The Thai text you posted doesn't match the transliteration you provided.Quote:
Originally Posted by kmart
Presumably you meant to post: กรอบ - grorp.
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The Thai text you posted doesn't match the transliteration you provided.Quote:
Originally Posted by kmart
Presumably you meant to post: กรอบ - grorp.
If frogs could speak and write I should imagine it would be like this.
Frog is ghob
"frog" in Thai | Lingopolo
I thought they spoke French!Quote:
Originally Posted by Seekingasylum
Are you drunk?
Har har
The term may be derived from the word British, but it does not emanate from that country.Quote:
Originally Posted by thaimeme
Your poor understanding of your mother tongue, even the bastardised American version, serves to support my theory that you are dumb hick, and mot the faux intelligentsia you purport to be.
I'll give you my take as a serial language learner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Property
1. Get a phrase book... for Thai, the one by David Smyth is good
2. Go to a part of Thailand where there are few English speakers, and not much internet
3. Talk to them every day for a few weeks and copy the sounds they make - don't worry about the grammar or spelling; make notes of things they say in a little book, and build up your own list of sentences (not words) you find useful
4. Focus on learning the "joiny bits" of language - not just lists of vocab... deploy them in conversations about every day things, and reel off a few set phrases like "can you pass me the one you're not using" and "do you think I can fit that in there?" and "ooh, I'm not used to this", etc...
5. Once you've reached a level of confidence, start learning the alphabet... I wish I'd had the time to go to one of those Thai typing schools you find in small towns
6. Find a coursebook to read... those Benjawan Poomsan Becker ones are alright... the old TY Thai lets you practice reading by covering the phonetics... you need to read a bit and then hide it and try and write it from memory little and often...
If you are able to do this in a small town in Thailand for 3 months or more, you should find you make some progress... avoid Thais who speak English, they won't really help you learn much... and don't waste your time on a course unless you really want a certificate... all there is is iGCSE as a first language and modules at a handful of unis like SOAS or Leeds or a couple in America... there is a uni in Thailand that was doing some kind of course a bit like the HSK for Chinese or JPLT for Japanese, but that's for later... like maybe a year or two after you've got on top of it.
http://womenlearnthai.com/index.php/...rn-university/
http://learnthaicmu.com/
I'm intending to apply this approach to Burmese... I've muddled through a few other oriental languages, and tried most things, and this is just my approach based on my own experience since I was a kid. Enjoy it... and make some fun friends :-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDukeofNewcastle
ทักษะของคุณภาษาไทยชาร์ลส์...??
จดจำหัวข้อของด้าย
มีเล่ห์เหลี่ยมหี
Heh...
:rolleyes:
My Thai is fine thanks. I learned the same way most farang learn. By living here and having a Thai partner.Quote:
Originally Posted by thaimeme
Now you can fuck off Geoff.
Your lack of wisdom is always noted.
Thanks for the red geoff. It just shows what a weak kneed, feeble minded cockwomble you are.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDukeofNewcastle
Here since 94 can't speak it and never will
Thai is not hard if you have a Thai partner willing to help. My wife helped me from the beginning because I wanted to learn. You won't learn if you don't really want it. I figured I will be here for the long haul so might as well understand as much as possible.
There is no one way. I learnt from a pocket dictionary (the best I could). In those days, there were few schools. Now there is a plethora of opportunities.
Do what suits you at the pace that suits you and the level that suits you. As I now live in Isaan, all my previous study has been decimated. One thing I have discovered is that if you give it a fair try, you will at least earn respect. The locals don't seem to go out of their way to learn English.
^ :)Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDukeofNewcastle
I can speak....ok.
Have picked up (and put down) reading and writing many times but I'm pretty focused now and am reading Thai Basic readers with relative ease.
I've got the flashcards, read and write daily, been through the cluster consonants, special marks, 300 most common words and quite a bit more. I'm definitely feeling some progress.
Too bad Rosetta Stone didn't continue in Thai.
