

5 hours ago, Oxx said:

Not as difficult as Arabic or Mandarin.  Harder than Greek and Russian.

 

About 1400 hours of serious study to become generally proficient in reading and speaking for a typical student.

14000 Hours..... yeah no thanks I think I'll pass then 

[Oxx]

Just now, Natgun said:

14000 Hours..... yeah no thanks I think I'll pass then 

 

Or try learning to count the number of zeros.  It's ten times easier than you think.

[brewsterbudgen]

Too hard for me!  After 12 years I can get by in taxis and restaurants, but not much else.  Probably my own fault, as I have never put in the effort to study it, particularly how to read it which is important if you want to speak at a reasonably high level.

 

The great thing is that it's easy to live here (in Bangkok anyway) without speaking the language, which, when all is said and done is a pretty useless language anywhere else.

[Here2008]

20 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

which, when all is said and done is a pretty useless language anywhere else.

Ever tried learning or using Switzerdeutsch ?  Or maybe Gaelic as spoken by some Scots?  Perhaps Welsh if you are really looking for a "useless" language.

[KhunBENQ]

2 hours ago, Natgun said:

14000 Hours..... yeah no thanks I think I'll pass then 

It's "only" 1400 hours and I assume you don't reach out for such a high level of proficiency.

Looking for basic conversation on the street, at the market/shop, offices/banks etc.?

 

One of the main hurdles to start with is the script and the fairly complicated rules for reading.

And what most foreigners fight with is pronunciation/tones. So different and so important.

And the English speakers have to learn how rest of the world pronounces vocals and umlauts

 

[coops]

As a language, grammatically and phonetically it is far easier than English for instance... BUT  any, and every, westerner, first has to deal with their compelete inability to hear the tones correctly...or at all.

 

If you try to 'learn' thai and speak it BEFORE you can hear the tonal differences, then you will be imprinting incorrect pronunciation into your brain... note - even the Linguaphone teach yourself course is quite good at getting you used to the tones ( stick to the first 10 chapters until you genuinely can hear them ) but ideally... if you are in Thailand i'd recommed STARTING with some time at AUA - they specifically do NOT want you tryng to speak initially, but listening for many hours to native speakers talking about basic topics.

 

There is NO way around this - the tonal nature is competely amd utterly foreign to a western speaker and just takes a bit of time to hear it and get used to it.. but you can and you will... and after that you'll find the phonetic writing system hugely more 'reliable' i.e. less ridiculous exceptions like English... and spoken is enormously simplified compared to any 'conjugated' language.... as a few examples in Thai plurals are the same as 'singles' so it's 'one dog', 'two dog', 'three dog' and so on... verbs have a specified word to indicate a past or present etc etc tense with no changes tomthe verb wrd itself or 'absurd' conjugation... so it sounds like saying in English... e.g. for the verb 'to go' - 'I am go' ( present tense), 'they am go' for present tesne with many people....  future tense would be 'will go', past would be 'have go ( in the past)',, amd so on amd so on... the verb 'go' stays exaclty that with another signifier word to indicate the tense.

 

[Damrongsak]

I had the benefit of about 6 weeks of training in the Peace Corps. 25 hours a week, all in Thai.  They used the "silent way" method.  The teacher would say a word, make each student pronounce it correctly, then demonstrate the meaning (silently) until everyone grasped the meaning.  Amazingly effective.  We learned to think in Thai.  A couple people got good at reading and writing in that time.  I only squeaked by.   A couple older volunteers had a hard time because they couldn't hear the tones.

 

I ended up in a small town in Isaan, working with a Thai govt department.  There were very few foreigners, so it was either speak Thai or stay silent for weeks on end. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Way

 

Some years ago, we visited Mexico.  My high school Spanish was really rusty.  So when I was at a loss for a word, a Thai word just automatically popped in there.  I got some strange looks.

[Ruffian Dick]

13 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

Easier to learn English. 

Some of us seem to struggle with it still.

[Ruffian Dick]

11 hours ago, Xaos said:

I dont have much prob speaking english here.
 

No offense intended, but is English your first language?

[Kwasaki]

10 hours ago, Ruffian Dick said:

No offense intended, but is English your first language?

Well yeah it is,  l still speak with English London cockney accent was only having a joke but Thai is as most know a tonal language and l'm pretty much tone deaf.

 

I manage speak enough Thai to get what l need, the only time l have any meaningful conversation with a Thai person is in English.

 

I commend anyone who has the ability to learn Thai.  

[Ruffian Dick]

13 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

Well yeah it is,  l still speak with English London cockney accent was only having a joke but Thai is as most know a tonal language and l'm pretty much tone deaf.

 

I manage speak enough Thai to get what l need, the only time l have any meaningful conversation with a Thai person is in English.

 

I commend anyone who has the ability to learn Thai.  

Well, I was asking Xao. Hard to tell anyone's nationality with all the weird names.

