Thread: Thai language CD/book combi for absolute beginners?

Originally Posted by toddaniels

I think for a totally free site thai-language dot com has incredible resources available to foreigners wanting to learn Thai. Their dictionary is to die for, it's regularly updated, will display a variety of "karaoke Thai" versions, has tabs to activate "racy content" in the site settings and the site has a good forum for language questions. The lesson tab has a LOT of good stuff too.

Thanks, TD.

I expect you prolly dig KISS, judging by your av. Did you know the band bought an Arena Footlball League team?

Originally Posted by pescator

I know 2 non-native speakers of thai who speak thai to an extent that no thai will be able to tell they are not native speakers, if they speak with them on the phone.

One is my buddy married to a thai, who has actually never lived in thailand, only visited a gazillion times. He has a northern accent as his wife hails from CM. Every thai thinks he is from that region.
He commands a few other language, but by no means without a quite heavy accent and with limited vocabulary.
But somehow he just nailed the thai language to a degree I shall never reach.

He is not literate in thai, but achieved his thai skills by the immersion method, only ever spoke thai with the missus and any other thai he would get into touch with.
It will be fair to describe him as a thaiophile.

`nother one is a guy running a guest house in Krabi. He has been running the place for like 20 years.
He speaks fluently central thai (not judged by me, but by thai people)
Everybody thinks he is a native speaker of thai.

So I would say, it is definitely possible for some people to achieve the goal of fluency.

I have met one non-native Thai speaker who seemed to about as close to "fluent" (whatever that is) as a non-native can get.

He was a Bhuddist monk who lived in Thailand for 32 years. He started out as a CIA agent assigned to Thailand during the Vietnam era. After living there for a few years, he became disillusioned with his job and entered a Bhuddist monastery. There he became a monk and eventually built up his language skills.

Now he is a full-fledged abbot at a Thai Wat. His Thai is the best I've ever heard from a "falong". Does he sound like a native Thai? Probably not, but he can understand rapid-fire Thai and speak Thai at normal speeds (which the Thais seem to understand).

Learning to read and write Thai script is a good start to becoming knowledgeable about Thai, but to become a good speaker, besides having a good ear for tones, you must spend a lot of time talking to Thai people in Thai.

I've heard Thais discuss how badly US and UK professors (who teach Thai in their native countries) mispronounce their Thai when visiting in Thailand. Fortunately, most Thais are too polite to tell them that often they don't understand what the speaker meant.

Good luck.

RickThai

Originally Posted by CauseIIsOne

Do you need to know how to speak Thai to live in Thailand?

I would hafta say, you can exist in Thailand without the language. I know people who've been here 20+ years yet can't string 6 Thai words together.

You can get by using a combination of English, "thai-engrish", mime, charades, etc OR you can just suck it up and put the effort into learning how to talk to these people in their language.

It's my personal experience, that when you do (invest the time and energy into learning Thai), that's when you really start 'living' here.

Yes you can certainly exist in Thailand without speaking or understanding the language but unfortunately I believe it's typical western arrogance to live or spend a lot of time in a country that is not your own and not at least try to learn the language. If for no other reason, to perhaps know what they say about you or anything/anyone else when they don't know that you understand.

I've found that most Thai people appreciate the effort made to try to speak and understand their language.

Since I started speaking what passes for Thai comin' outta my mouth, I can only think of one instance where the Thai I was talking to was unappreciative. Really it was more a case of they didn't want to listen to what I was saying.

I think they had a preconceived notion that foreigners can't speak Thai and there for they couldn't understand it. Every time I said something to this Thai they'd have that deer in the head-lites look, another Thai at the table would hafta repeat it and that's when they'd understand it.

Finally I'd had enough of that nonsense and asked the Thai who wouldn't understand me, if they could speak & understand Thai or if they were a กะเหรี่ยง? (which is what Thais disparagingly call all hill tribe people). Man you shoulda seen the light of comprehension come on at that comment. Funny enough after that they understood me just fine, however they didn't hang around all that much longer, obviously not cottoning to being called a hill tribe person.

Sometimes you gotta use the carrot and the stick with these people. Show 'em the carrot, but be prepared to beat 'em repeatedly with the stick if they don't start playin' ball.

