The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

ChiangMai noon

^
lives in his own little world i think.

one where he doesn't need to speak to the imaginary little brown people he sees every day.

Thormaturge

Had some formal lessons at Union Language School in Surriwongse road, which Ihave recommended to countless people. Learned more from watching films in Thai and following Thai news programmes. Learned the numbers from the Thai lottery coverage on TV.

I was determined not to wind up with an Isan farmer's accent.

Nowhere near perfect but I know enough to get by and understand what the little people are talking about much of the time.

Texpat

Who understand and can speak far more than practically all farangs.

I'm amused at the recent bashings of Issan on other threads. Great entertainment.

chinthee

Well, what's the test? I speak Thai to almost all the Thais I come in contact with. We have no problem understanding each other.

What else am I supposed to know?

chitown

I did not know you spoke Thai.

How long did you go to that school?

WhiteLotusLane

My approach to learning Thai was three-pronged.

1. Get books. Books teach you writing and grammar, both of which don't really require anyone else, you can learn by yourself. This is also by far the best start for people beginning to learn outside of Thailand and/or with little access to Thai people.

2. Couple times a week chatted with some Thai friends smart enough to be able to teach / explain something. In my case they were Education faculty students at CMU.

3. Talk to absolutely everyone with enough time on their hands to listen, or otherwise unable to run away. Keep pen and notebook nearby to make notes of any new words or constructions, to then ask the 'proper' teachers under point 2. above.

That's about it. Main thing though is to realize that this is not a language you 'just pick up' the way you could pick up a more similar language like French. It requires a lot of study, and at least 3 months of feeling like you're getting nowhere. After that it gets easier.

tsicar

i had no choice but to learn. i was stuck in a little village in isaan, broke, and there was not a sole within a 30km radius who spoke english.
i bought english/thai phrasebooks, set aside an hour per day, and did one page per day, revising the previous page each day and marking the phrases i had had difficulty with, then kept going back to them 'till i had them off pat, crossing them off as i got them right. two phrasebooks later, i was walking around making a **** of myself, speaking thai to everybody. they would correct me and eventualy i started getting the hang of it.
you reach a stage where everything starts falling into place, and then you progress very fast.
the grammar is very simple and easy, but you have to remember that almost every word has up to five different meanings, depending on the accent or tone placed on it. i found that if i ignored the bloody tones, concentrated on vocabulary, then spent a lot of time listening to people, trying it out, and forcing myself to watch thai tv, i could get the gist of a conversation, then got to the point where i could do business, or at least make myself understood.
i don't think i will ever get the tones completely right, but i have one hell of a vocab. and get by to the point where the locals come to me for translations, etc.
you just have to keep at it, and discipline yourself.
good luck

Marmite the Dog

I really need to have some formal lessons now. My vocab is too small and I've not learnt more complex sentence structures.

My ears are pretty good though, so I think that is a bonus.

Norton

Wow, the ultimate sacrifice. I find the Thai soap operas to be best for learning. They, like soap operas around the world are so dumbed down to serve their viewers they make wonderful training for beginners.

Butterfly

I think we went through that discussion already in another thread, and the consensus was that speaking monkey was fine as long as it was superficial like asking directions or paying a barfine.

Texpat

Clearly misinformed. Nobody will give you directions here no matter how politely and correctly you ask.

Thormaturge

It would be better to say I speak some Thai.

I've sone two stints at ULS each for one month. I also did six months with AUA.

Having been here almost five years it would be pretty dumb of me not to pick up some of the lingo. It used to drive me nuts figuring out why sometimes I would get taken to soi 31 and other times to soi 38 when I used the same intonation and pronunciation.... but listening to Thais it is clear they don't all pronounce the language the same anyway. Now I just tell them where I want to go and then sit back and see where we end up.

Texpat

Try it in Lao: "Pha khoy pai orm muang."

Dalton

Yeah its inbarrasing...cant ever ask a girl for her phone-number...How you manage to get laid is a mystery to me...

Fabian

Really tempting but I won't comment on that one.

chinthee

The damn massage girls said "hello Uncle" to me today and made me really depressed for the holidays. Yeah, I'm getting old but Christ...

Dalton

Dont hold back, you want to say it so much, then get it out ! ! ! Tell us all what you think of Isaan...

Dalton

Next it will be "gran-pa'"..

jizzybloke

I'd rather learn Thai (monkey) than French, much more useful.

Thormaturge

Actually you don't need to learn Thai for taxi drivers, as I was reminded yesterday. They know instinctively where Farangs want to go.

Motorsai driver dropped me off at the end of the soi and commented, "you go Patpong now" (We're in Rangsit at 10.00am) and proceeded to stop a taxi for me.

Then around 5.30pm my assistant and I get into a taxi and ask for soi 18. Taxi driver knows exactly where we are going because I am a Farang and she is Thai so we whistle past Soi 18 en route to some bladdy shopping centre.... even though she had clearly stated soi 18.