Learning Thai.

[FarangRuMak]

After 12 years coming and going to Thailand the only real regret I have is my low standard of Thai.
I excell in certain small areas; in the beer bars and ggbars I have a full vocabulary for some reason but when I'm in the real world I keep asking the laundry lady how much it is to wash a bag of 'Tigers' instead of 'Shirts' etc.
I blame MYSELF mainly but I also blame the SCHOOLS.
I've tried 2 schools (40 hrs each) and I've had a preliminary session with a third.
In each case it was all about the money and very little about facilitating learning the language.
We have a few accomplished Thai Language speakers here.
I would be grateful if they could share an account of their learning journey.

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[christianpfc]

I posted my experiences here
https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showt...-success-story
and elsewhere.

My knowledge of Thai is indispensable for traveling alone, I would not want to rely on English, and I can communicate everything I need fluently. But it's not so much a help in picking up boys: my social skills suck, and speaking the language can't compensate for that.

For learning a language, talent plays an important role. When speaking English with Thais, there is a wide range, from being able to utter a few words to fluent basic communication. All with the same system of teaching.

There is nobody to blame, you just don't have the talent, just like I don't have a talent to play football. The only difference is that I don't want to play football, don't have to play football, don't need to play football.

[samebb]

When a Thai person replies to you in English, have some fun and make them tell you, and teach you, to say it in Thai. Do that 10 times a day, for everything you do, and you grasp things quite quickly.

If only we could do that with the bar boys. Sadly most of them are not Thai and learning from them can lead to funny situations (trust me)

[christianpfc]

I'm a visual learner. Listening and repeating works poorly for me, I need to have it written down in Thai to understand and to reproduce. Whereas a talented Farang friend became fluent in spoken Thai, and only later learnt to read and write.

[FarangRuMak]

When a Thai person replies to you in English, have some fun and make them tell you, and teach you, to say it in Thai. Do that 10 times a day, for everything you do, and you grasp things quite quickly.

If only we could do that with the bar boys. Sadly most of them are not Thai and learning from them can lead to funny situations (trust me)

I can relate to your last point.
I visited a bar in Vientiane, Lao Lann Chang, about 8 years ago.
To my astonishment I could follow a lot of the conversation between the staff.
I didn't understand at the time that most of my Thai acquaintances and friends were from Issan and not from "Siam" as such, so I pick up a lot of Lao from them.
What frustrates me is that I understand the rules of Thai grammar ie I can group in terms of 'classes' and tonal rules etc but that's no help to me on the street.
Basically if I initiate the conversation and therefore control it I do quite well- in fact I get compliments from the Thais.
But as soon as Thais start up among themselves or with me I'm lost.
But thank y'all for the tips.
Back to the drawing board.
PS I take the point about talent.
Who said
"the only thing standing between people and success is talent"?

[joe552]

I give up FRM, who said it?

[newalaan2]

Basically if I initiate the conversation and therefore control it I do quite well. But as soon as Thais start up among themselves or with me I'm lost

Yes me too, except when bf and certain of his friends whom I have listened to over the years and picked up their nuances are chatting. My 'thai' is mostly Lao/issan and have to adjust words to suit where I am. Pattaya is fine for Lao/issan, Bkk I have to adjust to be polite. Asking for the bill Issan/Pattaya 'Gep Tang' is fine but bkk it's best with simply 'check bin.

When listening to Thai I think like us when we are back home we use abbreviated language, local language and words and this is what the Thais seem to do. They seem to adjust when you start the conversation to take account of our difficulty, but bf could use a Thai sentence when addressing me and I understand, he uses the same sentence when on the phone to other Thais and it seems completely different.

The only reason I started learn Thai at the very start was really just to confirm and double check things, simple things like how much for this....yee-sip baht/20 baht....and I would repeat yee-sip mai? just to confirm, as the first couple trips there were SO many misunderstandings it was frustrating as you thought they had taken in what you said, but they would merely say 'yes' to anything and deliver what they 'thought' you said/wanted. After the first year or so using books I got lazy and thereafter simply repeated the words I heard around me, be it Bkk Thai, Issan etc..

For me what also helped greatly was after the first trip I was hooked on their music, karaokes, VCD discs etc, I played guitar and it was much the same chord sequences as western stuff etc but had to make an effort to get the words/lyrics correct, and so also wanted to know the meaning of the songs I was singing and it moved on from there. I have a number of words/phrases which are remembered as two different entities for the same meaning Thai and Issan-lao and just use as appropriate. When you do understand many of the Lao words you can be a bit sneaky and listen to waiters talking openly about you right in front of you, have done that many a time. when they realise you can understand some of what they say their reaction is priceless. Something like..the boys asking eachother in Thai/Lao 'how old do you think he is?' (me sitting 2 feet from them) and I'll reply I'm 29! in Thai.

But it does make a huge difference to the enjoyment of a visit with some Thai/issan under your belt.

[FarangRuMak]

I give up FRM, who said it?

I haven't a clue who wrote it but I don't think he would do well as a teacher in a school where everone passes the exam and where everyone goes home with a medal on Sports' Day.

[fedssocr]

I took a couple of Thai language classes my local adult education department offered many years ago. Among the problems was that it met once a week for a couple of hours. And I never could get the tones. I just don't really hear it because I suppose my ear isn't trained for it and so I can't reproduce them. I agree that some people just have more talent for languages.

But learning numbers was pretty easy and days of the week and basic stuff like that. So I can provide a word here or there and maybe a simple sentence. But if someone speaks to me in Thai chances are low that I will understand much of anything. I listen to quite a bit of Thai music and listen to Thai radio online a couple of hours a day at work. But without know what they're saying it's just background sound as much as anything.

And written Thai I've never really attempted. I had a friend at work who visited Thailand for a couple of weeks and claimed he figured out written Thai in that time.

[latintopxxx]

learning thai??? why?? shouldnt the service providers speak YOUR language....YOU the one that is paying???