Resit for learning the Thai language
Fortunately, Charly's life is full of pleasant surprises (unfortunately sometimes also less pleasant ones). Until a few years ago, he would never have dared to predict that he would spend the rest of his life in Thailand. However, he has now been living in Thailand for a while and in recent years close to Udonthani. This episode: Learning the Thai language.
Resit for learning the Thai language
Earlier I wrote an article about learning the Thai language (see Article 7A). This article was largely based on my experiences with the self-learning course of NHA. A very comprehensive course, consisting of no fewer than 60 lessons. The NHA course goes very deep, but it takes tremendous persistence to get there. I didn't manage to do that at the time and I stopped after two years of study.
However, it continued to annoy me that I cannot have a normal conversation with Thai people, that I cannot follow the Thai news and that a Thai film is not for me.
Haven't looked at the Thai language for over two years. Until a few months ago.
My attention was caught by an advertisement on Facebook, among the group of expats in Udon. The ad mentioned teaching English and Thai classes in Udon. I gathered some information from people who have taken classes at ESOL. The answers were so positive that I decided to contact the Thai teacher. She managed to convince me completely, after which I decided to try again to understand the Thai language, to be able to speak that language reasonably and to be able to read and write it. It will never be perfect, of course, but that's not my goal either.
The Thai teacher, her name is Eve Kahh, has to teach me how to listen/understand the Thai language and how to speak the Thai language. My goal is, and I explained it to Eve, to be able to follow the Thai news, Thai movies and talk to Thai people.
I can teach myself to write and read the Thai language, partly on the basis of her lessons, but also by using the NHA course with an enormous vocabulary.
I have now taken a number of lessons with Eve. They are private lessons, so 1 on 1, no other students. It is based on normal practical situations. A simple dialogue when getting to know someone, ordering food in a restaurant or a drink in a bar, etc. All in a dialogue form. Eve distinguishes itself from the NHA classes. She puts much more emphasis on language used by the average Thai among friends.
Eve has been able to make me enthusiastic again to learn the Thai language. I go to her classroom two days a week and take two hours of lessons from Eve. It's quite strenuous, after those two hours I'm pretty empty.
Of course everyone can set their own pace. My advice is to see her at least two days a week, for at least an hour at a time. An alternative is to take lessons in her classroom once a week and do it via Skype the second day of that week. That is also possible, price per hour the same. And of course you have to repeat the lesson taken with her at home.
I pay her 400 baht per hour and my experience is that she is well worth it.
Having become wiser through various disappointments (students who plan lessons, but then don't show up and don't pay), she would like you to pay for the lessons planned for the following week in advance.
For all expats living in Udon and the immediate vicinity, this is an excellent opportunity to learn Thai in a simple way in Udon. So you can just have a conversation with Thai people, talk to your bar girl, follow the news and watch Thai movies.
Information from Eve:
Name: Khun Kru Eve Kahh
Email: [email protected]
Telephone and line number: 062 447 68 68
Address: 98/9 srisuk road, Udonthani
(just past the Udonthani hospital in nong prajak park)
Eve studied at Udonthani RAJABHAT University and is a teacher at Udonpittayanujoon school. Eve speaks excellent English. Use it to your advantage.
Charly (www.thailandblog.nl/tag/charly/)
However you learn the language: start by learning the tones well. Practice saying those tones out loud and make sure you really know exactly what the tone is with each word. Then it will eventually (but with a lot of perseverance) turn out well.
If you can muster it, learn to read. That really opens a lot of doors for you.
@Kees, "And make sure you really know exactly what the tone is with every word." And who tells me what the tone is? Who does that for? What good is this vague advice? Can't you be a little more specific?
There are textbooks and teachers for that.
Buy a good course book with CDs. Paiboon is a good publisher, also has a nice app, but they think the first book next to it is an advantage. In the books, it is widely measured how the tones are created, and can be listened to via the CDs. Learning good Thai starts with the (tone) script, and cannot be compared to a Western script. Without the right tone, it sounds very different to the Thai and they will not understand you or it will be difficult. Change in a music score eg Do, re, mi etc a sharp, flat, or in put zed another octave, the piece of music sounds different or not at all. That's a tonal language. I can't describe it any better.