กะเหรี่ยง for the Karen hill tribe people, I don`t see anything derogatory about that. That is what they are called.

Now if you would use Meow for the Hmong people that would be derogatory.

Usually, I hear thai people refer to hill tribes as Shao Khao
ชาวเขา

Re: thais not understanding farang speaking thai.
I think that they are simply not in a thai listening mode when they are approached by an obvious foreigner.
They expect to hear an obscure language coming out of the farang`s mouth and they can`t be arsed with that. So they just shut down by doing a "Ctrl Alt Delete" to avoid a potential linquistic problem and loss of face.

On more than a few occasion I have experienced when entering a shop/local restaurant etc. that the shop attendant/waiter waves her hand feebly in the air and scurrying off to bring in another person with "superior language skills".
And that before I even had the chance to utter a single word.

I know exactly what is going to happen next.
I address the "cunning linquist" in thai and he/she looks bewildered at me:
But you speak thai, why didn`t you say so?
Sigh, like I had the chance.

I would advise caution when calling Thai people anything remotely derogatory.
The concept of "losing face" can (and has somewhat regularly) quickly escalate to murder in cases of "name calling".

Many Thais pride themselves on being impolite in very indirect, discrete, and subtle ways. Directly calling someone a name to their face (even if it is true) can often result in extreme over reaction.

RickThai

"pescator" hit on two phenomena I have run into more times than I care to count here. The preconceived notion that foreigners can't speak Thai and the fact that 99.999% of thais flip some imaginary switch in their brains to "listen for English" before they approach a foreigner. This makes the thai listening to a foreigner speaking Thai not understand them because the thai was listening for English NOT Thai.

Sorry there "pescator", I am well aware of the term ชาวเขา but the fact you're unfamiliar with the alternate meaning for the word กะเหรี่ยง does not negate how it is used in today's society, especially here in Bangkok. It's now contemporary slang almost equal with the English term "half-wit", "country bumpkin" or someone who has no ability in what they're doing.. It's totally derogatory and is used all the time as a comparative term.

Heck I even use it when I'm biting off more than I can chew when asking how to do something, I'll say "What do I know, I'm just a กะเหรี่ยง. . " It never fails to get a laugh mostly because it's self-deprecating. Given the "save face", "gain face", "never lose face" game these people play continually, NO thai will ever put themselves down...

Of course "RickThai" would weigh in on the sheep-like, foreign-sock-puppet, wanna-b-thai" side of not saying anything remotely derogatory to thais.. It must totally suck living here surrounded by these people yet walking on egg shells 24/7; afraid to ruffle their feathers, call them on the carpet when they're wrong, hold them accountable for their actions or argue with them.

Since speaking Thai I've had more than my share of "heated discussions" with thais when trying to get my way. Yet in all that time I've never EVER felt the situation was escalating to a point I couldn't steer it back on safer ground. I don't do "indirect, discrete or subtle" very well, but I am able to do, "blunt, terse, coarse & direct" without even trying..

I might have mentioned I told a Thai teacher I know that in another year or so I would be able to be just as hardcore (blunt, terse, coarse) when speaking Thai as I am when I speak English. Her reply was, "No need to wait Tod, you already speak Thai super hardcore now." That made my day!!

Here's an anecdote;
One nite about 3:30 in the morning I was going to my local 7/11 to get a pack of fags. Outside on the steps were the typical "gang" of adolescent teenage วัยรุ่น's with a bunch of empty beer bottles scattered about. As I was going in a fat teenage Thai came out, bumped me pretty hard and said under his breath, "เย็ดแม่" (mother fucker), which made the thai guys sitting around laugh. I stopped said to him in Thai, "I'm sorry what did you say, I didn't quite catch it?" He said in a drunken slur "กูว่่าเย็ดแม่" (I said mother fucker), another round of laughs from the thai kids. I immediately said in coarse street Thai, "Sorry, I just got back from fucking your mother and man am I tired." You could have heard a Soi dog fart those thai guys were so quiet. Then one of them busted out laughing, and they all did. After I came out of the store, they invited me to sit down with them and drink which I ended up doing until dawn. They weren't bad kids; they just thought they could take the piss out of a foreigner was all. Now whenever I'm drinking Soi side, and one of them goes past, they always stop and have a glass of beer with me.

