How much Thai (language) do you know?

Anything and everything about Thailand

How much of the Thai language do you know?

1
9
29%
2
5
16%
3
6
19%
4
3
10%
5
0
No votes
6
0
No votes
7
3
10%
8
2
6%
9
0
No votes
10
3
10%
 
Total votes: 31

RichLB
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Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by RichLB »

Gee, I disagree. Think of learning Thai as "plorking" (a combination of work and play). I have never attended a Thai school, but find I can converse - not perfectly - with just about any Thai. And trust me, I am no linguist. The secret is not to learn endless lists of vocabulary words, but instead learn those words and phrases you will actually use, then use them and stop worrying if you are saying it correctly. Learning Thai is NOT an onerous task, it's fun and surprisingly easy.
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Bob
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Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by Bob »

RichLB wrote: Learning Thai is NOT an onerous task, it's fun and surprisingly easy.
Agree with your comments in your prior post and agree that learning Thai, at least to me, is interesting and fun; however, while I don't know if I would have used the word "onerous", it's pretty damn difficult for anyone over 50 to learn a foreign language.

I didn't vote as, like you, I wouldn't know how to classify my progress. The more I learn, the more I realize what I don't know.
Other than studying Thai a little on my own for a little more than a decade, I used to get hundreds of emails a year in Thai from friends in Thailand and it got to the point that I could pretty much read the letters without picking up a Thai dictionary (to be fair, the writers would tend to repeat the same phrases over and over so I had constant repetition helping me learn how to translate on sight). In the last few years, I've taken two 5-week courses (two hours twice a week) in Hua Hin and two more intensive courses (3-week courses, 3 hours a day, five days a week) at the Chiangmai University Language Center.
And I plan on starting another intensive course at CMU in about 5 weeks.

For those who never venture out of the big cities, you probably don't have any need to learn any Thai. But being able to read some rudimentary signs (tang awk - exit, tang kao - entrance, hoong nam, sooka, or suam - bathroom, kai ya - pharmacy, etc., etc.) makes your wanderings much more meaningful. And Thais - whether friends or bartenders or tuk tuk drivers or the lady selling chicken on the corner - interact with you in a much more meaningful (and, I think, friendly) way if you're making the effort to speak their langauge. And that's the fun part.
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Trongpai
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Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by Trongpai »

I go to http://www.utl-school.com/english/home.php I take the 4 week modules when I can and I am up to Mod. 5 now. When I first went into mod 1 I found it grueling and not at all fun but I stuck it out and 2 was better and 3 and 4 were actually fun but time consuming. The program is intensive but gets results. I have been taking some of their special level conversational modules and spending more time on conversation skills than reading but leaning to read and write will, I am told lead, to better conversation skills.

There's a pretty good drop out rate at this school. Some find that it's time consuming and work. When I started this school they quite unpolitical told me that if I was over 60 they find you can't succeed, but there are exceptions. I was under 60, so they had good expectations. One guy over 60 defied their judgment and just took each module twice to pass.

I found that I had to study about 2 hours in the evening and then one hour before class. With the classroom time at 4 hours add commute times and it consumed the whole day. It felt like I was back at work. Ahh, then finally Friday! Friday!

There's a lot of schools in Bangkok that have copied UTL's teaching methods. They have their own transliteration method that then converts to Thai script at Mod 3.

I know most of you that live in Thailand call Pattaya your home but I know a few Pattaya residents that have taken some modules at UTL. Can you tear yourself away from Pattaya for 4 weeks?

American University has a totally different method and it works for some. I have never attended AU but I heard you don't speak for the first few modules and only listen, or something?
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Gaybutton
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Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by Gaybutton »

I think for many people it is rather easy because you're not under a very much pressure to learn to speak Thai. Enough English is spoken that learning Thai is not an imperative. Sometimes that holds true even out in the boondocks. I have friends who have lived here for many years and they know maybe a dozen or so words and that's it. I've learned what I have learned primarily from picking it up on my own. I did take Thai lessons from an excellent Thai language teacher when I first moved here. Unfortunately she moved to England, but she taught me enough of the basics and structure that picking up more was fairly easy.

Also, living in Thailand helps. If you're a person who comes to Thailand for a couple weeks every year, a few basic words and phrases are helpful, but not all that important because you're likely to spend most of your time in places at which the Thais need to know enough English in order to be able to conduct their business - tourist attractions, hotels, restaurants, bars, the beach, shopping malls, etc. Also, for many Thai is probably an "if you don't use it, you lose it" language.

I live in a Thai neighborhood. I own my home, so I have to be able to communicate if I need work done on my home. I shop regularly in Thai open air markets. I drive a car and often travel to different places alone. In other words, it is an enormous help to my life to be able to speak the language to a good extent.

