Online Thai Language Learning

[Jun]

I've just been looking at the resources for learning Thai online.

One of the better channels seems to be ThaiPod101, but that seems to leave a lot to be desired.

e.g. In the "Where do you come from?" & "I come from London" type questions, they repeatedly concentrate on irrelevant things such as:

(i) Repeating how to pronounce London, Berlin etc in a Thai tone. Not a priority for me.

(ii) Repeatedly telling us that we can swap London, for Berlin, Paris etc. Any fool can figure that part out. Spending time on the Thai is likely to be more productive. Swapping the verb and moving onto a few different "Where ?" questions would be more helpful.

(iii) Every lesson seems to have a long repeat of the instructions on how to use the series.

(iv) They often repeat at length, the same explanation about use of kaa or krap.

(v) Then there seems to be no progression. I listen to a couple of these & rather than expand the material slowly, they go straight onto something where I understand hardly anything.

I would pay up for quality, but I'm not inclined to experiment with a subscription here.

I had a play with the "Audacity" audio editor today & created a shortened audio file, with all of the cr*p cut out and a few similar questions imported from other sources.
At least I learned how to use some features of the editor & will see if the revised audio file is helpful.

If anyone knows of a better audio resource for learning Thai, please share.

What I can recommend it this Thai app for the alphabet: It's quite useful for consonants. https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... l=en&gl=US

[Gaybutton]

(i) Repeating how to pronounce London, Berlin etc in a Thai tone. Not a priority for me.

It should be. Getting the tones right is one of the most important parts of learning to speak Thai. Thai is a tonal language. If you don't get the tones right very often they won't know what you're trying to say, even in context. The wrong tone can entirely change the meaning of the word. And if you're trying to say full sentences, but using the wrong tones, to Thais they're hearing gibberish.

If you are trying to learn to speak Thai, I'd re-think that if I were you and work on the tones as much as the words.

[Jun]

If you are trying to learn to speak Thai, I'd re-think that if I were you and work on the tones as much as the words.

I get that, but I'd rather work on pronouncing Thai words in the correct tone rather than European city names.

Having edited and combined a few audio files, I reckon they are about 25% of the original length, whilst retaining all the new Thai content & deleting a lot of non-Thai waffle that only ever needs to be heard once.

[Gaybutton]

non-Thai waffle that only ever needs to be heard once.

And, of course, something I think you already know - listening. Simply listening to Thais speaking and you'll pick up quite a bit.

Another thing I always recommend to people trying to learn to speak Thai. Don't be shy about trying to speak Thai to Thai people. If you get it wrong, then you get it wrong. So what? You won't learn Thai without speaking it. Give it a try, folks. You may surprise yourself at how well you do.

[christianpfc]

I have been studying Chinese from free videos on youtube for some years. So much free stuff around, no need to go for payable. I focus on listening comprehension and writing (i.e. listening to a complete sentence and then write it down). Correct pronunciation would need a local speaker or a teacher, I will leave that for later when I'm in China.

I use GOM player to make bookmarks when there is interesting contents, watch the full video once, and for repetition jump from bookmark to bookmark.

The best arrangement of Thai consonants I found here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thail%C3% ... n_Thai.jpg
All other arrangements, even in books, don't show the relationships, and coming from Latin alphabet I would not have thought that you can arrange Thai letters in a way that makes more sense than other ways.

[Jun]

The best arrangement of Thai consonants I found here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thail%C3% ... n_Thai.jpg

The arrangement might make perfect sense, but I'd have to delete the IA Transliteration row. That makes no sense at all to me, possibly as I don't understand the system. Pattaya comes out as Badaya.

Most of the Thai videos are produced by women. So lots of Chan & Kaa, rather than Pom & Krap. In some cases, they don't even explain that. Who knows what else might get similar feminine treatment, that I might not yet know about ?

Of course, we're really fortunate to be in an era with such material available in the first place.

[Jun]

I was using this site in Thailand, on my Android tablet: http://www.thai-language.com/id/234098

I'd also like to use it at home on my PC, but so far no amount of fiddling around will get it to play the audio files on either of my browsers.
If anyone else finds the audio files work on their PC, I might persevere in trying to fix it.

Also, I'd like to hear about any similar sites.

[Gaybutton]

Also, I'd like to hear about any similar sites.

That site's audio also fails to work for me. I use Firefox. I haven't tried it on any other browsers.

What does work for me is I open Google and write "how to say ____________ in Thai" When I fill in that blank with the word or even a whole sentence, the Thai writing comes up and the icon to hear it spoken also works. Give it a try.

[Jun]

What does work for me is I open Google and write "how to say ____________ in Thai" When I fill in that blank with the word or even a whole sentence, the Thai writing comes up and the icon to hear it spoken also works. Give it a try.

I also use google translate, but for anything I'm intending to remember, I want a backup source of translations. Google isn't always reliable.

As an example, using the google translate app on my phone:
If I say "I like", it recognises this as "I like."
The audio translation is "Chan chobobaugh"
The text translation is "ฉันชอบ"

There are two problems here:
1 It uses Chan, which is for female speakers. I know that, but what happens when it presents something I don't know is wrong ? I think google has corrected enough of my data to know I'm male.
2 Whilst the text translation has chob as the second word & is correct, it is different to the audio translation. I believe the audio translation is wrong.

If I delete the full stop after I like, the text translation remains the same, but the audio translation is now chan chob. The full stop does not seem to make the same difference on some other translations.

I eventually managed to get the audio working on the other site. After failing on Firefox & Chrome, it works on Opera, but only after fiddling around with the settings.

[Gaybutton]

I also use google translate

I didn't mean Google Translate. I meant just Google.

By the way, yes Chan usually means female, but can be interchangeable. Whoever sees or hears the translation ought to be able to figure out you are male unless you're talking to a moron. You don't need to have any qualms about using it in translations.