#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Learn Thai Language >  >  Learn Thai Language Korat Area

## ceburat

Is there any place in or around Korat where one can study Thai?  Private teacher, school, whatever.

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## superman

I suggest you ask the same question on www.koratfarang.com Korat's a big place, without being more precise it's difficult to assist. Good luck

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## simflier

Where can I find a school that speak in English and teach thai language?

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## samuimuscle

If you willing to study Thai with the teacher who can speak English I recommend come to NLC [Nathalie Language club] They have the courses for you. Here is the number 

NLC
089-722-1189
082-805-8807

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## somtamslap

Any local shop: and it's free..

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## Borey the Bald

Probably the worst way to learn a foreign language is with someone who speaks English at all.  'Total immersion' is the best way to go.  As Mr. Slap says, learn at any local shop.  Sit down and have a beer with the locals.

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## expattaffy

If you can read english then you can teach yourself. Just get some books and a dictionary

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## expattaffy

To be honest I would recommend that you learn to read and write Thai,I love doing it.when you get into it you will find it hard to leave off Thai has vowels and consonants just as English does but are not used in the same way.a Thai vowel can be in front,on the top,on the bottom, or even after a consonant.the best book I found to learn to write Thai can be bought in pattaya,it is written by two farangs sorry forgot the name of the book.

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## expattaffy

If you want some tips I visit the klang plaza in Korat every other day and usually end up having a beer on the fifth floor, the dining room

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## expattaffy

Another good tip here,I have just bought an iPad 2, 32 mb memory,it just received an update which is Thai translator, it is great,you just type in the English word and it gives you the Thai translation plus the English phonetic sounds spelling. A must guys.

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## Rob1706

Hi,

I have tried to learn Thai language at special school here in Korat. Teacher was Thai lady who spoke English very well but my ears have a problem in hearing different tones in Thai words so had to give up. School is at Thanon Muk Montri. In case you are interested please let me know and next time I pass by I get telephone number.

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## aging one

> Any local shop: and it's free..





> Probably the worst way to learn a foreign language is with someone who speaks English at all. 'Total immersion' is the best way to go. As Mr. Slap says, learn at any local shop. Sit down and have a beer with the locals.


Up there you would learn more Isaan than Thai though. That was going to be my post. 
Be sure you learn Thai. Have fun.  :Smile:

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## expattaffy

Get yourself an iPad 2, it has a englisg to Thai translater that also speaks the translation with the tones. excellent

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## toddaniels

Sorry this is long reply to an old post, but perhaps parts of it will be marginally interesting;

  Unfortunately the "party line" taken by some posers, err posters that you can just "sit with the locals" and magically "absorb" Thai is mostly bollocks, or like we say in America; it's hog wash. 

  For learning to take place the input needs to be "comprehensible", otherwise you're listening to gibberish with no context and no meaning. If you have no idea what the subject is, who they're talkin' about, or any "point of reference" to deduce these things you're just killing time. 

  This very old video by Stephen Krashen shows how much "comprehensible input" makes a difference in your understanding what's being said, even without knowing any words in the target language;




  I think attending a real honest to goodness school designed to teach Thai to non-native speakers is the way to go. It is my experience that foreigners learn Thai very slowly (if at all) from their significant Thai other or by sitting Soi side with Somchai the Thais swilling down alcohol. Often these people don't have the patience or the knowledge to teach Thai to non-native speakers. When Thais learned Thai it was beaten into their heads in school, character by character, word by word. Thais learned Thai by rote, NOT by already being an adult who possesses a language and who is able to make comparative leaps in logic between their mother tongue and the new language. 

  Most schools start out with basic dialog, meeting, greeting, asking directions, ordering food, etc. That's pretty much how people learn English too. I mean you gotta be able to say hi to people before you can engage them in deeper conversation.

  There is a school called Korat Thai School (KoRat Thai School - Home) which from perusing their website appears to be what I call a "Union Clone" school. I just called them to check that they're still in business. 

  A little (off topic) history about the "Union methodology"

  Way back about 40+ years ago in Bangkok a school opened called Union Thai. It was designed to teach Thai to foreigners (mostly missionaries who were comin' here to convert the 'heathen' Thais from buddhism to christianity). They came up with "modules" taught in what I call "karaoke Thai" but is usually called phonetic Thai. Thats Thai words represented in a combination of English letters and special characters to show tones. The first 3 or 4 books are usually like this. Then the more advanced modules expose students to the Thai alphabetic system. Usually after going thru those first conversational Thai books a foreigner has a pretty good base line vocabulary and a fairly good understanding of how Thai sentence structure differs from English. They're able to carry on most conversations that take place on a daily basis and more importantly have the ability to understand what a Thai says back to them.

  The teachers, who were young girls when the original Union school opened, saw that it was a viable method to teach Thai to foreigners and to make money too! One by one they left Union and opened their own Thai language schools. I know of at least 5 or 6 schools in Bangkok which still to this day use the original Union text books (just with the covers changed to show the name of the new school).

  Slightly more on topic; 
  I totally disagree with the premise that a person needs to be able to read Thai to speak Thai. Honestly a person doesn't hafta be able to read a single character of it to be able to speak it, as they're horses of a different color entirely. 