Please believe me, I'm not advocating anyone speak out of turn or in the way I speak Thai to the thais. I'm saying you don't hafta be so chicken shit afraid of offending these people that you give up who, what you are just because you live around 'em and talk to 'em in their language. You do need to know your audience, but more importantly you need to possess enough Thai language skills to dig yourself out of any hole you might fall into lipping off to ‘em in Thai. It's not rocket science, it's being able to read people and know how far you can push 'em in a given situation.


Good Luck. . . .

Originally Posted by toddaniels

One nite about 3:30 in the morning I was going to my local 7/11 to get a pack of fags. Outside on the steps were the typical "gang" of adolescent teenage วัยรุ่น's with a bunch of empty beer bottles scattered about. As I was going in a fat teenage Thai came out, bumped me pretty hard and said under his breath, "เย็ดแม่" (mother fucker), which made the thai guys sitting around laugh. I stopped said to him in Thai, "I'm sorry what did you say, I didn't quite catch it?" He said in a drunken slur "กูว่่าเย็ดแม่" (I said mother fucker), another round of laughs from the thai kids. I immediately said in coarse street Thai, "Sorry, I just got back from fucking your mother and man am I tired." You could have heard a Soi dog fart those thai guys were so quiet. Then one of them busted out laughing, and they all did. After I came out of the store, they invited me to sit down with them and drink which I ended up doing until dawn. They weren't bad kids; they just thought they could take the piss out of a foreigner was all. Now whenever I'm drinking Soi side, and one of them goes past, they always stop and have a glass of beer with me.

Yes, I like that riposte.

Not positive, but since you're prolly an American my question is what would you say in an identical situation (i.e., not on your turf but in an English speaking 'hood), coming out of a 7/11 back in U.S.A.?

The point was you don't hafta walk on eggshells around Thais, and that most of the time, they're just "testing the waters" to see how far they can push a white guy, whilst hiding behind their language.. Once the curtain is pulled back; you show them that not only can you understand Thai, but can give as well as receive, I've found they almost all lighten up. As I said, I've never dug a deeper hole for myself than I could climb outta with the language skills I possess in Thai. It could happen, but it's unlikely..

Not having been back to the US in a fair while, honestly I dunno what I'd do if some punks from the hood got too lippy. I guess it'd depend on if they were mexicans, skin-heads, spooks, rag-heads, trailer trash white folk, or preppy/jock type kids. Never really had that problem in the US, even in the inner city, so couldn't say for sure..

If you'll notice I took jabs at almost everyone, so in that regard I am an equal opportunity discriminator..

Originally Posted by toddaniels

The point was you don't hafta walk on eggshells around Thais, and that most of the time, they're just "testing the waters" to see how far they can push a white guy, whilst hiding behind their language.. Once the curtain is pulled back; you show them that not only can you understand Thai, but can give as well as receive, I've found they almost all lighten up. As I said, I've never dug a deeper hole for myself than I could climb outta with the language skills I possess in Thai. It could happen, but it's unlikely..

Point taken.

Originally Posted by pescator

Allow me to share an anecdote too.

A while back we arrived at the Sakon Nahon bus station.
A Samlor driver offered his services.
"Thank you very much, but we have family coming to pick us up"

The Samlor driver was sitting with a bunch of his friends and he felt cocky.
"How do you do it when you make out and having sex"? He provocatibly asked.

(I am kinda tall and the missus is kinda short) Most likely that triggered his outrageous question.

I took a deep breath, considered the words I would use in my reply, most definately involving some nastyness, but the missus beat me to it.

"You should not be concerned about that, what you should be concerned about is you dog`s orifice that is about as close that you will ever come to having sex"

Geez. I know that country girls can be outspoken, but that was ... well, a good reply in my mind any way.

The Samlor driver was none too happy to hear that, but as his mates were roaring with laughter, he did not pursue the matter further.

That is a classic answer and believe it or not, a lot of Thai sexual innuendos revolve around dogs, dogs sexual organs and their sexual penchants.

