A different appraoch to learning Thai

[Tafia]

Git
I have a disc I have made with the Alphabet (consonants) if you think it will help.
Also have Thai for beginners discs from Benjawan Poomsan Becker book

[bumper]

I have Thai for beginnners use that as well. Th more I read the more I remember and the more I use.

Got the contanents down g fighting the Vowels now got a about 50% of down. But I can read simple senteces now, That was big step for me.

[Tafia]

Well done, I found Podcasts help to, tho you wouldnt think so am starting all over again

[Laan Yaa Mo]

[quote="Dagnabbit"] I can read Thai. The problem is, and Git will be able to commiserate, is that I can read the words, but don't know what they mean. No vocabulary!!..

Yes, this is my problem too, and I will illustrate it with the following song title.

Jintara Poonlarp: ขโมยกอด (Stole My Heart), Ka-moi got

So, this one looks easy but it was really difficult translation for me because 'Ka-moi' is the word for thief, criminal, robber, and 'got' is the word for hug.

Consequently, I originally thought the title of the song was, 'Hug the Thief' or 'Embrace the Criminal'. Logically, that title did not make any sense.

Finally, I asked a Thai student from Pattaya at the high school where I work for an accurate reading of the title. She laughed at my 'Embrace the Thief' translation and said, the real title is, 'Stole My Heart'.

By the way, watching Thai tv, or listening to Thai songs is another useful way to pick up a number of Thai words, phrases and expressions. See for yourself.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fRJF77BU8pA&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fRJF77BU8pA&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]

[reginald]

Yes I totally agree, to advance in the Thai language you must learn to read and write it.being able to read and write Thai is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. Written Thai is a most logical language.

[reginald]

Yes I totally agree, to advance in the Thai language you must learn to read and write it.being able to read and write Thai is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. Written Thai is a most logical language.When you are able to understand the tone rules,which seem a bit forbidding at first, the whole thing comes together in a most mathematical way.There are a few anomalies as in most languages but they are so few that they are easily remembered.Try reading Thai comics at first,they can give you an insight into more colloquial forms of the language.Thai subtitles to English language films are also a good way to increase your reading and comprehension skills
Most Thais when spoken to in 'book' Thai will understand you if you get the tones correct,after all they are educated in standard Thai.Listen to Thai news readers etc.they all speak BBC! Thai and everybody understands them.Finally to really advance in the language marry a Thai who can't speak a word of English like I did.You soon learn certain phrases especially phrases concerning money.Good luck โชคดีครับ

[bumper]

That didn't work for me we created an entire new langiage

reading is helping me to remember words.

We are using the same books Thai children use in School. So in six years I should be good to go

[bumper]

Ran across an intersting word the Thai teacher didn't know, not in the tjhree dictionary's I Have. Can't believe how fast I'm advancing. I have the right teacher for me.

จึง
( จึง- )


jeung


[ ADV ] then ; therefore ; consequently ; accordingly



แล้วจึง
láew jeung so ; therefore

[hey you]

well git its time for you to rub your teachers nose on the proverbial,this is a line from a school book for thai eight year olds. my transliteration. jeurng chuai mare larng pak. or, latter help mother wash veg. when i look up a word with that vowel i wear my specs and use a hand lens. what i find is not taught well is thai grammar, in the language class we were using the eight year olds book. quite often allthough we could do word for word translation we did not know what it meant. good example bkk post, 18th june page10 ,the large print in english read, to walk, to go, side/group/close/ next to, face, dern pai karng nar . the best way the wife could explain it was it means , travel far to know people. how she gets this i do not know.

[bumper]

Every word seems to have several meanings in English, you to look for the one that fits the story. Transalting one word just doesn't work, to get understanding. I'm starting into unbroken sntences now all can say is i is going to take some time.

Actually we are at that level because that is where I wanted to start. My goal was to learn and advance just Thai children do. More challenging then it sounds, they have heard these words all their lives. I haven't

The amazing thing to me is that I'm speaking much more then I have ever done in the past three years. That is with just thre weeks. I have no idea how long it will take to get to a high school level. I can tell you one thing for sure it is a lot of work. But it is also very rewarding.

