#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Learn Thai Language >  >  Thai language CD/book combi for absolute beginners?

## 2Prick

Can anyone recommend a self-study CD/book set, preferably available from SE-EDs or Asia Books, please?

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## trabant

many to choose from; this one was recommended to me by the school I took lessons at


*Thai for Beginners* by Benjawan Poomsan Becker

this site lists it in its *10 of the best books to Learn Thai language*

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## Zooheekock

^ I thought that series was a bit shit, to be honest but here's a link to a copy so you can see for yourself DepositFiles. I used Teach Yourself Thai and found it pretty good - it covers reading in Thai from the start, which I recommend.

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## 2Prick

Cheers, both!

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## Zooheekock

The best place for information on this stuff is Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-) - they have reviews of all the books, schools, websites, etc.

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## boloa

Or try YouTube  :Smile:

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## toddaniels

The author of the books Thai for Beginners, Benjawan Poomsan Becker (recommended by the poster known as "trabant"), possibly has sold the most books in the foreigner learn Thai niche market than anyone else. She's also got that English-Thai-Thai-English IPhone, Android, P/C app that has over 150, 000 words all with sound files and "karaoke" pronunciation too. Even though it's close to 30US for the app, it's one of the best out there so far.

  Learning a second language isn't rocket science and I'd imagine people were doing it ever since there was more than one language in the world. 

  Early on you're gonna hafta learn "Hello, Goodbye, What is your name, Where is the ..., How much is this, etc".  There's just no shortcut around learning rote dialog like this because it's stuff you're gonna say every single day.

  If you get Benjawan's Thai for Beginners book make SURE to buy it with the C/D. The book without it is as worthless as tits on a tomcat as far as how you should pronounce words. You can work thru the book without learning to read or write, but I think youre way ahead of most foreign Thai speakers if you just suck it up and learn to read right along with learning to speak. 

Now I will say one thing, knowing how to read Thai and being able to speak Thai clearly are horses of a different color. Reading Thai well ain't gonna improve your pronunciation in spoken Thai all that much. Still last time I checked just about every piece if signage here in Thailand was written in Thai so it definitely has value.   

  Once you work thru that book you can get her Thai for Intermediate, and then Thai for Advanced. She's also got a lot of other C/D workbook things out about learning Thai.

  I too recommend the "Women Learn Thai" website for free resources about learning the Thai language. Of course because I'm a guest writer on there  I would also recommend it for my reviews Thai language schools and my series about the trials and tribulations I've gone thru learning the Thai language.  :Smile: 

  Good Luck...

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## taxexile

Given the poor quality of phonetic transliteration, I would think that the only way to be able to pronounce new vocabulary correctly would be to read it from thai, so what are your reasons for saying that being able to read thai will not help with your spoken thai?

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## Zooheekock

> Now I will say one thing, knowing how to read Thai and being able to  speak Thai clearly are horses of a different color. Reading Thai well  ain't gonna improve your pronunciation in spoken Thai all that much.


Not true. There are phonemes in Thai which the Roman alphabet can't easily distinguish between or which are close but different in English and Thai so if you're stuck with Roman transliterations, you're almost certainly going to have worse pronunciation than a beginner who struggles with the Thai alphabet. And since all the tone rules are encoded in the Thai orthographic system, your alternative to learning to read and then simply knowing the tone of a word is just to learn all the tones individually. Learning to read in Thai is a minor, easily surmountable challenge which will immediately have benefits, though how large those benefits will be will probably vary somewhat according to your learning style.

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## Rural Surin

> The best place for information on this stuff is Women Learning Thai and some men too ;-) - they have reviews of all the books, schools, websites, etc.


A supplement site for self study, will be the very deep thai-language.com 

Quite extensive with an active forum for advice/info.

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## toddaniels

Sorry this is long, hope you will find marginal value. Learning this language is a pet project of mine, call it a hobby

  Phonemic transcription or what is often called "transliteration" but what I call "karaoke" (using one language's characters and additional symbols to represent sounds in another language) can be fraught with peril, however it is the way MANY second languages are taught to non-native learners. Heck even Thais learn English by reading the Thai language karaoke under the words. Therere hundreds and hundreds of books in every bookstore which teach English to Thais this way. Its also one of the reasons Thais have so much trouble pronouncing English correctly. They learned the word from reading the Thai karaoke and when its written in Thai it hasta follow Thai tone rules, NOT English.

  About the best "karaoke" system out there is Benjawan's "Paiboon Plus". This is the latest incantation and once you know it, you can pretty much get the vowel length and intonation with a high degree of accuracy. It is being used in more and more Thai language schools in Bangkok, mostly because if a school uses that version they can easily use Benjawans vast catalog of material as supplemental teaching tools. Paiboon Plus is certainly "close enough for government work" and will get you speaking something which resembles Thai enough that native speakers will understand you and reply in kind.

  I know foreigners who've gone thru every level of a "Union based" Thai language method and still can't read character one of Thai. Their Thai is easily understandable, clearly enunciated, well-structured and yet they learned totally by "karaoke".

  Face it you ain't ever gonna be confused for a native speaker of Thai by ANYONE here ever, no matter how much the Thais lavish on the praise of your Thai language ability, it just ain't gonna happen.  I mean Thais can tell within a few sentences of listening to another Thai speak Bangkok Thai where it was the speaker grew up; often right down to the Amphur in the Province. I mean they're that good at accent identification. 