I think that the “tones” are given too much attention.
I myself learned Thai with a dictionary ENG/THAI and THAI/ENG that can be obtained at any major bookstore. Thai is also printed in their language and you can show it if they don't understand you.
Taking lessons is of course even better because you also learn to read and write.
My "Thai" is certainly not perfect because I don't live there but have been coming on vacation for more than 30 years and can get me out of the way.
To come back to the "tones", I never really paid attention to that but what I always do is to listen carefully to the Thai how they pronounce it and after a while you do that too and you speak it like them doing it.
Thai is a tonal language and therefore essential. Not considering the tones as very important would be to label the difference between vowels and vowel length as 'less important' in Dutch. Yes, if a garden center asks for a 'cave bomb' or the greengrocer asks for a 'gel benan', they probably understand that you mean 'respectively large tree' and 'yellow banana', context makes a lot clear. But even then, if you only try to do it right after a few years, you have to unlearn all kinds of wrong things. Now I'm not a linguist, but that doesn't seem like an efficient recipe to me.
there is a Help language program for your phone called LuvLingua, you can get text and sound and a language program called Everyday Thai
Have LuvLingua installed. Nice program! I will also try Everyday Thai. Thanks for your tip!
Good for you for persevering, Charlie.
I have the feeling that many people think they can have a conversation with a few hours a week after a year and give up if that doesn't work out. You can't do that with any language.
To be reasonably advanced, you need at least 600 hours of study for English, for example, 5 hours a week, so more than two years. For a Thai study with a completely different writing and tones, that will be 900 hours. That means more than four years with four hours a week. Then you can have a normal conversation and read a simple text. News reports and poetry takes longer. It will go faster if you intend to only speak Thai with Thai people in Thailand.
Another possibility is to follow Thai extracurricular education after a few years. Can you also get a diploma. I did that and got a grade school and a 3-year high school diploma. Costs almost nothing and is just very cozy with Thai people. Every town has that. It is called การศึกษานอกระบบ with the abbreviation กศน.
I don't totally agree with you because it depends from person to person.
Unfortunately, I myself did not learn English at school, but because I really missed it, I took the opportunity to attend free evening school at the Belgian Railways because I worked at the Post at the time.
After 2 years, 2 hours 2 times a week, I had sufficient basis and after 6 months I started reading books in English. I only understood half of it, but that wasn't a problem, I mostly understood what it was all about.
So that 600 hours of study might be right for some people, but for others who have aptitudes it won't really be necessary. The most important thing is to start speaking as soon as possible and not be afraid to make mistakes. That's how I do it. I also make mistakes, but someone else who has something to say about it should do better than that.
I can draw "my plan" in 5 languages and add a mouthful of Italian and a few words of Tagalog, Filipino
Does anyone know if there is such an English-Thai teacher in Phanat-Nikom???
I am still looking for someone like that in the area in takhli. Fortunately, I have found a teacher with the same attitude for the times I am in Singapore
I wonder if Thai lessons are being given somewhere in the east of the Netherlands. Preferably private.
Driving a bit is no problem. Does anyone have tips? Also with reading
Regards Rien Ebeling
My experience is this , first stamping words and stamping concepts But when you are busy with that you only hear yourself . Then you test it on the environment what you learned, then my friend (about what you just learned) says that you don't say it like that in Thai. So everything you have just made your own can be thrown overboard again. Or people start answering in English. So I limit with what, when, what's this called, why, what's this, what's that, the days of the week all the kitchen utensils, watch the clock and those are the things you can use every day. In my case I am corrected in sound pronunciation but I keep combining words in the home garden, kitchen and market. My aim is to formulate an answer if possible ,
but generally I don't bet the answer until I'm 10 minutes away Hahahah.
Advice from my expat friends in BKK and HH :
take a Thai girlfriend : only with a 'long-haired dictionary' you can make rapid progress in the home. Garden and kitchen language. I'm considering it...but it seems a lot more expensive than that Ubon lady...
I can read and write Farsi, Urdu and Hindi, but I have not succeeded in Thai. I agree with other writers: having a boyfriend or girlfriend always with you helps best. Am I too old for….
