Learning to read Thai: Week four

Posted by on Sep 19, 2011 in Language | 4 comments

Learning to read Thai: Week four

So I thought an update on my learning Thai was needed. If you recall I started to learn how to read Thai before I left the UK with Brett Whiteside from learnthaifromawhiteguy.com. I took 3 lessons before I left and continued to meet with Brett when I arrived in Chiang Mai.

 So can I read Thai?

In essence I can now read Thai. How well? Well I know all the letters and the vowel shapes. I understand the tones rules and am able to decipher which tone each syllable should be, but this is all agonisingly slow. It can take me 10 mins just to read a sentence sometimes depending if I have read it before or not. Common words and phrases I can pick up quickly but reading a newspaper for example is hard work. It’s all about continued practice and using the language, I’ve started to notice the same words over and over again and each time I see them it’s recognisable a little bit quicker. It’s also got to the point now that when I hear a new word I try to piece it together in my head to work out how it would be spelt. This almost never works though as the Thais have a weird way of spelling things sometimes using one of the four types of S, three B’s etc. But as a student of Thai none of that really matters, what is important is being able to learn new words and recognising the tones.

I have no idea what I am reading

I can read and pronounce the words but often I have no idea what I’m saying which still leaves me confused. I have a Thai-English dictionary at home which I sometimes use for reference but mainly just by seeing the same words over and over again in context I am beginning to learn words as I go. Walking around reading adverts, newpapers, magazines, street signs has introduced me to new words quickly but I am far from proficient at Thai.

Brett does not condone the use of a dictionary! Note the glasses... they makes I smartererer

I am a slow learner

Learning to read all over again is a strange experience at 30. I’ve never had to concentrate to learn something so much before, at university it was fairly simple and mostly I plagiarised each essay (Really!?!?!). But I have experienced so much mental distress trying to get my head around vowel shapes of Thai, I’ve wanted to quit almost every day. I’ll admit I struggled and maybe I probably haven’t put it enough private study time. Over the last few weeks I’ve wanted to smash my head, smash Bretts head, drink myself stupid, torture Brett, hang myself, hang Brett, but eventually after 7 hours of lessons I can pretty much read Thai. I no longer want to hurt Brett!

Brett is a great patient teacher

Brett knows how to teach, he understands the capabilities and level of each student. I got stuck many times on the vowel shapes, mostly because I was over thinking the process. Constantly asking why? I got stressed quickly when I didn’t understand something? Brett taught me to chill out when learning, just relax, stop asking why and just accept that’s the way things are done in Thai. Once I did this things progressed quicker, Brett tailored each lesson to my abilities and level of hangover I was experiencing that day. Recently we started using common sentences that I would use every day such as ‘I want’, ‘I like’, ‘I have’ etc. this has improved my conversational Thai as I’m able to use it every day and improve my tones and accent.

He really does look like that, Yes, Really!!

Being able to read Thai totally changes the way you speak Thai, most English transliterations are completely off the mark and the tones are mostly non existent. But being able to read it greatly improves the pronunciation of the words and sometimes even the Thais know what I’m on about, mostly!

Learning with Brett was worth every penny, He is a great teacher with an ability to make learning the language fun, easy and relevant to your experiences. You may find cheaper but I bet you it will take longer than 7 hours with any other teacher to learn to read Thai. Contact him through his blog to arrange the first free lesson, he’ll teach you the middle class letters in 30min and will prove how easy it really is!

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  • http://www.intophuket.com/ Lawrence Michaels

    Glad you can read Thai now. You’re right, it just takes practice after you have learned all of the various sounds and how to decipher the correct tone. Read as often as you can, this will greatly increase your reading speed as well as teach you new vocabulary and the flow of grammar. I have to admit that it took me longer then 7 hours to learn to read, but it didn’t have to. I think my teachers purposely dragged the whole thing out so that I would need to go to school longer.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Pat-Kongpanya/100001441911102 Pat Kongpanya

    Is you want learn reading Thai you should get the book http://www.learnthaiinaday.com/ is you can learn read thai quickly

  • http://thaipieshop.blogspot.com/ Steve

    This is exactly the right way to go. I wasted years trying to learn it using english script, then my now wife taught me the alphabet.

    Like you, I can read pretty much anything, but don’t know what the words mean, all the same it is great practice and reinforcement.

    You will enjoy yourself so much more and Thai people will really warm to you for this. At cafes, markets bus stations it really makes that difference.

    I found fantastic almost endless free resourses at http://learningthai.com/ Although it has changes a lot, read with Manee and the talking books are there. Many Thai will have had Read with Manee as their first book so this really cuts it with them.

    Have fun and I will following this blogg for sure.

    Resources on there were tons of pictures from useful things like Menus, shop signs, road signs etc. Some were very insightful like Thai Car Bumper stickers etc.

    http://thaipieshop.blogspot.com/

  • http://www.learnthaionline.com/ Gary

    Colin – well done! And Brett is a great guy and a wonderful teacher, I’ve met him. He also uses various mnemonic devices to help you remember the letters and the rules.

    At the risk of putting my oar in, the ‘conventional’ way of learning to read Thai is unnecessarily complicated and slows you down. It’s why I devised an alternative ‘Rapid’ method. Please have a look at it and give it a go (http://www.LearnThaiOnline.com).

    Unfortunately, you may have to ‘forget’ some of what you’ve learnt already. Especially if you know the letters already. People who’ve started to read the conventional way tend to struggle and it’s quite difficult to unlearn something.

    Maybe the letters are not too firm in your head yet, so the ‘Rapid’ approach might still work for you. The most important tip is NOT to look at the letters and remember them: look at the shape of the letter and SEE the picture that it evokes. Everything follows from this, and if you don’t (or can’t) do it then you will struggle.

    Another useful trick if you’ve already learnt the ‘classes’ of the letters is to think of ladies as being ‘high class’ creatures, ladyboys as being ‘low class’ riff-raff (not PC I know, but it works!) and boys as being boring, uninteresting creatures ‘in the middle’.

    The other thing that is quite important is NOT to think of tones as rising, falling, high or low. Everyone I know who learnt tones in this way speaks in a curious mangled unintelligible sing-song. The trick is to use the tones we already have in English. We have a special intonation when we ask a question: “Why?” So find a phrase that you speak with the same intonation as a Thai ‘question’ tone and FEEL it. I use “How?” and I can then say words like สอง and สาม correctly.

    The other tone is an uncertain, suprised tone as in “what!?” Now say วัด in the same manner, and you’ll say it right naturally.

    The emphatic or exciting tone is hard for us (yet we do it all the time in English) – it’s hard because it feels embarrassing. I usually recommend people to MAKE A FIST and say “yeah!” before saying words like ข้าว or ไม่ or ได้.

    Try it.

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