  The tones rules and the quirky spelling of Thai words which are exceptions to the rules were beaten into the children's heads in school a word at a time. A Thai probably can't tell you the tone of a word or a syllable in the word by looking at it written down because they didn't learn words that way, they learned them by rote.

  Thai language as it is today is a total hodge-podge of ancient Thai, Cambodian (which the Thais had to learn because that's who happened to be governing what later became Thailand when the Thais wandered down here way back when) Pali, Sanskrit, some Chinese  and now about a gazillion English loan words. That's the reason Thai has 6 characters which make a "T" sound (ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ถ, ท, ธ), 5 characters which make a "K" sound (ข, ฃ, ค, ฅ, ฆ), 4 characters which make an "S" sound (ซ, ศ, ษ, ส) and so on. It is to show "word origin" because there're words from so many different languages in Thai as it is today. 

  I taught myself to read Thai before I could even speak "2-word-tourist-thai", or "phrozen-phrasez". Learning to read Thai is nothing more than memorizing groups of characters (coincidentally called words). I mean memorizing TONZ and TONZ of them. No one reads ANY language character by character, you read by recognizing groups of characters and having that tied to a meaning in your head. 

  I knew the meaning of the six common "Cow-words" in Thai by sight before I could say them with any reasonably correct vowel length or intonation. It was because I memorized the differences between them when I saw them written down and tied those characters to a meaning in my head.

  Being able to read Thai ain't gonna tell you how to pronounce กรุงเทพมหานคร which actually has 6 syllables. Nor is it likely you're gonna be any better at pronouncing สุวรรณภูมิ especially if you look at the horrific "government approved" version of transliteration; Suvarnabhumi. You'd never guess it as Su-wan-a-phum. (Heck the Thai language doesn't even have a character for "V" in it!! The closest character they got is a "W"!!) 

  I'm only relatiing my personal experience that being able to read and comprehend Thai doesn't help you speak Thai all that much clearer. 

  I freely admit my "opinions" about acquiring the Thai language may run counter to yours. That's fine by me, and you should do whatever works for you. After all I'm just a dumb country boy from the U-S-of-A; what I ain't is a cunning linguist or a teacher. 

  Oh and in case you were wondering what the six common "Cow-words" are;
เขา - the 3 person singular pronoun for he, she, him, her, they; animal horn; mountain 
เข่า - knee
เข้า - enter
ขาว - white
ข่าว - news
ข้าว - rice

I agree the website Thai-language dot com is an excellent resource. Make sure you go to site settings because you can select from a variety of karaoke styles, select to hide the transcription to hone your pronunciation, and also select allow racy and gay content which gives you way more contemporary slangy words.  Thai2English is another one which is pretty good. A site used a LOT by Thais is Longdo dot com. 


I always tell people I learned this language mostly because I realized that there are 65+ million Thais here who seem to speak and understand Thai just fine. It came to me that it's almost a statistical impossibility that all 65+ million are smarter than I am. Sure some are, but not every last one of 'em. I know it is a skewed motivation to learn a language, but it sounds better than sayin' I had to learn Thai because these people pretty much suck at English...

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## Zooheekock

> Phonemic transcription or what is often called "transliteration" but  what I call "karaoke" (using one language's characters and additional  symbols to represent sounds in another language) can be fraught with  peril, however it is the way MANY second languages are taught to  non-native learners. Heck even Thais learn English by reading the Thai  language karaoke under the words. Therere hundreds and hundreds of  books in every bookstore which teach English to Thais this way. Its  also one of the reasons Thais have so much trouble pronouncing English  correctly. They learned the word from reading the Thai karaoke and when  its written in Thai it hasta follow Thai tone rules, NOT English.


I'm not sure what point you're trying to make but you're agreeing with the previous posts saying learners should learn the alphabet.



> Being able to read Thai ain't gonna tell you how to pronounce กรุงเทพมหานคร which actually has 6 syllables.


That's not true. กรุง and เทพ are straightforward. If you read Thai, you'll recognize มหา as a prefix and know what it means but even if you don't already know it, you'll know that there must be a missing vowel, which according to the rules of Thai is going to make it มะ-หา. Likewise, with นคร. When you get these three-consonant words, the first vowel is อะ and the second is ออ and ร as a final consonant becomes น so you have นะ-คอน: กรุง-เทบ-มะ-หา-นะ-คอน If you can read Thai, you can read it perfectly _and_ understand it. 

Of course there will be exceptions but they're not things the beginner is going to have to worry too much about and they can be learnt one by one. And you wouldn't say to a Thai-learner of English that learning the Roman alphabet wouldn't help his or her pronunciation because of the danger of pronouncing 'though' as 'thuff' (as in 'rough').

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## Seekingasylum

I like watching that Biggs chap on MCOT. When I hear and see him speaking the Thai word as written it all becomes clear and I get all enthused but alas his tuition is bite sized and all too short.

I wonder how much he would charge for personal tution. My problem in trying to speak Thai is grappling with the tones and trying to replicate the way the Thai speak. He has a big gob and seeing how he is actually forming the syllables is a great aid.

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## toddaniels

Actually the Andrew Biggs Academy (which really specializes in teaching Thais English) also has a teach foreigners Thai class too. 

  I think (although I'm not sure) I reviewed them briefly before. I did go to the school and look at the books, which were really well put together and written by a Thai who specializes in teaching Thai to non-native speakers. 

  If I remember correctly they don't offer group classes but do teach 1 on 1 private lessons. 

