#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Learn Thai Language >  >  Seminar; Thai Bites LIVE "The Road to Fluency"

## toddaniels

I just found out about this event and think everyone interested in learning Thai should know about it too! 



It's going to be a three way presentation between Duke Language School, Stuart Jay Raj (Jcademy/Cracking Thai Fundamentals) and Mike Campbell (Glossika).

I think they're going to really take learning Thai to the next level and this could be a preview of what's coming up.

Here's the website;
Google Hangouts on Air  Jcademy Live Broadcasts | Jcademy

From what I read there are only a limited number of seats. If you're interested in learning Thai and can make it you should go..

BTW: Tod Daniels is not affiliated with ANY Thai language school or anything like that.. 

You guys know, I'm all about learning Thai any way I can..    :Smile: 

Note 2 Modz: if this post contravenes forum rules please delete it. I'm not part of what they're doin' and posted it only to let people know about it.

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## Gerbil

Nice haircuts.  :bunny3:

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## Necron99

Salesmen s greatest trick, making marks come to them..

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## bowie

To the next level ...

Limited seating ...

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## ltnt

Why not "pod cast?"  to far from home sweet home for me.  I'd be interested...well sort of...

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## Kurgen

just coming to the end of my 2nd education visa and I can now count to eesip neung.  :Smile:

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## bowie

Free admission to a high pressure sales pitch.

The only thing missing is the free valuable gift (VCR) at the end of the sales pitch.

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## Zooheekock

^ Wrong. I don't know anything about Duke Language School but Stuart Jay Raj speaks really good Thai and runs some decent looking courses (I think there are some free ones on his website) and the Glossika stuff is OK, too - it's all self-study drills which can be a bit dull but it's good value and worth doing (with something else) if you're interested in learning Thai, or indeed any of the other languages which their material is available in.

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## bowie

You are in Thailand. 

Why would you consider going to a “Thai-as-a-second-language” speaker, even one who speaks, “really good Thai” over a native Thai speaking teacher?

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## omega2017

Spam. This thread should be deleted.

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## toddaniels

WOW, a three post newbie weighing in on spam!

I started this thread (that would be Tod Daniels). And I'm NOT associated with the people who are putting on the dealy! I put it up as an announcement, and I put it up on several thai forums too..  

I post as tod-daniels (or some permutation of it) on most forums related to Thailand (except T/V where I've been banned for about 5 years now).  I've studied Thai for the last 7 years, speak/understand, read and type it. I review Thai language schools in Bangkok and write about my difficulties learning Thai. Plus I offer visa advice on forums for foreigners too. 

What this thread ain't is spam. It's letting people know that changes are in the wind as far as learning thai

I've probably been to 20-25 thai language schools here in Bangkok, looked at their books, sat sample classes, talked to students etc. If I've found ANYTHING in all those schools, it's that the way thai is taught to foreigners is antiquated to the n-th degree, has not evolved or progressed in the slightest and is sorely in need of a re-vamping.

If these guys can come together and come up with something that makes it easier for foreigners to learn this language how is that a bad thing?

Just a question there "omega2017" and "bowie" too; how's your guyz' thai?

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## ltnt

Thanks Tod.   I suspect they teach Thai same as they teach English, mechanics, not conversational? ( The Thai language schools that is)  What we need is a good class in conversational Thai...

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## Zooheekock

> You are in Thailand. 
> 
> Why would you consider going to a Thai-as-a-second-language speaker, even one who speaks, really good Thai over a native Thai speaking teacher?


One of them is. As for Stuart jay Raj, someone who has reached at least C1 level in a foreign language (but he could well be at C2) and who teaches that same language probably has quite a lot to say about how to learn it. This is not a 2-hour lesson in the use of Pali-derived discourse markers in Thai-language religious texts, when being a native speaker might be some advantage - it's seems to be about the problems English-speakers have learning Thai (plus something on the Glosskia things) and in that case, accomplished non-native speakers probably have some kind of advantage.




> Spam. This thread should be deleted.


This whole fucking forum should be deleted.