That your wife used this to her advantage and put some overly inquisitive Thai in his place is admirable! Now it would appear that she wasn't "walkin' on eggshells" giving that flippant answer to a Thai. That foreigners would feel 'afraid' to do the same thing wobbles my mind. I'm sure the old fall back answer will be; "we're guests here".

I got news for you, I most definitely AIN'T a frickin' guest in this country. I pay tax, I follow the rules, I don't get stuff for free, and that equates to me payin' my way to be here.

Originally Posted by toddaniels

".
Of course "RickThai" would weigh in on the sheep-like, foreign-sock-puppet, wanna-b-thai" side of not saying anything remotely derogatory to thais.. It must totally suck living here surrounded by these people yet walking on egg shells 24/7; afraid to ruffle their feathers, call them on the carpet when they're wrong, hold them accountable for their actions or argue with them.

How long have you lived in Thailand?

My guess is that if you keep getting into "heated" discussions with Thais eventually you will learn something about Thai behavior that you obviously don't understand at this point.

Thais, like many warring cultures, have developed very polite and indirect ways of dealing with conflict in every day life. The reason they had to develop these cultural practices was to avoid confrontations that would often result in extreme physical violence.

As a young man in Thailand back in the 1970's, I was a very aggressive "know-it-all" who had no problem confronting Taxi drivers and any other Thai that I thought was trying to take advantage of me. My wife tried very hard to "teach" me that you can't be that openly confrontational to people in Thailand. It took me a long time, but I eventually learned that unless you are prepared to "go to the mat", you really need to watch your manners in Thailand. After all, you are a guest in their country.

Although most Thais are very tolerant of a foreigner's ignorance, it only takes one Thai who has had too much to drink, or has otherwise had enough of your "heated" discussions to go off on you.

There is an interesting Youtube video of some old westerner getting up in a Thais face, and pounding his fist on a table, and then, a few minutes later he gets sapped.


This is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

Still keep on yelling at Thais and sooner or later, you will either get your bungalow robbed, or someone will kill your dog, or physically attack you (and don't expect a lot of sympathy from the local Thais either - including the police, they will say you had it coming to you.)


RickThai

I bow to your "finite" wisdom on "all-thingz-thai". Tryin' to convince you that these people can be interacted with like anyone else is like tryin' to push a rope. I'm not one of those "I remember back when I first washed up here" sorta guys as I've only been here 8 years..

That's rich, "thais, like many warring cultures". Being a warring culture didn't cut a lotta ice for them in S/W China when these people were just some bullshit hill tribe who got too big for their britches and the Chinese kicked their asses out. Nor did it appear to help them after they appropriated most of what is modern day Thailand from the declining Angkor Empire but wouldn't leave the Burmese alone and had their asses handed to them on a plate now did it?

The alleged culture here is NOTHING more than covert brain washing to delineate the classes; rich from poor, have from have nots, superior from subordinate. It doesn't foster "polite interaction"; it fosters mindless obedience. It is possibly the most limiting factor facing this country in its effort to enter the 21 century world as it is. The only up-side is the kids of nowadays are starting to ask questions about why they're compelled to do some of the shit they do.. That will be this country's saving grace. All I can say is thank buddha for the internet, wifi and endless connectivity.

I don't pretend to know it all (unlike you). I also relate my personal experiences only. Funny, I rarely raise my voice to anyone when speaking. I do however speak straight, to the point, and am not above calling a spade a spade, instead of the more politically correct "pointed digging instrument with a handle".

You're probably referring to that You Tube video where the old guy gets cold cocked in a bar by the Thai punk kid who snuck up behind him. Yeah that thai guy was a real man, or should I say "a typical thai pussy".. I've said it before, I don't EVER dig a hole I can't climb back out of. I'd never think I was six foot tall and bullet proof whilst NOT speaking a lick of Thai either.

Interestingly enough a lot of the Thais I interact with have had too much to drink!! I mean after all we're sitting Soi side drinking.. I've been in more heartfelt discussions about things than I could shake a stick at with them; politics, red shirts, yellow shirts, corruption, disparity in wage, unfairness in the legal system between rich and poor, failing government populist policies, US foreign policy, the war on terror, etc. Often times I am on the opposite side of the fence with my views than an entire table of Thais I'm sitting with, but it never gets past a differing of opinions. Also not once has someone said that lame assed excuse, "You're not Thai so you couldn't understand" either.