  That series Andrew has called "Tongue Thai'd" is a good thing to watch. Here's his website link with 25 episodes on it ;
Andrew Biggs Academy Tongue Thai'd

   and here's a Women Learn Thai  You Tube link with 40 episodes;
WLT Tongue Thai'd Andrew


  There are TONZ of good learning Thai resources on You Tube if you look around.

  Im still of the mind that as a beginner you don't need to frontload the huge amount of time it takes learning to read Thai to be able to speak understandable Thai, but that's just me I guess... 

Good luck however you go about learning the language...

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## taxexile

Frontload my arse.

With the becker book, I learnt to read doing a couple of hours a day for two or three weeks.

Slowly but surely over the next few months by reading road signs, shop fronts and labels on products it all came together.

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## melvin

A comment on the Becker karaoke:

It was said above that Paiboon karaoke is among the best (of the easy ones) around.
Although it is not fully comprehensive its pretty good.

I have tried a number of Thai learner books. Nowadays before buying a book 
I check the karaoke the book uses. If it ain't Paiboon karaoke, I don't buy the book.

I find the Paiboon karaoke very easy to learn, easy to use for my own karaoke
writing. It feels quite natural for me to pronounce Thai words (reasonably good) using the Becker/Paiboon karaoke.

As you understand, I am not a native English speaker. My mother tongue belongs
to the germanic group of European languages.
When I feel very comfortable and at ease using Becker karaoke
(the sounds in Thai are just obvious to me when I see the karaoke) I always
think that Becker karaoke must be difficult for native English speakers.

The sounds (in Thai) cannot come easily and natural to English speakers when
they read Becker karaoke.
At last, that is what me thinks. Maybe I am wrong.

Also, when I see the karaoke used in some other beginner's books, I often see
karaoke obviously geare towards native English spakers.

One typical example would be GOOD, di or dii in becker and de or dee in non-becker.

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## melvin

Another karaoke comment.

In many books that use karaoke (not necessarily books for learning Thai) there are often some comments on the karaoke system used in the Introduction/Foreword part of the book.

I tend to work myself up and get pissed off when I read statements/explanations
to the effect that:
thai has so many consonants and so many vowels english only have so many,
hence it is not possible to describe all thai sounds by means of using the english
alphabet + some auxillary characters ([]=+-,* etc etc)

There is nothing in the thai language (or any other language for that matter)
that cannot be encoded by means of the English alphabet. Its purely a matter
of elaborating the coding scheme and you can describe anything between heaven
and earth by means of the English alphabet.

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## 2Prick

Great banter in here, gents!  :Smile:

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## Zooheekock

> There is nothing in the thai language (or any other language for that matter)
> that cannot be encoded by means of the English alphabet. Its purely a matter
> of elaborating the coding scheme and you can describe anything between heaven
> and earth by means of the English alphabet.


That's true but not very useful. How are you going to distinguish between เปี๊ยะ (the pia in por-pia or spring roles) and เบียร์ (beer)? They're going to sound pretty much the same to most English-speaking beginners (although the vowel lengths are different, the initial consonant is different and they are in a different tone) and whilst you could make up some code in the Roman alphabet to distinguish them, it's not really going to correspond to anything in English so an English-speaker has to give new sounds to a set of letters - that's learning a new alphabet. But if you're learning a new alphabet, you may as well learn one that actually has some use: the Thai one. If you know the International Phonetic Alphabet, then using that is possible but almost nobody does know it so just learn the Thai alphabet. It really isn't very difficult.

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## melvin

> There is nothing in the thai language (or any other language for that matter)
> that cannot be encoded by means of the English alphabet. Its purely a matter
> of elaborating the coding scheme and you can describe anything between heaven
> and earth by means of the English alphabet.
> 			
> 		
> 
> That's true but not very useful. How are you going to distinguish between เปี๊ยะ (the pia in por-pia or spring roles) and เบียร์ (beer)? They're going to sound pretty much the same to most English-speaking beginners (although the vowel lengths are different, the initial consonant is different and they are in a different tone) and whilst you could make up some code in the Roman alphabet to distinguish them, it's not really going to correspond to anything in English so an English-speaker has to give new sounds to a set of letters - that's learning a new alphabet. But if you're learning a new alphabet, you may as well learn one that actually has some use: the Thai one. If you know the International Phonetic Alphabet, then using that is possible but almost nobody does know it so just learn the Thai alphabet. It really isn't very difficult.


I fully agree, the best approach would be to learn the Thai alphabet.

My point was mainly that I object to blunt statements in language books
that it is impossible to render the thai language sounds by means of the English alphabet ++. Such statements make me doubt that the authors have the necessary 
education, competence and lingvistic knowledge to write books on languages.


In Becker karaoke,

beer          biia
spring roll   bp) bpiia

Becker karaoke tends to double the vowel when its long.

As far as I remember Becker karaoke does not address tones,
other transliteration systems do.

But, I agree that learning the Thai alphabet is the best way.

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## toddaniels

English import words are usually tougher to nail down the vowel length. In Thai the difference between a long and short vowel is NOT a difference in the sound the vowel makes but a difference in the duration of time you voice the sound.  

  English doesn't put such rigid restrictions on the duration of time you can voice a vowel and not change the word. For example the words, Heello, Hellooo, and Heelloo are all understood in English as the same word by the listener while in Thai, that'd be possibly three different words.

   I don't think;
  beer - เบียร์ - bia and the last syllable of spring roll - เปี้ยะ - bpîa are that good representations only because one word is an English loan word. 