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## bowie

My Thai is reasonable. Reading, writing and speaking. Married to a Thai 15+ years, lived and worked in Thailand many years. Lucrative career in the USA now, collecting funds for a year or two then back to Thailand.  
Studied much. On my own, via the internet, in schools. In a nutshell, the best teachers I found were/are the Thai Monks and the Thai Elementary school teachers. You really do not want to speak anything other than Thai when learning the language. 
Learning Thai, and/or any other language is about the motivation, the desire and the hours. Mostly about the hours. Practice, practice, practice.

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## toddaniels

"bowie"; Please realize I didn't mean any overt disrespect, I am that way with everyone. Sort of an equal opportunity disparager!

You hit the proverbial nail smack on the head though; it is 80% motivation and 20% methodology. I could send you to the worse thai language school in the country and if you were really motivated you would learn thai.

Personally, I found that hanging around thai monks tryin' to learn thai didn't provide much "bang-4-the-baht" for me. They know/use far too many monk-ish words for my vocabulary needs in this language. 

As far as the elementary school teachers, well news flash; thai is still beaten into thai kids heads a word at a time by rote, not by anything else. Plus thai kids can already speak thai BEFORE they go to school! 

Sorry to be harsh with you "bowie" good on you for learning thai however you did it!!

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## bowie

We all have opinions and you are welcome to yours.

All language learning is by rote. Practice, practice, practice. One of the most productive drills for myself was recitation of the Thai alphabet to a native Thai elementary school teacher who would stop and correct my pronunciation until I could satisfy him that the sound was correct. Recitations 3 or 4 times per week over the course of a couple of months. Yes, by rote. I really cant think of a methodology that could bypass this. 

As far as vocabulary, the Thai school platform Ive seen and used is the Manee books. Generalized vocabulary, nothing news flashy about it. It doesnt need to be beaten into their heads. Every day words for elementary school children. For myself, again by rote, reading passages, stopped to correct pronunciation, until I sounded correct to a native Thai speaker. 

As far as the Thai as a second language schools. They are businesses. They have bottom lines. They are all competing  for a limited customer base. And, no disrespect to them, as a matter of business survival, they must advertise to attract new students. Advertising requires hooks and the school uses the our methodology in new hook. Our method will teach you the tricks to learn the language faster than our competition.

So be it. Let the buyer beware.

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## Seekingasylum

I think I would wish to learn Thai from a non native teacher and preferably a native English speaker. Having to listen to Thai teachers answering one's queries in execrable English would be quite irksome.

Anyway, why bother even learning the language. As far as I can see Thai scarcely understand each other never mind a foreigner speaking their language. So what's the point? Buggers never listen, they ain't going to change their minds despite what one might say and what they do say is probably a lie, stupid or just plain wrong. 

Only place in the world where I have not attempted to learn the lingo.

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## terry57

> This whole fucking forum should be deleted.




 :rofl:   Funny one that. 

Not a bad idea though.   :Smile:

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## toddaniels

Sorry this is long, perhaps it's of marginal value..(or not)

Man, I almost regret apologizing for being harsh to you "bowie"; realize that the way you learned thai might not be the best way for everyone. 

Not to mention that being able to recite the 44 character thai alphabet (replete with correct intonation) is worthless as a three balled billy goat and has about as much novelty value to these people as well. I can read thai like no ones business and I still can't recite the thai alphabet, nor do I care to. I know it starts with a chicken (กอ ไก่), ends with an owl (ฮอ นกฮูก) and there are 42 other characters in between. 

Now on the other hand, knowing something useful like the consonants by class (L-M-H) has real value!  The mnemonic; "A chicken pecked a child who died above the mouth of a water jar" (albeit in Thai) is how thai kids remember the middle class consonant classes; ไก่จิกเด็กตายบนปากโอ่ง or ก-จ-ด(ฎ)-ต(ฏ)-บ-ป-อ. Knowing those at least lets you begin to figure out the tone of words, where as knowing the alphabet doesn't let you do any thing except sing that mindless thai alphabet rhyme/song!    