Now that you are unable to read and/or manipulate people to the extent that you have a modicum of control over their actions, speaks more about your interpersonal skills, than your knowledge of alleged thai cultural etiquette.

I'm just afraid we're gonna hafta agree to disagree. You go your way, I'll go mine. Truth be told, I sincerely doubt the Thais give a flyin' fuck about how either of us act around them here..

Man, this topic sure took a left turn somewhere between the O/P's question and the interaction Rick 'n I are having. I do hope the O/P found his C/D's to learn Thai..

Originally Posted by toddaniels

.
You're probably referring to that You Tube video where the old guy gets cold cocked in a bar by the Thai punk kid who snuck up behind him. Yeah that thai guy was a real man, or should I say "a typical thai pussy".. I've said it before, I don't EVER dig a hole I can't climb back out of. I'd never think I was six foot tall and bullet proof whilst NOT speaking a lick of Thai either.

.

Actually the video I was referring to had a middle-aged Thai man (probably the bar owner or a employee) walk up quietly behind the loud mouth and hit him with a sap. The old guy dropped like a sack of potatoes. Everyone in the bar ignored him for a little bit and then another Thai tried to prop him up so it didn't look so bad.

Another poster on one of the Thai forums noted how a Thai had fractured his skull once upon a time, after getting into an argument.

So believe what you will and argue all you want, it's your skull; but advocating on a forum that it is okay for foreigners learning Thai to argue with Thais is doing a disservice to those who don't know any better.

RickThai

Originally Posted by toddaniels

That argument about a tonal language and a non-tonal language is stuff cunning linguists can beat to death. It certainly doesn't take YEARS of training to begin to hear the tone differences in spoken Thai!!

I have said before that in English we use tones to carry emotive value to what's being said. We certainly don't speak in a mono-tone. In fact English can represent every single tone used in the Thai language and native English speakers use all of them routinely.

Single word questions use a rising tone; "Right?"
Expressing dismay usually uses a falling tone; "Ohhh”.
Expressing shock usually uses a high tone; "What?"
A non-committal attitude is usually expressed with a low tone; "Umm okay.."
The mid tone is just about for everything else.

The reason foreigners say they can't hear the tones in Thai is simply because we're listening for the tones for the WRONG reason.

Regular Thai spoken at speed by Thais isn't the sugar-coated, over-pronounced, spoon-fed version of Thai a teacher will use on students so they start to hear the tone differences.

Falangs <sic> or whatever karaoke version of the Thai word for ฝรั่ง (fà ràng) or บักสีดา (bàk sǐi daa) if your significant Thai other is from Isaan) don't have difficulty with the tones in Thai once they train their ears to listen for them for the right reason.

I still say the only thing which changes between a "long" and a "short" Thai vowel is the length of time you make the vowel sound. Thai has approximately 32 "vowel sounds". They're usually parroted by the Thais as pairs like this; อะ-อา, อิ-อี, อึ-อื, อุ-อู, เอะ-เอ, แอะ-แอ, โอะ-โอ, เอาะ-ออ, เออะ-เออ, เอียะ-เอีย, เอือะ-เอือ, อัวะ-อัว, ฤ-ฤา, ฦ-ฦา, อำ, ไอ-ไม้มลาย, ใอ-ไม้ม้วน. The last three vowels are only short vowels and no long vowel exists with that sound. You can say their different any way you want, I ain't a cunning linguist and don't pretend to be one. I just hear a long duration sound and a short duration sound, but I hear the same sound.