  An example of how Becker’s system (and indeed most karaoke systems in use a Thai language schools for foreigners) show intonation differences is by using what's called diacritical marks. They designate the tones like this;
  no mark - mid tone 
◌̀ - low tone
◌́ - high tone
◌̂ - falling tone
◌̌ - rising tone

  Here's the words near - ใกล้ - glâi and far - ไกล - glai showing the marks in use.  Even though these two words use different vowels they make the same sounds so it's the same representation.


  Usually the vowel length is denoted by doubling the vowels in English, but on occasion when no corresponding vowel can be written in English there are additional characters used such as a u with a strike thru it denoting the  vowel เอือ like this "believe - เชื่อ - chʉ̂a" or "hand - มือ - mʉʉ" to show อือ. 

  As a new learner of Thai I believe students should see the Thai script and start to identify how written Thai goes together or what's what in Thai.  In fact most Thai language schools have the English, the Thai and the karaoke version on their material. 

  I'm most definitely NOT saying don't learn to read Thai, because it opens the entire country up to you, I'm just saying; learn it at the appropriate time. For me, starting to learn it on hour oneof day one is not the most cost effective use of time. Your mileage may vary...

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## Zooheekock

> In Thai the difference between a long and short vowel is NOT a  difference in the sound the vowel makes but a difference in the duration  of time you voice the sound.


Are you saying that the vowel is partially unvoiced? That's not true. All Thai vowels are voiced (as they are in almost all of the world's languages). The difference between เอีย and เอียะ is that the latter is going to be shorter and it ends in a glottal stop.



> I don't think;
>   beer - เบียร์ - bia and the last syllable of spring roll - เปี้ยะ - bpîa are that good representations only because one word is an English loan word.


Being a loan word has nothing to do with it. melvin said that you could write Thai in the 'English alphabet'. I picked those two because any romanization which doesn't introduce non-standard letters (u with a strike-through or diacritics for example) is going to have a hard time making clear the three ways in which these two syllables differ. Doing so in a way which is readable is probably impossible.



> I'm just saying; learn it at the appropriate time


I agree. And for any serious learner, the appropriate time is almost certainly going to be as soon as you start learning Thai.

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## taxexile

The fact is, and you can theorize and frontload about it all you want, that the brain of a tonal language speaker is attuned to different sounds to that of a non tonal language speaker, and only years of exposure to the sounds will rewire and retune the brain.

The important, relevant sound in a tonal language occurs mid syllable, the important relevant sound in a non tonal language occurs at the beginning or the end of the syllable. Thai brains are hotwired to concentrate on the middle, with less emphasis on catching the initial or final part of the syllable snd  western brains concentrate on the initial or final sound in preference to the middle.

And thats why thais have difficulty with endings and falangs have difficulties with tones.

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## 2Prick

I'm loving many of the observations being presented in here, folks.

Keep 'em coming!

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## 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...

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## taxexile

By the way, whats the thai for frontloading?

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## melvin

> The fact is, and you can theorize and frontload about it all you want, that the brain of a tonal language speaker is attuned to different sounds to that of a non tonal language speaker, and only years of exposure to the sounds will rewire and retune the brain.
> 
> The important, relevant sound in a tonal language occurs mid syllable, the important relevant sound in a non tonal language occurs at the beginning or the end of the syllable. Thai brains are hotwired to concentrate on the middle, with less emphasis on catching the initial or final part of the syllable snd  western brains concentrate on the initial or final sound in preference to the middle.
> 
> And thats why thais have difficulty with endings and falangs have difficulties with tones.


Interesting.

When I try to learn some new Thai words from a native speaker I generally
need to write the word down on paper in order to learn/memorize.
Now, I often (not always but way too often) end up asking the person to
repeat the word over and over and slowly, this while we're sitting at the same
table and I am looking at the persons mouth etc.
Often I ask for 5 or 6 or 7 repetitions and I still cannot catch the lead in and the
final sounds/syllables, the middle sound/syllable I normally get quickly.
Then I go for a jimmy ridle, think a bit, go back to the table and ask
for some new repetitions and I still don't get it.
(Don't think I am particularly thick with langauges, French, German and Spanish,
 and English went down easily and rapidly at school.)

The persons are of course not teachers, but just people I know,
(and no, the are not (all) from Isaan).

I am happy when I am listening to Thai news on TV and news on radio,
if I concentrate I get the words first time.

I'm all for TV-speak!

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## toddaniels

> By the way, whats the thai for frontloading?


Hmmm "front loading" is a tough one!!! 

I'd probably say it as สละเวลา, because I'm using "front loading" in a negative way. I'd imagine a native speaker would probably use เสียเวลา (which is colloquial for "waste time") or even ฆ่าเวลา (kill time) which both carry negative connotations as well as more innocuous meanings of just frittering, dawdling away time. 

Dunno really, you got me on that one!! 

I'll hafta ask a Thai tonite when I'm out and about. Sadly (or not) I don't keep a handy real-live-Thai lying about the house underfoot, so I don't really have that answer. I'll get back to you for sure though :mid:

----------


## 2Prick

Some fantastic understanding of the Thai language on display in this thread!

----------


## SeaWeed

I saw some recommendations for and against Benjawan Poomsak Becker. I'm a fan of her teaching. I also am with the crowd that says you have to learn the Thai alphabet if you're serious about learning Thai. It's fun, and it gives you something to do while you're crawling through BKK traffic (read signs in Thai).