Contrary to your belief or what ever you thought you saw, these people learned thai exactly by having it beaten into them. Ask ANY adult thai how many tone "marks" did they learn thai has? Almost to a person (especially if your thai is good enough to interact with them) they will say FIVE. Even though there are just four tone marks for the language ไม้เอก, ไม้โท, ไม้ตรี & ไม้จัตวา older thaiz will say there was also a mark left on them by a ไม้เรียว (wooden switch) if they pronounced a word wrong..  

While I am loathe to agree with "thegent"; I'd rather learn from a foreigner who spoke really good thai and was a native english speaker than a thai.  I hate that song and dance you go thru with competent thai teachers who can't seem explain a concept of word or phrase even in thai let along in engrish without falling back on the "that's just how thai is" knee-jerk excuse. It's one of the reasons we as non-native speakers of thai sound so frickin' "un-thai". Thaiz as a rule are incapable of explaining many of the nuances of their own language, especially ones who teach it to foreigners! 

Remember being a native language speaker does not a teacher make. This is oh-so evidenced by the plethora of totally unqualified native engrish speakers, who have no business teaching thaiz engrish yet do so every day of the week here.  

True private thai language schools are a business and anyone thinking of starting to study thai should go to a few schools, see what's out there, and if what's being taught meshes with how you learn things. 

I don't see anyone saying take our course and wake up speaking in tongues, err in thai. What they're sayin' is by incorporating tips, strategies and understanding what's what better, you might get to where you want to go via an easier route in your learning thai journey. IMHO anything is better than having thai spoon-fed to us like is being done in almost every thai language school out there with antiquated methodology, sucky vocabulary and low yield sentence constructs. 

I can't see any downside to improving the thai someone already possesses or starting to learn thai if you don't know any. Face it, it is highly unlikely that these people (the thaiz) are gonna start speaking even semi-coherent engrish in our lifetimes. I mean you can only push a rope so far, then it's easier to pull it. It's way easier for you to learn thai than to compel thaiz to speak engrish with you.  I didn't undertake learning thai to make it easier on these people, I did it because they suck at english and speaking/understanding/reading thai makes it easier for me to get stuff done here. 

As far as "thegent" and his observation thaiz don't understand one another or won't listen. It would appear seeing as "thegent" can't speak or understand thai they're on the wrong side of the fence to make a sweeping broad-brush statement like that. They remind me of the foreigners I've met here who say to me, "I don't need to learn thai because; my thai wife, she speak engrish good." It must suck to rely on your 'thai-in-tow' as a translator for everything you want to do in this country. 

I mean who knows; maybe if "thegent" spoke something resembling thai they'da been able to get that cranky thai door man to let 'em take their bag of un-cooked sausages into that free-lance hooker bar/restaurant on Soi 5 a while back and we would have been saved reading their ranting thread..   

Anyway, I knew posting this here would get critical comments. It's fine, I just wanted people (yes, even the posers, err posters on this forum) to know about it was all.

We now return to the pissing match already in progress!

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## bowie

> Sorry this is long, perhaps it's of marginal value..(or not)
> 
> Man, I almost regret apologizing for being harsh to you "bowie"; realize that the way you learned thai might not be the best way for everyone. 
> 
> Not to mention that being able to recite the 44 character thai alphabet (replete with correct intonation) is worthless as a three balled billy goat and has about as much novelty value to these people as well. I can read thai like no ones business and I still can't recite the thai alphabet, nor do I care to. I know it starts with a chicken (กอ ไก่), ends with an owl (ฮอ นกฮูก) and there are 42 other characters in between. 
> 
> Now on the other hand, knowing something useful like the consonants by class (L-M-H) has real value! The mnemonic; "A chicken pecked a child who died above the mouth of a water jar" (albeit in Thai) is how thai kids remember the middle class consonant classes; ไก่จิกเด็กตายบนปากโอ่ง or ก-จ-ด(ฎ)-ต(ฏ)-บ-ป-อ. Knowing those at least lets you begin to figure out the tone of words, where as knowing the alphabet doesn't let you do any thing except sing that mindless thai alphabet rhyme/song! 
> 
> Contrary to your belief or what ever you thought you saw, these people learned thai exactly by having it beaten into them. Ask ANY adult thai how many tone "marks" did they learn thai has? Almost to a person (especially if your thai is good enough to interact with them) they will say FIVE. Even though there are just four tone marks for the language ไม้เอก, ไม้โท, ไม้ตรี & ไม้จัตวา older thaiz will say there was also a mark left on them by a ไม้เรียว (wooden switch) if they pronounced a word wrong.. 
> ...