Conversely, Thais have difficulties mostly with words which end in a consonant no word in Thai can end with. There are only 8 ways a word can EVER end spelled in Thai, that's it. Three are called "dead endings", five are called live endings. Thais learn 'em like this (the Thai letters in parenthesis are the characters which make this sound when they end a syllable or a word);
แม่กก - (ก ข ค ฆ) the "-c", "-g", "-k", "q" and "-ck" sounds at the end of a syllable; a dead ending
แม่กง - (ง) the "-ng" sound at the end of a syllable, a live ending
แม่กด - (จ ฉ ช ซ ฌ ฎ ฏ ฐ ฑ ฒ ด ต ถ ท ธ ศ ษ ส) the "-d" and "-t" sound at the end of a syllable, a dead ending
แม่กน - (ญ ณ น ร ล ฬ) the "-n" sound at the end of a syllable, a live ending
แม่กบ - (บ ป พ ฟ ภ) the "-b" and "-p" sounds at the end of a syllable, a dead ending
แม่กม - (ม) the "-m" sound at the end of a syllable, a live ending.
แม่เกย - the "-eeuy" sound at the end of a syllable, a live ending
แม่เกอว - all the words ending with วอ แหวน; a live ending.
Of course Thai can have "open syllables" that's just a consonant and a vowel, so there are those too. What Thai can't do is end a word with an "L" or an "R" sound because ล's & ร's in Thai change to n's at the end of words!

Thais also have problems with English consonant clusters which can't be represented in the Thai language. It's why you often hear a Thai voice words like, stop, slowly and stupid as "sa-top, sa-lowly and sa-tupid. The "s" character in Thai has to have a short 'a' (-ะ) sound with it when it's spoken. Even the "in-trend" English loan word สเปค (sà bpèek) which Thais use for "specification" is pronounced with the -ะ after the s, because they don't have an "sp" in Thai. In Thai only the following are "true consonant clusters that can start words; กร- gr กล- gl กว- gw ขร- kr ขล- kl ขว- kw คร- kr คล- kl คว- kw ตร- dtr ปร- bpr ปล- bpl ผล- pl พร- pr พล- pl. (That's just 11 if you don't count the duplicate sounds).

Some of the consonant clusters used in English just can't be said easily by Thais, they have to "train" their mouths to get them down with any degree of proficiency. It's the same for foreigners saying Thai words which start with the ง "ng" character. We don't have ANY words in English which are pronounced with a leading ng, so it's one of those characters foreigners are gonna hafta "train" their mouths to say.

Face it, I taught myself to read Thai before I could speak, and after 4+ years of learning Thai I still speak a horrifically mangled, errant-toned, American accented version of it. Looking back I learned it backwards and I should have concentrated more on speaking Thai than on my reading/writing. At this stage I wouldn’t trade my reading/writing ability away, but still I’d give almost anything to speak clearer Thai..

I am of the opinion that just about any foreigner who puts their mind to it can learn to speak and read Thai IF they want to. It's the internal motivation not the degree of difficulty that makes most foreigners throw in the towel and crap out after a while. It reminds me of what my grandfather told me, "things worth knowing don't come cheap or easy, and things that do come cheap ‘n easy aren't usually worth knowing". I don't know that he made it up, but he told it to me..

Sorry this was long and possibly off topic... Hope someone hung with it until the end...

Good Luck learning Thai...

"Face it, I taught myself to read Thai before I could speak, and after 4+ years of learning Thai I still speak a horrifically mangled, errant-toned, American accented version of it. Looking back I learned it backwards and I should have concentrated more on speaking Thai than on my reading/writing. At this stage I wouldn’t trade my reading/writing ability away, but still I’d give almost anything to speak clearer Thai.. "

This is what I'm switching to. After all, how did we all learn our mother tongue? We first learned to speak it fluently from our parents, friends, neighbors... We were fluent before we ever learned to read and write much less learn rules of grammar, etc.

Sure maybe someone taught us the alphabet and some basic reading from children's books, but still, not before our speaking and hearing was fluent.

I think I've been going at it backwards, but that's just my belief.

Originally Posted by JBaker

After all, how did we all learn our mother tongue? We first learned to speak it fluently from our parents, friends, neighbors... We were fluent before we ever learned to read and write much less learn rules of grammar, etc.

Remember though that an infant brain is a blank canvas, largely filled in by adulthood. Learning a second language (or third or fourth) is a much different process. My schoolboy efforts at French and German involved a lot of reading and writing.

I really think anyone who aspires to speak Thai beyond "ao bia eek" would be best served by learning how to read as early as possible, particularly if their efforts involve a lot of self-study. That's because there are sounds in Thai that don't really occur in English, such as the dt sound in เต่า (dtao, turtle), or the bp sound in ปลา (bplaa, fish). With no awareness of that particular letter, the ear has trouble distinguishing between เต่า and ดาว , turtle and star. (My ear at any rate.) Likewise the difference between the long and short vowels is much harder to discern if you don't know what to listen for.