She's got a blog up now with some good info. I can't post the link because I'm a newb here, but Google "Benjawan Poomsan Becker's Language Materials" and you'll find her blog.

I only did the beginner book because I'm lazy, but it gave me a good basis for the language, and I learned the rest through conversation, reading, and the Internet.

----------


## Sumbitch

> If you get Benjawan's Thai for Beginners book make SURE to buy it with the C/D. The book without it is as worthless as tits on a tomcat as far as how you should pronounce words. You can work thru the book without learning to read or write, but I think youre way ahead of most foreign Thai speakers if you just suck it up and learn to read right along with learning to speak. 
> 
> Now I will say one thing, knowing how to read Thai and being able to speak Thai clearly are horses of a different color. Reading Thai well ain't gonna improve your pronunciation in spoken Thai all that much. Still last time I checked just about every piece if signage here in Thailand was written in Thai so it definitely has value.


I met a western ex-pat running a Thai and English language school who said something like the same thing: learn how to read Thai. He gave me the impression, though, that it _would_ help with pronunciation and his reasoning seemed logical. He said start with a language primer, like the ones they give the Thai kids (prolly as early as kindergarten). Learn how to read and pronounce the alphabet. And aren't the sounds of the Thai alphabet represented in the IPA, which represents the sounds of any language? Also, what do you think of Pimsleur?

----------


## WhiteGuy

> Can anyone recommend a self-study CD/book set, preferably available from SE-EDs or Asia Books, please?


Spend some time looking around, but the best advice I can give you is to avoid buying or using any books which use transliteration.  Learning the alphabet properly will put you leagues ahead of everybody who can't read it and make the process of learning the language a lot easier.

----------


## barbaro

> I saw some recommendations for and against Benjawan Poomsak Becker. I'm a fan of her teaching. I also am with the crowd that says you have to learn the Thai alphabet if you're serious about learning Thai. It's fun, and it gives you something to do while you're crawling through BKK traffic (read signs in Thai).
> 
> She's got a blog up now with some good info. I can't post the link because I'm a newb here, but Google "Benjawan Poomsan Becker's Language Materials" and you'll find her blog.
> 
> I only did the beginner book because I'm lazy, but it gave me a good basis for the language, and I learned the rest through conversation, reading, and the Internet.


I have always like Poomsan Becker the best, and other programs (Pimsleur) are good also, IMO.

With torrents now available you can try many programs.

And I totally agree: learn the alphabet and how to read.

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## RickThai

I think toddaniels has really brought up some excellent points about learning Thai for English-speaking people.  I especially appreciated the comments about transliteration.  He has added some realistic insight into that aspect of the Thai language that I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to highlight in my own posts.

The only two things I would add, is that Thai people can have several regional dialects that are quite different from what is generally taught, even when speaking Standard Thai. In fact, most of the Thais I have been around do not speak (i.e. pronounce) common Thai words the way they are taught in school or are spelled in Thai script.

RickThai

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## swedishexpat

I also heard the arguments for learning the Thai alphabet rather than dabble with transliterations. 

I decided to start with the alphabet and just picked up the book Learn to read Thai in Two Weeks from learntoreadthai . com.

The book comes with a flashcard application (for pc/phones) so you can listen to and learn the right pronounciation. Every day I read a bit in the book and read along with the related flashcards for 30-60 minutes. 

I'm three days into it and I'm already starting to be able to read a lot of street signs while I'm out and about.

I am confident that I can learn to read and pronounce any Thai word in two weeks, as the book promises. Of course, I realize that I won't know what 99% of those words mean (yet), but it's a great start!

----------


## can123

> I am confident that I can learn to read and pronounce any Thai word in two weeks, as the book promises.


It only took me ten years and I did not buy that book.

----------


## RickThai

> .
> I am confident that I can learn to read and pronounce any Thai word in two weeks, as the book promises. Of course, I realize that I won't know what 99% of those words mean (yet), but it's a great start!


My guess is 99% of the Thais won't know what your words mean either. Tones are very tricky.

RickThai

----------


## Rural Surin

> Originally Posted by swedishexpat
> 
> 
> .
> I am confident that I can learn to read and pronounce any Thai word in two weeks, as the book promises. Of course, I realize that I won't know what 99% of those words mean (yet), but it's a great start!
> 
> 
> My guess is 99% of the Thais won't know what your words mean either. Tones are very tricky.
> 
> RickThai


...even more tricker [and confusing] will be the regional and sub-regional tones.

----------


## RickThai

> Originally Posted by RickThai
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  Originally Posted by swedishexpat
> ...


Good point.  Just getting Thais from different regions to agree on how to pronounce the Thai word for "fish" is impossible.

Still, I gotta give SEpat credit for trying.

RickThai

----------


## WhiteGuy

> Originally Posted by swedishexpat
> 
> 
> .
> I am confident that I can learn to read and pronounce any Thai word in two weeks, as the book promises. Of course, I realize that I won't know what 99% of those words mean (yet), but it's a great start!
> 
> 
> My guess is 99% of the Thais won't know what your words mean either. Tones are very tricky.
> 
> RickThai


Tones aren't tricky, they just take time to get used to and reading makes everything fall into place much quicker as even though you might not be able to hear the difference or always correctly identify a tone yet, you will at least know what tone a word is supposed to be.  That makes all the difference.  If you don't get them yet, you may not have listened enough and/or  not yet truly mastered the tone rules.  Those are the 2 most important things you can do to improve your pronunciation.