Daniels:

Any point to this post?

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## Seekingasylum

Todd, in referencing my anecdote about Gullivers you appear to have overlooked the not inconsiderable fact that whereas I gained admission it was my Thai wife, who speaks Thai fluently, who was barred from entering the establishment with our shopping. Had I been able to communicate directly with the ape I dare say I would not be here to type this.

My wife lives in dread of the day I return home to announce I have signed up to a year's course of study in Thai. Frankly, it's perhaps best I don't. No good would come of it and, as I said previously, I would have no use for the language since communication with Thai is so unrewarding and quite futile - they really haven't much to say for themselves and are quite tiresome. Talking to the hiso who speak reasonable English is inevitably a dreary experience, full of banality, cliche and evasion, so I doubt very much being able to talk to the security guard or the chap who cleans the pool will be that much more illuminating. 

I may try to learn a bit of Russian though in readiness for the next season's onslaught. At least they have a rich culture and I'm sure it's their inability to speak English that so uncivilises them. Of course, they may well be slobbish, fat pigs, irredeemably rude and boorish but worth a punt to confirm.

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## Seekingasylum

> Daniels:
> 
> Any point to this post?


Was there any point to nesting that fucking quote?

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## bowie

> Originally Posted by bowie
> 
> 
>  
> Daniels:
> 
> Any point to this post?
> 
> 
> Was there any point to nesting that fucking quote?


perhaps

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## bowie

Way off topic.

It truly is a varied and unique collection of personalities that have gathered here at TD.

The entertainment value (free) is an unparalleled bargain.

Mr. Daniels, if I ever have a question concerning Thai immigration and/or visas, you would be my first resource for advice. Everything you have provided concerning the subject is on mark, researched and validated with where it applies.

Concerning Thai language, I’ll rely on my 20+ years of experience. Although you may know a thing or two that I haven’t come across, I don’t need them otherwise I would have found them already. And, as we both agree, it is the motivation not the methodology.


My apologies should any offense be taken or perceived.

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## ltnt

> Face it, it is highly unlikely that these people (the thaiz) are gonna start speaking even semi-coherent engrish in our lifetimes. I mean you can only push a rope so far, then it's


Actually Tod, I've recently met two Thai ladies who speak and comprehend English quite well.  One attended the International school in Phuket the other a graduate from Law school in Bangkok.  Perhaps many foreigners shut the door before they should on Thais?  Over the years here I've met numerous English speaking Thais and they didn't seem to "mangle," the language.  Many spoke better English than many of the poster's here type.

As for speaking to Thai's from every profession, I make a point of speaking or offering a salutation with all Thai's.  Bigots seem to abound here it seems.

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## bowie

ltnt: "Perhaps many foreigners shut the door before they should on Thais? Over the years here I've met numerous English speaking Thais and they didn't seem to "mangle," the language. Many spoke better English than many of the poster's here type."


Salute!

I have many Thai acquaintances and several close friends who are truly outstanding intelligent human beings. I am very fortunate to be able to call them friend. And yes, a couple of them speak flawless English.

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## toddaniels

Well, I associate with the "rank-n-file" middle class thaiz way more than any other demographic.  

I was also taking quite a bit of creative license and painting with a  broad brush concerning the english proficiency in a country with nearly  70 million people. A country which BTW scores at the bottom year after year in english proficiency in S/E Asia.

Certainly there are a lotta thaiz proficient in english, and conversely there are a lot of foreigners proficient in thai (alas I am not a part of that illustrious second group).