 

I think that those of us who have already picked up a second language have an enormous advantage. BTW, I've been looking at this material; it's pretty interesting:

http://j3.learnthaionline.com/

[chrissables]

8 hours ago, Ruffian Dick said:

Well, I was asking Xao. Hard to tell anyone's nationality with all the weird names.

 

I think that those of us who have already picked up a second language have an enormous advantage. BTW, I've been looking at this material; it's pretty interesting:

http://j3.learnthaionline.com/

I found high speed thai to be the best, you learn to read before moving on to speaking, with the flash cards it works very well. I am nowhere near fluent, but also i have travel around all of Thailand alone using only Thai.

 

 http://www.highspeedthai.com/ 

[inThailand]

The PM said Thai will be The language of the future and this forum will follow suit. So yes, it's important. 

[dotpoom]

Not sure such a good idea.

   Some of the things my wife calls me in English is bad enough .....I'd hate to understand the stuff she calls me in Thai (or what the ladies in the street are saying about me as I pass them by). 555

[Estrada]

I learnt to read and write Thai using a book titled "Easy Thai", in 5 days I could read and write letters. I learnt most of my Thai from learning and singing Thai songs  which helped greatly and used to type orders and letters in Thai using a Thai Typewriter. I took Thai lessons at the Thai temple in Wimbledon for a while. It is not hard to learn Thai if you learn Thai songs and practice with a karaoke.

[1FinickyOne]

On August 2, 2560 BE at 1:09 PM, Natgun said:

14000 Hours..... yeah no thanks I think I'll pass then 

Everyone learns differently and at different paces... maybe since your ability with numbers is not so good, you might do better than average with language... but, I think the point missing is that even if you learn a little, you will be better off than not learning anything... and it is actually kind of fun to learn and speak Thai... 

[RichardColeman]

Yes, I think it important to learn Thai, apparently it will be the number one language in the world soon according to the powers that be.

[1FinickyOne]

On August 2, 2560 BE at 11:40 AM, marko kok prong said:

I can speak basic Thai,enough to buy stuff,have a basic conversation ect,i could not really have an in depth conversation,but as i live in the country i don't know what we would talk about anyway.Luckily my girlfriend speaks excellent English.

Yo Kok - I think the key thought is that you don't know... please do not assume that there is nothing worthwhile out there. I live baan nork too and love talking with the people, mostly joking, and often on levels that are not simplistic... and often it leads to deeper conversations too... as you know, it is a heart centric language and people will often speak from their heart... 

[Baerboxer]

On 8/2/2017 at 8:06 AM, Oxx said:

Not as difficult as Arabic or Mandarin.  Harder than Greek and Russian.

 

About 1400 hours of serious study to become generally proficient in reading and speaking for a typical student.

 

It's all subjective.

 

I found Mandarin much easier to speak than Thai. But my Chinese teacher told me Welsh people make the best British students of Asian languages because the tones are like singing - you need a good range!

 

Understanding Thai when spoken to is easier than Mandarin though.

 

But, all relative and subjective.

[ben2talk]

23 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

Well yeah it is,  l still speak with English London cockney accent was only having a joke but Thai is as most know a tonal language and l'm pretty much tone deaf.

 

I manage speak enough Thai to get what l need, the only time l have any meaningful conversation with a Thai person is in English.

 

I commend anyone who has the ability to learn Thai.  

It's only 'half' tonal - not like Mandarin which is tone perfect. It is often difficult because nobody really explains it very well... once you understand then you understand why... I can teach it, but I can't explain well by writing a book. Interaction is very important.

 

One of the most elusive lessons that I learned in the first 3 years here was to pin down what the actual tones are.... for example, what is called 'rising' tone is actually the lowest... what is called 'falling' is actually more of a midtone falling, and what is called 'high' is a 'high falling' tone.

 

I actually drew lines on a music stave to represent them and had no problems since - think of it as Low=5 then 54321 with 3 as mid tone, then 'NO' in Thai is 'mai' from 3 to 2 (falling).

 

Realising it's only 'half' tonal explains why it's hard to learn also. The same words can sound different in isolation depending on the context... so a 'high class' tone should be like a dip in tone.

 

In some ways it's similar teaching Thais to say names like 'James' or 'Jones'. Their brain doesn't have the 'ai' or 'oe' sound written. They cut the sounds down ... ai becomes 'air' and loses the final 'ee' part of the sound (long 'a' sound is really a dipthong) and when they try to say 'boat' they don't say 'err' and short 'oo' to make 'oa', they say 'or' like 'horse' instead.

 

So you need to very carefully learn these sound, write them in your brain, and then when you next listen to Thai's speak you can actually hear more.

[chrissables]

22 minutes ago, ben2talk said:

It's only 'half' tonal - not like Mandarin which is tone perfect. It is often difficult because nobody really explains it very well... once you understand then you understand why... I can teach it, but I can't explain well by writing a book. Interaction is very important.

