Thread: Thai language CD/book combi for absolute beginners?

By the way, whats the thai for frontloading?

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

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.

Originally Posted by toddaniels

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?

Originally Posted by 2Prick

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.

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

Originally Posted by RickThai

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.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by RickThai

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.

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

Originally Posted by RickThai

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.

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..

Originally Posted by toddaniels

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?

Originally Posted by toddaniels

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..?

Originally Posted by toddaniels

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:

Originally Posted by 2Prick

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.)

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.

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.

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...

Originally Posted by toddaniels

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?

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

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.