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## toddaniels

I totally disagree with "WhiteGuy" that "reading makes everything fall into place much quicker"... 

I said before reading is only word memorization, nothing more. By that I mean memorizing the components which make up different words, which to foreign ears sound close in pronunciation.  Unless you "read aloud" at home I imagine that like most people, you read silently to yourself. Whether you know or can replicate the tones and vowel lengths (equally as important in Thai) of words ขาว-ข่าว-ข้าว or เขา-เข่า-เข้า, doesn't matter one iota. As long as you know the meanings of those words when you see them; you're reading. (white, news, rice, he-she-antler-mountain, knee, enter).

It is highly unlikely that "swedishexpat" is gonna be able to "pronounce any Thai word in two weeks", still I admire that they're gonna try. There are just way too many exceptions to the intonation and pronunciation rules to nail every word especially the ones that are multi syllable. Set a more achievable goal of getting the common ones and you'll do fine.

One other thing, when I speak Thai I rarely think of how the words I'm saying are spelled, so being good at reading Thai doesn't equate to speaking Thai clearly. 

They're whores from a different bar, err sorry, I mean horses of a different color..

----------


## swedishexpat

> It is highly unlikely that "swedishexpat" is gonna be able to "pronounce any Thai word in two weeks", still I admire that they're gonna try.


Who's they? 




> Unless you "read aloud" at home I imagine that like most people, you read silently to yourself.


How's reading silently to myself going to help? Of course I read aloud to myself, and I probably will for the first few months of reading Thai, to make sure I get the pronunciation down. 

As I said, after only a few days of repeating these letters, syllables and words *aloud to myself* I can read street signs aloud and know how the words are pronounced. Yes, sure I'm probably butchering the pronunciation a lot of the time, but I've been doing it for 4 days, not 4 years. 

I know when a word is a rising/falling/low/high/neutral tone, when the word has a soft/hard ending and how long the vowels are supposed to be. I know that because that's been broken down and explained in the book + I've listened to and repeated hundreds of combinations of these syllables/words aloud until I've understood how a rising/falling tone sounds.  

If that's not a great start, then I don't know what would be..? 




> There are just way too many exceptions to the intonation and pronunciation rules to nail every word especially the ones that are multi syllable. Set a more achievable goal of getting the common ones and you'll do fine.


You are right though, I am never going speak Thai 100% perfectly. In fact, I'm never going to speak English 100% perfectly. 13 years of English practice and I still have an accent and my vocabulary is still mediocre. But that's fine. 

I want to reach fluency in Thai, and yes, that's going to take years, not two weeks. I just dropped a note on where and how I am getting started as requested in the originial post:




> Can anyone recommend a self-study CD/book set, preferably available from SE-EDs or Asia Books, please?


(Hint: We may have come a little off topic.)

----------


## Rural Surin

You know....you needn't not argue about who might or who might not develop faster as applies to language absorption.

Every situation will be different and certainly every person will learn differently.

Personal comparatives and superlatives can't be used in any case.

----------


## Zooheekock

> reading makes everything fall into place much quicker as even though you might not be able to hear the difference or always correctly identify a tone yet, you will at least know what tone a word is supposed to be.


Yes. I think this is important; knowing what you're listening to (what you're supposed to hearing, even if it doesn't sound right) can be enormously helpful in developing your listening skills and through that all your other skills.

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## toddaniels

555, caught me on the "their-they're-there" mix up, sorry. ..  

  I didn't mean any disrespect to you or your goal in acquiring the Thai language.  I think any way that works for you is a good way.  I was only pointing out perhaps you've got your head in the clouds a little bit as far as proficiency in this language.

  Don't worry even if you live the rest of your life here, the second you open your mouth to speak these people will know within a sentence or two that you're a non-native speaker. That's not a negative thing, it's just a given. 

  I'd also suggest you drop the idea of being "fluent".. That word is so beaten to death in the quest for language acquisition that I doubt two people could even agree on it's meaning.  Fluent to me, working in the construction, renovation trade would be completely different to fluency for someone working in the medical or legal fields.  Instead I'd recommend that you be a "fluid thai speaker". That's where you don't hafta "hunt-n-peck" for the words when you speak. IMHO it's worth far more than what ever you imagine fluency in thai to be.

  I think it's great you can read street signs etc, at this stage, and again I meant nothing disrespectful to your or your goals only pointed out, this language is a tough god-damned row to hoe. . .

  If you're reading aloud at home but you don't have a native speaker sitting right there 100% of the time listening to every sound, every vowel length, every word ending, every tone AND correcting you when you're off the mark; there's no way to know if what you believe you're saying is really what Thais would be hearing.  Often times there's a huge disconnect in that.  You can parrot along to the c/d's until you're blue in the face but until you record your voice and see what it sounds like you got no idea if you're close or standing out in left field with your pronunciation.

  If you ask a thai how to say a particular word, hear them say it and repeat back exactly what you heard; 9 times outta 10 that thai will say, "NO, not like that, like this.." The sad thing is they'll say exactly what you thought you'd just said. The tones in thai are subtle, they're not that drawn out spoon-fed stuff you hear from a teacher in school or that over-toned stuff you hear on tapes, especially with short vowels.