 

One of the most elusive lessons that I learned in the first 3 years here was to pin down what the actual tones are.... for example, what is called 'rising' tone is actually the lowest... what is called 'falling' is actually more of a midtone falling, and what is called 'high' is a 'high falling' tone.

 

I actually drew lines on a music stave to represent them and had no problems since - think of it as Low=5 then 54321 with 3 as mid tone, then 'NO' in Thai is 'mai' from 3 to 2 (falling).

 

Realising it's only 'half' tonal explains why it's hard to learn also. The same words can sound different in isolation depending on the context... so a 'high class' tone should be like a dip in tone.

 

In some ways it's similar teaching Thais to say names like 'James' or 'Jones'. Their brain doesn't have the 'ai' or 'oe' sound written. They cut the sounds down ... ai becomes 'air' and loses the final 'ee' part of the sound (long 'a' sound is really a dipthong) and when they try to say 'boat' they don't say 'err' and short 'oo' to make 'oa', they say 'or' like 'horse' instead.

 

So you need to very carefully learn these sound, write them in your brain, and then when you next listen to Thai's speak you can actually hear more.

for example, what is called 'rising' tone is actually the lowest... what is called 'falling' is actually more of a midtone falling, and what is called 'high' is a 'high falling' tone.

 

You have lost me on this statement. For example the question word mai ไหม is definitely rising and sounds very different to the word new, mai ใหม่ which is a low tone. 

 

 

[ben2talk]

3 minutes ago, chrissables said:

for example, what is called 'rising' tone is actually the lowest... what is called 'falling' is actually more of a midtone falling, and what is called 'high' is a 'high falling' tone.

 

You have lost me on this statement. For example the question word mai ไหม is definitely rising and sounds very different to the word new, mai ใหม่ which is a low tone. 

 

 

Of course.

However, when Thai's and I say 'ไหม' it starts of on a LOW note and comes up from the bottom. The second mai ใหม่ is not low. It starts at the same level as mid-tone and falls down a bit. It does not go as low as ไหม and so it is not actually the lowest... The tone marker sets it as a 3-midtone that falls to about 4-low. Without the tone marker it dips to 5 and rises up to about 3.

 

Here again we have ridiculous descriptions that can't serve to teach anyone. This concept is merely an aid that I developed to help myself, so I can state that it works for me. Your description works only to mislead and confuse me so I'm better off without it.

Edited August 4, 2017 by ben2talk

[tonray]

On 8/2/2017 at 1:09 PM, Natgun said:

14000 Hours..... yeah no thanks I think I'll pass then 

I have been here about 3 years. No formal education and just a passing interest in 'survival Thai' you can learn enough to buy things, count, give directions, rent apartments, go to the clinic, etc etc by just trying a bit and getting an online app to help. But true fluency will only come when you speak Thai with others every day. I am trying with my GF but my Thai vocabulary is very limited so I often have to resort to English. But I am undertaking an hour or 2 per day of self study so I can do better. I estimate it will take about 4 years which is just about 1400 hours or so.

[LawrenceN]

On 8/2/2017 at 9:18 PM, coops said:

As a language, grammatically and phonetically it is far easier than English for instance... BUT  any, and every, westerner, first has to deal with their compelete inability to hear the tones correctly...or at all.

 

If you try to 'learn' thai and speak it BEFORE you can hear the tonal differences, then you will be imprinting incorrect pronunciation into your brain... note - even the Linguaphone teach yourself course is quite good at getting you used to the tones ( stick to the first 10 chapters until you genuinely can hear them ) but ideally... if you are in Thailand i'd recommed STARTING with some time at AUA - they specifically do NOT want you tryng to speak initially, but listening for many hours to native speakers talking about basic topics.

 

There is NO way around this - the tonal nature is competely amd utterly foreign to a western speaker and just takes a bit of time to hear it and get used to it.. but you can and you will... and after that you'll find the phonetic writing system hugely more 'reliable' i.e. less ridiculous exceptions like English... and spoken is enormously simplified compared to any 'conjugated' language.... as a few examples in Thai plurals are the same as 'singles' so it's 'one dog', 'two dog', 'three dog' and so on... verbs have a specified word to indicate a past or present etc etc tense with no changes tomthe verb wrd itself or 'absurd' conjugation... so it sounds like saying in English... e.g. for the verb 'to go' - 'I am go' ( present tense), 'they am go' for present tesne with many people....  future tense would be 'will go', past would be 'have go ( in the past)',, amd so on amd so on... the verb 'go' stays exaclty that with another signifier word to indicate the tense.

 

Spot on, especially your emphasis on tones. Learners shouldn't dismiss tones, which are essential to be understood. Thai has another dimension that we don't have in English, that is, tones. The correct tone is part of every syllable, as important as vowels. You have to convince yourself of this fact, and train your brain to speak, hear, and think tonally.

 

If your goal is to speak Thai badly, don't learn to read.