The Problems Foreigners Have Learning Thai

[@wickysmall8607]

Kru Keng was my teacher for a few months, she's awesome! Highly recommended 🙂

[@maloz63]

I have enough problems speaking English and that's my native tongue

[@ThairishTimes]

😂😂😂

[@johnraab6348]

I learned Thai as a Peace Corps volunteer some 53 years ago. We had small (2-3 persons +1 instructor) for 8-10 hours per day 6.5 days a week. It was all conversational base - no reading or writing for about 3 months. Most of us could pass the fluency test so we could go to our post. Fortunately, I was assigned to the malaria eradication program, and so I learned through immersion.

[@nuttsy3662]

I have attempted to learn Thai so many times now I’ve lost count. My Thai is very basic but I’m going to give it one last try but this time I will be learning to read and write and not learning from English Thai script. Lived Thailand for 17 years but always work overseas so I’m never actually there full time! It’s now or never 🙏🏻 Any advice will be greatly taken onboard same as this video. Thanks Pete 👍🏻

[@b4bmm]

Nice to get some Thai people on for interviews.

[@_Alfa.Bravo_]

"Home is not where you reside, home is where you are understood" Thank you for the nice interview Pete

[@Budismo7917]

👍🏻agree

[@danacoder2]

For those studying Thai, learning to read should be the first step. It will teach you the concepts of the tones, and the other sounds of the language, which are vital to understanding spoken Thai.

[@heavanstomergatroid9825]

A pal of mine learning Spanish memorised the dialogue of half the box set of the sit com Friends, then watched it over & over again with Spanish dubbing, he said it helped no end.

[@PaulWalliswriter]

Fluency comes with time, providing you are deepening the use of the language.

[@Ned88Man]

I hear so many people tell me they speak Thai fluently, only to open their mouths and prove otherwise..

[@MikeyInThailand]

Interesting that musicians can learn quicker. I know a Thai guy in Australia who was a church singer learned English so quick and listened to only English music

[@ThairishTimes]

Must be the same part of the brain. Anyone I know who’s musical picks up languages easily

[@ma3stro681]

I’m a musician and am pretty good with the Thai tones. I can understand a lot more than I can speak at this stage, though can pronounce words pretty well. Just self teaching at home in Australia for holidays in the Kingdom. You must be tone deaf, Pete, especially living there for 12 years! That was intro sentence was terrible! It was all one flat tone … 😂

[@Budismo7917]

Im with keng the environment its important, well she learns english with people who only speaks english.

[@mangostickyrice555]

Thumbs up 👍 Pete

[@martypoll]

It doesn’t get mentioned often but the concept of long and short vowels is very different between Thai and English. In Thai a short vowel sound is short in duration. A long vowel sounds is the same sound but with a longer duration. You have to slow down your Thai speech to pronounce this difference. In English a short “a” is a different sound than a long “a”.

[@georgejetson3702]

What a motivated young lady! Impressive!

[@andrewhyland9212]

On my mind about taking Thai lessons, with a bit of time on my hands at moment. Would love to grasp the language.

[@simo787c]

Had just booked my first Italki lesson in Thai; and then you give us promotion. Never mind, another great internview.

[@Ulbre]

Oh yeah, and what an amazing interview you could possibly do with that 16 year old student athlete in the future. Maybe with her parents consent or a few years down the track when she's an adult. I think what she has done so far without even stepping foot into Thailand is amazing, so it would be awesome to see or hear about the rest, I have a feeling she will achieve fluency in next to no time once she's here.

[@Ulbre]

I love this and it all rings so true. I first came to Thailand in the early 80's and then in the late 80's I started to Learn to read and write, that helped heaps. A big game changer for me was the advent of the online world and programs like MSN Messenger back at the turn of the millennium and into the early 2000's. Real time messaging with my betrothed brought a whole new level to the Thai I had been learning for 15 years!!!! My wife was so much slower which was because she hadn't ever dealt with a keyboard before!!!!!!! I think if it was today I wouldn't have progressed as much as you can now just chat for free. So folks, if you want to lift your Thai writing & reading skills then start real time messaging with as many Thai people as you can. Once again what a ripper video. If you're going to do it again (or maybe as a regular lesson video.....that could be huge) then why not do more of the Thai talking component....that was great. Cheers from Chiang Mai.

