If you want to learn to speak Thai as a Thai would, then the best tutor is a native speaker of Thai, although not everyone who speaks Thai (or English or German) necessarily knows how to systematically approach learning his language.
I've managed to pick up a fair amount of beginner level spoken Thai from a Thai teacher, but arrived at a point where I reached over-load and needed to take a break ... and my Thai teacher was spending more of our time together gossiping than teaching anyway.
He didn't want to teach reading/writing only spoken Thai. I've tried memorizing the Thai consonants and have had some success in sounding out words on my own, but I was forever getting similar looking letters confused and getting totally flummoxed by different Thai scripts. Besides, just memorizing all those letters and their different sounds depending on their position and the vowels floating around was BORING.
Many people have said that itтАЩs best to learn Thai using the Thai alphabet rather than English transliterations of Thai words. So I was hitting a wall.
A couple of days ago I got an email reminding me of a Thai reading program that I had once taken a cursory look at on line, so I downloaded the free trial once again. There were several hurdles to overcome:
1) ItтАЩs called тАЬRead Thai in a Day.тАЭ Obviously an absurd premise тАж I thought.
2) Rather than classifying consonants as being High, Middle or Low, in this program the classes are boys, girls or ladyboys, with characteristics assigned to each тАж and the characteristics assigned to ladyboys are somewhat offensive.
3) Each letter is presented in a cutesy cartoon fashion that you need to visualize as a reminder of its sound.
Despite considering all of the above to be negatives I did look through the trial part of the book. I still was not very convinced, but to unlock the rest of the book I could get a PIN for B 1900. Being the proud owner of Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone and a raft of Benjawan Poomsan BeckerтАЩs stuff, that was a drop in the bucket. So I transferred B1875 to the authorтАЩs bank account (he told me to deduct the B 25 ATM charge).
It works! I would guess itтАЩs better for visual learners rather than for people who learn best by hearing things, but then itтАЩs about the written form of the language, so visual is pretty necessary.
It teaches you to sound-out тАЬwords.тАЭ YouтАЩre not learning the names of the letters and youтАЩre not really learning much Thai vocabulary to begin with since the Thai words are pretty basic stuff you probably know anyway and a lot of the words are English words that most urban Thais use тАж along with their unique Thai pronunciation. You are learning to look at Thai script and turn what you see into sounds and simple words.
It is a surprisingly consistent language in its written form. I did in fact start reading words in Thai script very quickly and I still have a way to go before IтАЩm through the first run through. You can get through a first reading in half a day, which they recommend, or you can break it into smaller amounts.
Aside from the learning practice that they give you as you move through the book, they advise you to start looking at all the signs you see as you move about Thailand and to sound those out. If youтАЩre not in Thailand you can go to their website to practice on photos of Thai signs that they provide.
Anyway, if you really would like to start fathoming all the Thai script you see all about you, this might work for you too. Of course, what works for some people will be a total waste of time for others.
I have no interest financial or otherwise in this so I donтАЩt really care whether or not you try it. IтАЩm sure many will find it useless, but I would suggest you give the free trial a look and keep an open mind.
IтАЩm guessing that once I can sound out a lot of what I see that I can better acquire a larger vocabulary and that in turn will make me more efficient at reading тАж I hope.
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Originally Posted by pong