  One other thing is, I've met some wicked clear non-native speakers of Thai who couldn't tell a chicken from an owl (that'd be a กอ ไก่ from a ฮอ นกฮูก). They'd learned Thai ONLY via karaoke or the representation of Thai sounds using either English or another language and symbols to denote intonation.  One was a Japanese guy who learned Thai with karaoke written in Japanese!  So to pooh-pooh off karaoke as a bad methodology to learn Thai is bollocks.. I think far more non-native speakers learned to speak Thai via karaoke than ones who learned the alphabet right outta the gate. In fact most schools DONT teach the Thai alphabet right away, but get you speaking understandable Thai via some karaoke method first.  Most schools text books do have the Thai script included but its not taught until students can carry on a half-assed conversation.

  You are correct, it would appear that the topic has veered off the original post.  Still I hope there's at least enough info for them to make a good value call about what's out there.

  Back on topic (some)
  There is a c/d set hawked at the bigger BTS stops which I think has 12 c/d's. Thai is one of the languages you can get.  I fooled around with it the other day.  It's not too bad, has karaoke thai, english, thai script and is "context based". Meaning they show an intersection and teach the things you'd find at an intersection; traffic light, zebra crossing, overhead walk way, etc..  I think the complete set is about 1200 or 100 baht a c/d..   

  Now another set of books to learn Thai from (although there is no c/d) is a set called หัดอ่านภาษาไทยแบบใหม่. It is a 7 volume set (and cheap as chips too!). It is a great set to have IF you have a native speaker handy to read along with you to get you on track. Unfortunately is another worthless as tits on tomcat set if you've got no native speaker lyin' around the house.  There is a rumor that soon there will be a website which has the spoken files to these books which would probably make them the best books out there, but all I've heard was that rumor..

  This site has a link to thai book reviews here;
thai-language.com - Book Reviews

This website also has a tab for free learning Thai resources as well as reviews of books, schools etc;
A Woman Learning Thai and some men too ;-)

  Believe me IF something works for you, more power to you. Honestly I learned to read, speak, type and write this language more out of spite than any other motivational factor. I was told over and over how hard it was, and finally thought fuck that; if these people can do it I can too!

Sorry this was an oh-so long post, if you stuck with it, perhaps you found it of marginal value... :mid:

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## Sumbitch

> This site has a link to thai book reviews here; thai-language.com - Book Reviews


How do you rate thai-language.com overall? Is it just a mega-resource or can it provide a structured process to learning Thai that you would recommend?

----------


## WhiteGuy

Not everyone's experiences need be like that.  It'd be great if people on these forums tended towards being more positive rather than tell people just starting to learn a language what they can't do.  I believe it's possible to speak Thai or any other language like a native, but it takes a really long time and a lot of work and requires motivation, discipline and a time commitment that may not be worthwhile for most people.  That said, listening to that "don't bother" kind of attitude is what keeps many people from believing in themselves enough to give it a try in the first place so do your best to ignore them.

----------


## 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.

----------


## toddaniels

"wjblaney":
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. 

"pescator":
I've heard time and again about this or that foreigner who's "fluent" in Thai and who speaks Thai with a native accent. Mostly comin' from other foreigners who couldn't string 6 words of Thai together in a semi-coherent sentence if they tried.. I mean if you can't speak Thai how the fuck would you know if someone's fluent in it? Because a Thai told you? 

These are some of the most over complimentary people when it comes to foreigners speaking their language on the face of the earth! I would take a thais word for a foreigner's proficiency in thai with a grain of salt, IF that.. 

Now if a foreigner has been here 20 frickin' years I'd expect them to speak at least something resembling Thai, just as I would expect someone who learned Northern Thai by interacting with his wife only in Thai to be able to as well. Still I highly doubt he's ever confused with a native speaker by the native speakers, but hey, if you think he is, that's fine. I ain't here to keep score of the alleged fluent foreign speakers of Thai. I always tell people I am an effluent speaker of Thai.  :rofl: 

"WhiteGuy":
As far as the comment I made about accent; what I meant was DON'T sweat it, don't worry about it, don't invest a second of your time thinking about it, just get on with learning Thai. Every country in the world has its own accent when speaking English. That accent carries over when you learn another language too. 

Christ my Thai is horrifically mid-western American accented yet I can still talk to thais on the phone and have them understand me just fine. I meant it as a positive thing insofar as you shouldn't waste valuable study time sweating the fact that you speak foreign accented Thai. I mean after all you're a frickin' foreigner right? Own it.. FWIW; fluency and accent have nothing in common, a person can be fluent in a language (what ever your definition for that is) yet still speak it with a foreign accent.

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## pescator

> These are some of the most over complimentary people when it comes to  foreigners speaking their language on the face of the earth


True.

But you do have to come to terms with the fact that _some guys_ actually manage to pull it off. It will not make you a lesser person.

I think I made it rather clear, that I did not evaluate their command of thai, thais did.
I shall give you an example:
My missus called the owner of the Krabi guest house. She had a lengthy conversation with him in thai, obviously.
At the end of the conversation - she was booking a boat trip - she asked for his name, so that she knew who to refer to when we arrived at the pier for the boat trip.

She was absolutely amazed to learn that she was speaking with a farang.

My buddy used to chat on internet sites a lot, the people he was chatting with would invariably think he was a northerner.

And just for the record, I do speak thai and I can assure you that you will not be able to assess my linguistic origin. But I am definitely not without an accent and as you say, it will prolly take like one or two sentenses for a thai to establish that I am not a native thai speaker.

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## Sumbitch

> 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?

----------


## RickThai

> 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.
> 
> ...