The English version may look a little rote at times but is definitely useful.
I keep seeing these adverts 'Read Thai blindingly Fast!' etc. There's one on this page. Meh - I'm in no hurry.
The more I learn, The less I want to. Most Conversations bore the living shit out of me. The only person I find remotely interesting is my Sil husband. Hes educated to college level and has a decent grasp on world affairs and is far more worldly than most of the so called "educated" village inhabitants.
Theres not a chance on this green earth, that I would even begin to learn reading and writing (to a decent degree) a redundant language that has nothing to offer me. Ive already spent enough time learning the language that the lowest Essex trollop would find beneath them, so why waste more.
If I lived there full time, then maybe I would put more effort in, although I doubt it, because, even the so called educated are basically morons.
You only have to read half the inhabitants of this board to realise they've gone either native or lost the plot completely.
In answer to the original question though, I guess I learned by osmosis. Necessity is mother of all fookups and all that fashizzle.
^^^ hehe
I've never wanted to learn either,firstly because I'd have to listen to people constantly repeating themselves,then again I haven't mastered the English language yet.:)
You just have to keep at and it will come to you. Most don't really want to learn though as I am seeing now.
That's simply a reflection of who you associate with. Imagine judging the utility of speaking English based solely on what one read on Teakdoor and Thaivisa. You'd think that all English-speakers were irredeemably stupid and that there was absolutely nothing to be gained from bothering to learn the language.Quote:
The more I learn, The less I want to. Most Conversations bore the living shit out of me.
are, by-and-large, excruciatingly dull and stupid everywhere in the world. Go to some dreary village in fucking Yorkshire and you'll experience exactly the same thing as you will in some dreary village in Buriram.Quote:
village inhabitants
Anyway, to answer the question, through exposure to a lot of language. Read a lot and listen to a lot. At first, you'll just have to brute-force your way through with a dictionary, a little intelligence, and a lot of determination but it gets easier.
I enjoy listening to people near me who think I don't understand Thai. It's very amusing at times.
* But not as amusing as Teakdoor, obviously. :biggrin:
If thats the case, then you`d think I`d have something in common with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Passing Through
I must admit, I do quite enjoy playing that game. It certainly shows people for who they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neverna
If you all live in dreary villages, then you certainly do have something in common.Quote:
If thats the case, then you`d think I`d have something in common with them.
I always find it odd that so many men marry peasants half their age, move to shitty little backwaters in a country with a radically different culture and then complain that the people there aren't very interesting. I wonder what these men expected. Presumably not a weekly reading group working its way through Proust. And then to take what is often a very, very partial and incomplete view even of life in Shitsticksnowhere as some kind of evidence that it's impossible to speak to anybody anywhere in Thai and have a rewarding conversation is totally bizarre.
....until one falls upon the handful [more than you might consider] of everyday village savants that are quite connected and knowledgeable - less, the usual and candid stereotypes that might apply and expected for those who haven't a clue - a self-indulging world view.Quote:
Originally Posted by Passing Through
I agree. I do find it somewhat "Odd" too. Which is why Im married to a woman who is slightly older than me, and neither of us live in a shitty little backwater in Thailand. We manage that quite well in semi rural Yorkshire, with a vast array of people from varying backgrounds, finances and education, which makes for a reasonably well rounded group of people. Tbh, I dont really find the culture that drastically different when you drill it down to its basic level. Its when people make their own interpretation (on either culture)for their own gains that things become muddy and potentially impossible. Basically, short sighted, greedy, selfish and narrow minded people are the ones who make life difficult. Almost like half the TD membership eh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Passing Through
I started with the alphabet and more importantly pronouncing them correctly.
Then I just got random learn Thai books to start understanding some of the cultural and ways in which Thais use their language.
I also spent about 6 months at a School (language express at pluenChit)
Now that I'm intermediate I feel it's much harder to continue, meaning it takes alot more time for learning new phrases and vocab all while trying to work and take care of family.