[hey you]

we learnt french at school,each school year 160 classes and 40 homework lessons. i think these were learning new words and we had 20 words to learn a night with a test next day. this was for five years and if you past the final exam it was recognised that you would problems understanding what a french person was saying. nowadays the experts say an adult learning a new language should not try and learn more than eight words aday and for some reason it is easy er if you learn them in the evening, i am now trying to do this , being idle this is not done every day.

[Irish Alan]

In Wednesday's Database supplement in the Bangkok Post, Wanda Sloan recommended Google Translate Client (http://www.translateclient.com/), I downloaded it and set it to translate Thai to English but when I copied Thai text into the box and clicked translate it timed out. Just refuses to work!

[747man]

In Wednesday's Database supplement in the Bangkok Post, Wanda Sloan recommended Google Translate Client (http://www.translateclient.com/), I downloaded it and set it to translate Thai to English but when I copied Thai text into the box it came out as a series of question marks. I reversed it and tried English to Thai and it timed out.

Guess you gotta keep on trying,then Al....

[Irish Alan]

I played around with it and adjusted network settings in Firefox then tried again. This time it did translate. I copied in ขอให้โชคดี but that should translate as "Good luck to you" but it came out as "Ask good luck." I think I'll stick with http://www.thai-language.com/dict/

[cali4995]

translation's really a funny business. your example (ขอให้โชคดี kaw-hai-choke-dee) literally
says "request-give-luck-good" so the jury's still out how inaccurate the conversion was?

[BKKSTAN]

Everytime ,I used a online ''translater'',I am reminded how difficult real communication between falangs and Thais really is!To really emphasize that point,buy a DVD that is in English and play the English subtitles at the same time

[jimboLV]

...buy a DVD that is in English and play the English subtitles at the same time

It works both ways. Sometimes if we watch a DVD with English audio and Thai subtitles, my wife says the Thai is unintelligible. The online translators work best if you stick to short phrases. But even then, there are variations in the idioms. One hilarious one that I used with my wife was "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". She didn't understand what that meant, so I copied it from thai-language.com, and sent her the Thai script กำคี่ดีกฺว่ากำตด. She died laughing. Literal translation "A handful of Chit is better than a handful of farts". Try it, hilarious but it conveys the meaning perfectly.

[parrot]

I use Opera. Must have javascript enabled to use google translate. Otherwise, works fine. Translations are far from perfect, but you can get the gist of things.

[DeNuit]

So really from all your post it seems that learning to read thai (write will see latter ) is a must to be able to really learn thai. Well, just have to find myself a French - thai book with the basic of the thai letters, thai grammar, etc. Found some books & CD's to learn a bit of usual basic thai sentences too. When I can put both together (being able to read in thai this usual basic thai sentences), that should help to build a base I think.

And yep, will definitly learn the :

กำคี่ดีกฺว่ากำตด. Literal translation "A handful of Chit is better than a handful of farts".

Like that, if I can make myself understood, at least we will all have a good laugh

[bumper]

It's funny the thing I left out is never intend to stop studying that would simply that I actually know, no this is life time project. But I have great time on trips with being able to kid around a bit. If it's serious the long haired translator still handles it.

Why do I belie ve you need to learn to read an write well i trud thre years of just speaking Thai first I have accomplished more in the las four weeks then I did in the entier three years. That being said i had a base to start from. That has j heloped mmoer then you can imagine. I think we sometime forget how long it really took us to learn our native languages. I'm not rushing anyhting don't expect be fluent, nor do I think I will ever speak without an accent.

But then again most Thai's have an accent when they speak English. That when I first got here I couldn't inderstand most of the time I can now. But I have to listen carefully. I have come to learned just how difficult it is to learn a foriegn language and respect the Thai's that try. Some will give the same courtesy to me some will not that's life.

But those that try really make up for the ones tha don't the one that don't are really rare.

I don't know how much time I left to learned this I will do all that I can to learn and enjoy it as use it.

Whatever works best for you is the best method, mine is start in the first grade and just keep going with a goal of high school Thai. Might not make it. But, it will be fun journey.