And that lack of awareness will be reflected in your pronunciation, since any distinctions you cannot hear are vocal distinctions you will not make. Not a big deal if you're just looking to get by; people will know from the context whether you meant to refer to a turtle or a star. But if you want to speak with any precision it helps to know exactly what you're saying.


(An anecdote. At a restaurant once a waiter, a Thai kid in his mid-teens, decided to practice his English with the farang.

"I lie pee-mee lee," he says. Seeing my bafflement he helpfully added, "Lee-wa-poon."

Oh, Liverpool! Yes, of course, you like the Premier League. Well good for you, son!)


Now the point is not to rubbish some perfectly pleasant Thai kid who made an effort at conversation. No doubt his native Thai teachers of English were equally incomprehensible. The point is that anyone learning by mimicry alone bears a good chance of sounding in Thai much like that kid did in English.

Learning the alphabet won't make you a native speaker, but it will at least make you aware of the difficult and unfamiliar phonemes you need to really pay attention to if you're to speak at all well.



One man's humble opinion, at any rate.

Teach yourself Thai by David Smyth, comes with a CD. I learned a lot from that!

download this torrent,
yes, it is big , but you will have all that you need!!!!!
cheers

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/73951...Pack_(Updated)


70 books of thai (and Laos!!!) learning material
included with videos and audio help !!!!

Lao learning materials are now also included in this torrent, and the Thai section is much expanded.

The file list is available as a jpeg file (File number 70 Book List).

Originally Posted by importford

download this torrent,
yes, it is big , but you will have all that you need!!!!!
cheers

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/73951...Pack_(Updated)


70 books of thai (and Laos!!!) learning material
included with videos and audio help !!!!

Lao learning materials are now also included in this torrent, and the Thai section is much expanded.

The file list is available as a jpeg file (File number 70 Book List).

Hey! God damn it. You’re taking food from the mouth of some Thai girl I know who wrote and publishes some of those books.

Try the A.U.A. Language center which is practically across from the Tha Pae Gate: google map location https://www.google.co.th/maps/place/...61a7dd9a?hl=en It's a language school that also sells textbooks and accompanying CDs. What I mean by accompanying CDs is page by page. There are 6 books with CDs. Book 1 came with 4 CDs so I only bought that one for starters. I imagine finishing the three hard core language books would be a sufficient goal . For example, the first book alone covers vocabulary and expansion, dialog, tone manipulation, vowels and consonants, grammar, numbers, conversation and writing. There are classes at the center that use the textbooks so you can have the experience, support and reinforcement of a teacher and classmates, if that's what you want. I opted for the stay-at -home approach in order to learn at my own pace. There are also 3 very specialized books (like one just on writing). I doubt they are necessary for me because I am only interested in becoming a fluent Thai conversationalist and will buy the textbooks relevant to achieving that goal.

Good luck. it's a fascinating and frustrating language and Thais are very fun-loving and talkative. I feel so left out and frustrated not to be able to simply meet people and make Thai friends.

Those old AUA books are a valuable way to learn conversational thai (as well as reading and writing with the other books too). The AUA branch in Bangkok sells them at the bookstore but doesn't teach using that method anymore.

As I said, those are good (if somewhat dated) books and with the c/d's are valuable. They're just paperweights without the c/d's

"wjblaney" I hate to break it to you, BUT you're NEVER gonna be fluent, nor will you ever fool a born-bred-rice fed thai speaker into thinkin' you're a native speaker for even a second! "Fluency" is just "an imaginary place in your mind" or mostly in the minds of people who can't speak thai for shit when they hear someone else speaking thai! BUT you most definitely will be able to communicate with the indigenous natives here in their language.

After 10 years here I don't agree that the thaiz are very fun-loving or all that talkative, especially to someone they don't know, but you think what you want...

BTW: there's NO downside to being able to learn to read thai as last time I checked (which I do once in a while) EVERYTHING here in written in thai... It's WAY easier to learn to read thai than it is to be able to speak thai even in a semi-coherent fashion..

Good Luck, stick with it.