Sometimes it can be very frustrating. I'll bet just about every farang trying to learn Thai runs into this problem once in awhile: A Thai person pronounces a word for you. You try a million times to say the same word and you would swear on a stack of bibles you are pronouncing the word exactly as the Thai person is pronouncing it, and you're told you're not even close. Does that happen to anyone besides me?

As crazy as this might seem, the one aspect of the Thai language I still have not been able to master, no matter how hard I try, is explaining over the telephone to a Thai person how to get to my home! Even when I think I've made it crystal clear, and the person tells me he's got it, he still ends up getting lost on the way. I've about given up. Whenever I need to explain to a Thai person how to get to my home, I give my phone to one of my Thai neighbors and have him explain.
yang

Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by yang »

What no-one has mentioned is the difficulty of understanding Thai. It's OK with friends and taxi drivers who understand your limitations, but once you're up-country people assume if they can understand you, you will understand them. They fire away on all cylinders, and I'm lost. Telling them to slow down doesn't help - they compliment you on how well you said it, and go even faster!
painai2
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Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by painai2 »

One thing about learning a language when you're over 60, they say it's one of the best ways to stop the onset of Alzheimer's. At my age, I need all the help I can get.
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richsilver
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Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by richsilver »

I started studying Thai right after my first trip here in 1992. I took formal lessons for many years in San Francisco and I was very lucky to have some pretty good teachers. One of my first ones insisted that I learn to read and write and I'm eternally grateful that she did. Without the ability to read and write, how can you look up words in a dictionary? Most of the ones that use transliteration systems are not very good or complete.

Even though I can now speak fairly well, my brain does still not process quickly enough to follow Thai on TV. This is a major disappointment for me for it would surely improve my vocabulary greatly. I do try to listen in on mundane conversations to learn new words. One of the big problems here in Pattaya, however, is that many of the boys speak Isan or Lao.
jaafar

Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by jaafar »

Here are two free things to try:

http://intermediate-thai.org

is a free website with reading & writing practice, plus conversation at an intermediate level (at least?).

A second thing to get, instead of flash cards and all that stuff, is "mnemosyne." It's free "spaced repetition" software, and it works great. There's a comparable program called Anki. I now have about 1400 words in Mnemosyne and it quizzes me about roughly 40-50 of them each day.. If you get Mnemosyne and install it, I could send you the database. :-)

I rate my Thai as "not good enough."
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christianpfc
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Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by christianpfc »

jaafar wrote:instead of flash cards and all that stuff
I use flash cards (not for Thai though) on my way to work and back. Which means: 15 minutes walk to work + 15 minutes revising flash cars = 15 minutes time spent! It works great for me, and I don't have to put any time in (exept for creating the cards).

Google translate is a human right violation! LOL

I was contemplating about learning to read and write (and touch type) Thai only. The difficult part about Thai seems to be speaking and listening. So why not start with the easy and lern to speak and understand later? Furthermore, I'm the visual typ. I have to know how something is written, I ask my friends to spell English words I don't know and look them up in a dictionary later. But I recejected the idea, as whatever I read (German, English, French, Russian), I form the sound in my brain and I don't know how reading without any idea of a sound would work.
thaiworthy

Re: How much Thai (language) do you know?

Post by thaiworthy »

Trongpai wrote:I go to http://www.utl-school.com/english/home.php I take the 4 week modules when I can and I am up to Mod. 5 now. When I first went into mod 1 I found it grueling and not at all fun but I stuck it out and 2 was better and 3 and 4 were actually fun but time consuming. The program is intensive but gets results. I have been taking some of their special level conversational modules and spending more time on conversation skills than reading but leaning to read and write will, I am told lead, to better conversation skills.
I mentioned wanting to learn at UTL in the "Who Are You?" thread. I got a response from MauRICE, who said this:

"Good but may I ask, why UTL? You are aware that this is a very rigid and rigorous but effective programme for those who can cope with it. It is based on the established Union method used for teaching missionaries."

I wrote MauRICE, but the PM is still in my out box. Now that I have read your post, I understand this is not for the faint-hearted. What does he mean by "Union method used for teaching missionaries?"

By the time I move to Thailand, I will be 62. So that puts me out of the age range for a reasonable expectation of success, according to your report. Now I am faced with finding another way to learn Thai. I had planned to move to Bangkok just to attend this school. Now my hopes are dashed and it changes things considerably. I have never been a good student, and I will be even further intimidated if I have a teacher like the "Dragon Lady" you spoke of in our conversations together. You also mentioned some other members of this forum who went there, but they are all still in their 50s. This is discouraging news about UTL.

Is there anyone who learned Thai in their 60s? How did you do it? I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks.
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