  As for myself I learned Thai "backwards" in so far as I taught myself to read Thai before I could speak more than "2-word-tourist-Thai" or "phrozen-phrazes". Even though I couldnt correctly pronounce the vowel length and tone differences between these Thai word; ขาว ข่าว ข้าว, เขา เข่า เข้า I could recognize those words and knew their meanings (which BTW: are white, news, rice, & he/she/mountain, knee, enter). Reading is memorizing words, TONZ of them. No one reads anything character by character; instead you recognize groups of characters (coincidentally called "words") and having that group tied to a specific meaning in your head. 

  I've met a lot of foreigners who went thru all the Union conversational modules yet can't read a lick of Thai. Their spoken Thai was clear, well enunciated and they spoke "like a Thai". By that I mean their sentence structure was the way Thais are used to hearing things said. This can count a LOT for Thais when it comes to understanding a person speaking foreign accented and off toned Thai. Believe me, no matter what these over complimentary people say about your Thai ability, every single one of em will know within seconds (even if theyre talkin to you on the phone and cant see youre a foreigner) that youre a non-native speaker of Thai.    

  Now I don't know anything about the school I mentioned other than what I read on the website and the info I got when I spoke with them. However having toured 20+ Thai language schools in Bangkok, I can say their website looks like a carbon copy of the ones here which teach Thai using the "Union methodology".

  FWIW; No matter what the "old dogs" on this forum say, I wouldn't waste even a single second of time studying Isaan Thai. I've yet to come across a single Thai in all my travels the length and breadth of this country who couldn't speak Central Thai if push came to shove. Its the version of Thai that youll get the most bang-4-the-baht out of in the entire country.  

  Good Luck, I always tell people; I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, in fact I'm just a dumb country boy from the U-S-of-A. However, I know if I can learn to read/write/type and speak something which resembles Thai enough so that these people understand me and reply in kind; just about any Tom, Dick or Somchai who puts their mind to it can too.  After all they're 65+ million people in this country who seem to speak/understand Thai just fine, I'm pretty sure they all ain't smarter than you!!    

  If you stuck with this post to the end, my sincere thanx .

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## Pertyvansy

i am also looking for any good books from where i can learn about thai languages can i get the links from where i can learn thai language online and search books for reading and learning thai language????

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## STARGASA

> Sorry this is long reply to an old post, but perhaps parts of it will be marginally interesting;
> 
> Unfortunately the "party line" taken by some posers, err posters that you can just "sit with the locals" and magically "absorb" Thai is mostly bollocks, or like we say in America; it's hog wash. 
> 
> For learning to take place the input needs to be "comprehensible", otherwise you're listening to gibberish with no context and no meaning. If you have no idea what the subject is, who they're talkin' about, or any "point of reference" to deduce these things you're just killing time. 
> 
> This very old video by Stephen Krashen shows how much "comprehensible input" makes a difference in your understanding what's being said, even without knowing any words in the target language;
> 
> 
> ...


 :Smile: 
Excellent answer mate, cheers.

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## expattaffy

All you need is a iPad 2 Just type in any word or phrase and it gives you the Thai translation and you can press a sound button and you will get the correct way and tones of speaking the Thai translation.

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## toddaniels

Well, I dunno about how speedy or efficient using an Ipad with a translation program will be for the average foreigner. Looking up English words for the Thai equivalent is hit or miss at best. You don't always get the correct word you want. It's the one reason I taught myself to read Thai, (not to speak better) but to use a Thai-English dictionary. Those most always have a sample sentence, tell if the word is formal, colloquial etc and provide much more "bang for the baht" than an English Thai dictionary.

As I said in my oh-so long previous post. ANYONE who puts their mind to it, CAN learn to speak Thai well enough to be understood by the locals. It ain't rocket science, nor are we tryin' to sequence the human genome. We're just tryin' to speak something which resembles Thai close enough so that native speakers understand us.

Still good luck.. and if an Ipad helps you learn Thai, use it, however what it ain't is the "Universal Translator" device from the Star Trek series which could translate languages on the fly. That ain't been invented yet, but it's comin' I'm sure..

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## laymond

just spend heaps of time with the bar girls and you will soon pick the lingo up.idiots.

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## Sailing into trouble

> Sorry this is long reply to an old post, but perhaps parts of it will be marginally interesting;
> 
>   Unfortunately the "party line" taken by some posers, err posters that you can just "sit with the locals" and magically "absorb" Thai is mostly bollocks, or like we say in America; it's hog wash. 
> 
>   For learning to take place the input needs to be "comprehensible", otherwise you're listening to gibberish with no context and no meaning. If you have no idea what the subject is, who they're talkin' about, or any "point of reference" to deduce these things you're just killing time. 
> 
>   This very old video by Stephen Krashen shows how much "comprehensible input" makes a difference in your understanding what's being said, even without knowing any words in the target language;
> 
> 
> ...


Thank-you and welcome to Teak door sir!. Thank you for taking the time to explain yourself!. Wow I am so impressed, not only that you explained your answer so well, but you know what bollocks means! Truly an educated man. My Mrs is a Korat girl! I'll buy ya a beer next time we are home.

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## Sailing into trouble

My fist visit to Thailand I was determined to get away from the White man! So I asked at my Bangkok hotel where no Falang go! Loei I was told so off I went. Ended up at a place called Chaing Kain on the Mekong. I was completely illiterate, could not speak, read a word. panicky for a while. When we move back I intend to immerse asap.

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## spormorehead

i want to learn learn english , i can teach chinese !


my skype:mscuer@hotmail.com

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