Incidentally, I do not find any of those other languages in Thai
Farsi, Urdu and Hindi belong to the Indo-European language family. Sanskrit as well, and many words from that language have been adopted into the Thai language, mostly through Buddhist influence. That means that some Thai words are also related to Dutch words.
Dear Dylan, I understand after 15 years, also enough Thai for what I need it, speak a very little bit. I don't need a conversation with other Thais, I don't know why! I don't get any benefit from that, I've already learned that after 15 years of Thailand. It is better that I keep my mouth shut and only send my wife somewhere if something needs to be bought, you will understand what I mean! “FALLANG PAID DOUBLE” I speak English with my wife and my 2 Thai children, so they also learn English better, because in school they do not learn anything from the English language, the teachers cannot do it themselves.! Although the school had told me at the time that they would give 50% English lessons, BULLSHIT,! and it is a private school not a government school. All the Thai children who go to school there are of better origin than the ordinary Thai population, because it is not cheap there.! Then why should I bother to learn Thai.!?
I am 77 years old and I think I speak Thai fluently, but never like the Thai itself and you also have dialects there, such as in Isaan and a kind of Hkhmer. But the correct language is that of Bangkok. And no problem for me. Very many thai (e) understand me very quickly and I speak very quickly with it too. but their isaan also goes. But some thais still speak other dialects from their village that are difficult to understand and also laos which I am now starting to understand. I learned that without specifically learning for it. In the past, just tape cassettes translation that I made Flemish and Thai to Thai. And just let it play without paying special attention to it and everything goes in automatically. Is like in the past assimil booklet with cassettes in Spanish. Then went to Spain and did not understand anything and learned for 3 months and understood and spoke perfectly everything there. So not difficult to search if it can be done easily. After 5 to 10 x listening it will go in automatically And the prices are now everywhere like the Thai..
The disadvantage of the Thai-Dutch courses of LOI and NHA, among others, is that they use English phonetics. Of course you will learn to deal with that and it is the intention to also learn the script, so that you need the Western script less and less. Still, it does read a bit better if the material is focused directly from Thai on the Dutch-speaking user. I am now working on a short series of about 10 blogs myself to learn the script and pronunciation. I do 5 characters per blog. Is still under construction, and of course falls into nothing during lessons together with a real teacher. If it works, I may tap some more short lessons to learn some words and short sentences in addition to reading and pronunciation.
Sounds good.
Would you like to let us know where we can find those blogs?
regards richard
Here on this blog, of course. Hope to be able to post it with a week, maximum 2. Work is 75% ready, but polishing can take time. So it takes quite a few hours of work. In the worst case, only 1-2 readers see the point of it, but hopefully it will motivate some more readers to give the Thai language a chance. For real lessons, of course, they should not go to a limited blog, but the better textbooks and teachers. I have already achieved my goal by enthusing some people.
Of course here, dumb dumb.
I think it's a good initiative Rob.
I also have the NHA course myself, but they made lesson 1 so difficult that I quickly dropped out.
Furthermore, I received no response from the teacher assigned to me.
Look forward to your blogs
Regards Richard
Thai is, together with Japanese, one of the most difficult languages in the world. You can learn it with a lot of perseverance, but the older you get, the harder it is to get your synapses in your brain to actually record this.
Having a long-haired dictionary is no guarantee to learn the language, because they themselves make many language mistakes because they are poorly written.
My sweet darling speaks English and this is the daily language we use. She can help me now and then if I want to know a Thai word, but that's all I want.
In my previous life I was married to a Brazilian. It was only after 18 years that I started to learn Portuguese and after two years I had mastered so much that I could speak enough and tell my father-in-law at the time that I had had enough of his daughter and was getting a divorce.
I occasionally learn Thai at home when I have time. Well, sometimes I have time, but I'm always so busy doing housework or helping my wife that as soon as I sit in my chair for five minutes, my eyes close. I can't do it anymore… and even when I'm wide awake, as soon as I start with Thai, the fight to stay awake also starts..
So it will only be with small words… enough to be able to buy groceries and not be dependent on English-speaking staff in a store… I think it's a pity, but it also has its advantages..
I don't need to hear the endlessly repetitive stories of relatives. And because I still love my wife very much and we still have fun together, I don't have to tell my father-in-law in Thai that I was going to leave his daughter… I won't.