[@MrNataphong]

Chatting with Thai now this day will make you lost in Thai. 😂 how we type or write Thai words is disaster.😂😂 not just shot the word to easy to type/write also have new teen slang words merely every day 5555

[@PatrickDwyer-k9u]

Pete, great interview. Thank you! I learned allot.

[@mtany777]

One of the mistakes foreigners make when pronouncing Thai words written in English is they try to bind the syllables together instead of reading one syllable at a time like “Krabi”, some will say krab bi instead of kra bi. Will keep watching 🙏

[@FarangNick]

The mistake is exactly in using the "English karoke writing", that's not Thai.

[@TadaMinburi]

Quality teacher

[@philip32276]

I learned Thai completely through phonetics (romanization) in the army, and I would say I speak pretty fluently. I know many experts say you you should learn to read first, but then when I went to a language meetup in Pattaya some years back, the 2 people there who could read Thai were mispronouncing words and tones in the Thai text. I thought that would impossible because the Thai words were there right in front of them, but I have since met many people who can read but have terrible pronunciation. I am more convinced now that if you stick to the same phonetic symbols taught to you at the beginning you might be much better off.

[@petersutherland1985]

Mrs has taught Thai for 25 years, women are the best learners

[@Bird-Come-See-WoW]

🙏🇹🇭

[@tjmctube]

I admit I have no natural capacity to learn languages. And tonal languages..... hell no. I've been married to a Thai for more than 35 years. I still speak very little. But my wife.... she's quite the talker. That being said, I do understand a lot of it.

[@nickeyfynn3270]

The only way to do it right is learn to write, read, speak. In that order.

[@parasitius]

...yeah great way to permanently cement a thick accent and fossilize grammar errors tbh. Moreover, to even claim this there should be a sort of "peer reviewed study" to prove it works. Why? Well for starters, Thais absolutely did not do it this way, and there is no guarantee it is even possible to be successful this way without data to back it (of which very little exists).

[@liamburns8554]

This is not true. Without doubt learning to read and write is beneficial. But it is not the ONLY way. If that was the case people who could not read or write would be mute. Personally my Thai is reasonably good, but I cannot read or write a single letter. And I don’t want to… it is a hobby for me, and I am too busy to learn to read and write

[@bijanbayne3259]

That's what Scott Mallon said

[@nickeyfynn3270]

Ofc you can get by without reading and writing. But if you are a long term resident of Thailand, being able to read any menu, sign, label, etc, this will put your learning curve in your own hands. Also, your accent will be easily understood. Again, do you want to just get by, or do you really want to immerse yourself. ​@@liamburns8554

[@ma3stro681]

No way. Speak first, and go from there …

[@FarangNick]

That's because you didn't learn to read and write. The difference between that "male bodypart" and a banana is more than just the tone. And the correct tones are obvious if one can read and write.

[@ThairishTimes]

Can you explain why it’s more than just the tone?

[@FarangNick]

@@ThairishTimes Apart from the difference in tone : 1) Banana has an L which is absent in "the male body part". 2) Banana and "the male body part" start with a different consonant. In Thai writing it is a different consonant. But in English transcription ("karaoke writing") the same letter may be used. (English transcription should never be used instead of Thai writing when learning Thai.) All together in the word banana written in Thai there are 3 written units which are not present in the Thai word for "male body part", all of them makes a difference in the pronounciation.

[@robertjames538]

You need a good foundation to bridge the gap between english and thai .Using letters like u instead of ʉː or perhaps ɯː is absolutely useless.Highly recommend stuart raj thai vowels for dummies and perhaps use of the following symbols for anyone wanting to cross that bridge a ɔ ə ʉ æ am i e ai u o aʊ Good luck