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

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## toddaniels

> 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.
> 
> RickThai


That's rich, having Thais discuss how badly US and UK professors who teach Thai mispronounce Thai when they visit here. And what methodology were they using to come to this not so astute conclusion. That they didn't have a "thai accent"? 

OFF TOPIC
I don't think the Thais have anything reason to look down their noses at anyone. Some educated abroad Thais can't string six words of engrish together in a cohesive sentence without sounding like a half wit.  Thailand consistently scores at the bottom of the pile in English proficiency for S/E Asia even against Cambodia and Lao. 

I stopped a "my shit doesn't stink thai" in their tracks the other day, when I mentioned how poor Thais are in English compared to Cambodia and Lao. She smugly spouted off "Yes but we've never been colonized and both those countries were former colonies.."   

I pointed out that they were indeed colonies of FRANCE and last time I checked those people spoke French, NOT English. Her argument flew out the window.  She gave me the old standby, "You're not Thai how could you possibly understand."  I said, "Stop living your life like a frog under a coconut shell." That last part is a Thai idiom about a frog under a coconut shell กบอยู่ในกะลา

I think I'm not getting a Christmas card from her this year....

BACK ON TOPIC
I disagree that you need a good ear for tones or that you even need to put as much emphasis on the tones as everyone imagines.  I think it's the vowel lengths which pull foreigners off script when speaking Thai much more than errant intonation. 

English has very little restriction on vowel length (I mean the Thai definition of a long and short vowel; their sound is the same, the difference is the duration of time the sound is voiced).  In English if I say; Heeeello or Hellooooo, everyone knows I'm just saying hello. You can't draw out vowels in Thai, if it's a short vowel you gotta keep the sound really short, conversely if it's a long vowel you gotta voice it for a longer time. That's what I see when Thais come off the rails as far as not understanding foreign speakers.  

You need to spend far more time listening to Thais talk to one another than you do speaking to Thais. Try to mimic the cadence, the rhythm and above all the way things are said here. You can't just pull a bunch of words outta your Thai vocab and start making up sentences, you gotta copy how these people say it. The closer your constructs match what they've heard their entire lives the better comprehension they have even when you mangle the tones. I say go for fluidity when speaking.

I'd rather be a fluid Thai speaker, (where you don't hunt and peck for words when speaking) rather than imagine myself a fluent speaker..  

Good Luck

----------


## toddaniels

> 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.

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## celtic

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.

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## toddaniels

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.

----------


## pescator

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.

----------


## RickThai

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

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## toddaniels

"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. . . .

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## Sumbitch

> 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.?

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## 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..

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..

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## pescator

> 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.
> 
>   .


I was not aware of that, thank you for your clarification.
Never too old to learn new stuff  :Smile: 

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.

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## Sumbitch

> 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.  :iagree:

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## toddaniels

> 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.
> 
> ...


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.

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## RickThai

> ".
>   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

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## toddaniels

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..

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## RickThai

> .
> 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

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## toddaniels

I think you're painting with an overly broad brush concerning my "arguing" with thais. You make it sound like I'm out there raking muck and ruffling feathers 24/7, which I am not. Sheesh, some days I don't say 5 words to the thais.  Truth be told most of the interactions I have with them go off without a hitch; once they know I can speak to them in their language.

It's the rare occasions where they give a lame assed excuse to a question they're perfectly capable of answering which makes me to lean on them a little harder than normal.  A well timed terse remark is mostly enough to get them back on track, although sometimes it takes a little more badgering than that. Of course, I don't let them put me down while thinkin' they're hiding behind their language but that doesn't happen often enough because I usually haunt the same places and over time the thais know I understand them..

I do NOT advocate foreigners who have a tenuous grasp of the language lip off to Thais and my posts on the "Thai Insults" thread in this forum bears this out. 

Why someone who can't manage to string 5 thai words together would want to insult or curse at thais in thai is beyond me. For those people who feel the need to use profanity willy-nilly; well, you reap what you sow. 

I stand humbly erected :Confused:  if I gave any foreigner the impression that I advocate cursing, swearing, denigration, derision and/or mocking with impunity here when talkin' to the thais in thai. You most definitely cannot.  About the only words of wisdom I can offer is "know your audience, think twice, then think one more time before you say it". :Smile: 

While RickThai and I often times seem to be on opposite sides of the fence, on this particular issue I am 100% with him;



> 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.


Until you have a goddamned good grasp of this language (far past "taxi-thai", "2-word-tourist-thai" and "horse-peak-thai", I'd avoid saying anything which would put you in and adversarial position with a thai. You might be able to beat the thai you're arguing with down, but you're unlikely to beat down the "herd" 'o thais which will jump into the fray when they see their compatriot losing a fight to a foreigner...

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## JBaker

> 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.  
> ...


_"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.

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## Johnny Farang

> 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.

 :mid:

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## Koentje

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

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## 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).

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## S Landreth

> 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 !!!!
> ...


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

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## Sumbitch

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.

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## toddaniels

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.

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## Sumbitch

> 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.. 
> ...


Man, thanks for the reply. I talked to the AUA office here in CM just today and they told me the same thing: they don't use the books in their courses. But I'm simply torturing myself to find the motivation to learn enough to carry on a conversation at a level that I would get jokes, for example, or carry on bar conversations. So I think I've decided to take the AUA course then read the books w/cds because the intro to the books says its dangerous to try learn Thai strictly out of a book.

----------