It is my experience you can get a LOT more accomplished here speaking thai (even the off toned american accented thai I speak) rather than wasting time standing in front of a gaggle of thai workers who are huddled behind a customer service counter playing 'rock-paper-scissors' to find out who loses and has to speak english with you.

I'm not a bigot, but I'm a coarse, blunt, terse born-bred-corn fed American. I also admit to having a very low tolerance for stupidity.

I don't look down on the thaiz more or less than I look down on anyone else no matter their race, creed or color.. I'm sort of an equal opportunity ass-hole.

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## Seekingasylum

> ltnt: "Perhaps many foreigners shut the door before they should on Thais? Over the years here I've met numerous English speaking Thais and they didn't seem to "mangle," the language. Many spoke better English than many of the poster's here type."
> 
> 
> Salute!
> 
> I have many Thai acquaintances and several close friends who are truly outstanding intelligent human beings. I am very fortunate to be able to call them friend. And yes, a couple of them speak flawless English.


Is that you Scampy?

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## toddaniels

I too have many, many thai friends, in fact far more than I do foreign ones. Once a thai gets over the fact that I'm abrasive as coarse sand paper they're usually okay with me after that. 

Bowie; "outstanding intelligent human beings" is a fine compliment to give any human bean, err being. 

It brings back the memory of an 80+ year old American guy who has a thai wife.. He said to me one day, "You know Tod, my thai wife's very clever." I said to him, "Monkeys and racoons are clever too but I wouldn't marry one."  

I guess I'm off his christmas card list as I haven't heard from him in a while now. Either that, or his clever thai wife got sick of playing nurse and just offed him..

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## bowie

> Originally Posted by bowie
> 
> 
> ltnt: "Perhaps many foreigners shut the door before they should on Thais? Over the years here I've met numerous English speaking Thais and they didn't seem to "mangle," the language. Many spoke better English than many of the poster's here type."
> 
> 
> Salute!
> 
> I have many Thai acquaintances and several close friends who are truly outstanding intelligent human beings. I am very fortunate to be able to call them friend. And yes, a couple of them speak flawless English.
> ...


No. 'tis not Scampy. Sorry to disappoint.

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## bowie

> I too have many, many thai friends, in fact far more than I do foreign ones. Once a thai gets over the fact that I'm abrasive as coarse sand paper they're usually okay with me after that. 
> 
> Bowie; "outstanding intelligent human beings" is a fine compliment to give any human bean, err being. 
> 
> It brings back the memory of an 80+ year old American guy who has a thai wife.. He said to me one day, "You know Tod, my thai wife's very clever." I said to him, "Monkeys and racoons are clever too but I wouldn't marry one."  
> 
> I guess I'm off his christmas card list as I haven't heard from him in a while now. Either that, or his clever thai wife got sick of playing nurse and just offed him..


Tod, Compliments, I try to call them as I see them and I am fairly stingy in offering them up. 

I to would be put off if you called my wife a monkey, as the 80 year old interpreted you comment. For the 80 year olds sake, may he have the smarts to have foregone the purchase of a life insurance policy.

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## bowie

..........

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## mingmong

Sod Off Todd, you just a Toot Ling! :kma:

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## toddaniels

> Sod Off Todd, you just a Toot Ling!


Actually there "mingmong" the phrase isn't ตูดลิง. That phrase carries no negative connotation in thai to thaiz. It's almost like clueless foreigners who try to call a thai an asshole and use รูตูด the actual thai word for anus, but again it carries NO meaning in thai other than identifying an orifice in your body..

I believe the phrase you're lookin' for is ดากลิง. When said by a native thai speaker sounds remarkably close to the thai-if-a-cation of the engrish word "darling". I've heard "ไก่หลง" (lost chickens/aka streetwalkers) refer to their customers with this to their faces and it never fails to make me smile...  

Now without further ado, we return you to the "let's slag off Tod Daniels" match already in progress. :smiley laughing:

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## mingmong

We now return to the pissing match already in progress!

  piss off then...

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