# Thai language - learning



## Xynoplas

I'm going to try asking about the Thai language again. 

For those expats who live in Thailand, how fluent do you find you need to be?
How did you learn the language? Pimsleur? Classes? Tutors in Thailand?

Thanks!


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## Mweiga

Xynoplas said:


> I'm going to try asking about the Thai language again.
> 
> For those expats who live in Thailand, how fluent do you find you need to be?
> How did you learn the language? Pimsleur? Classes? Tutors in Thailand?
> 
> Thanks!


After ten years living here found a working knowledge of Thai very useful , if not essential , for most everyday living situations. When I first came here on visits twenty years ago English was little understood on the street although today there is a big desire by younger Thais to speak it and you will find a much wider comprehension of English in the major urban areas at least.

You certainly don't need to be fluent in Thai to be understood although there are those expats who have studied it and speak it pretty well with more or less correct tones. There are also plenty of expats who hardly speak a word relying on Thaiglish for communication - they miss out a lot on real integration and understanding the Thai psyche , let alone trying to get things done on a day to day basis. 

I never studied the language formally and picked it up just by listening and talking with Thais on a more or less daily basis - its not great Thai I know but it works and surprisingly I get told how proficient I am with quite good tones - I think they are just being kind actually ! I gave up trying to get the five tones right and just concentrated on vocabulary and sentence structure - found just copying the tone of a word as I hear it coming from Thais , then reproduce it like a tape recorder seems to work. Anyway , you don't get the tone of a word right they will normally understand what you mean from the context to the word.

I never attempted to learn the 44 characters of the Thai alphabet so cannot read the language - might get round to this one day as a project.

Otherwise there are plenty of short Thai language courses available all over of which many expats take advantage. My advice - make the effort to gain at least a working knowledge of spoken Thai.


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## RickThai

Based upon a Google search, among widespread languages, Thai is the third most difficult language for a native English speaking person to learn to speak and read/write (after Japanese and Chinese).

The main difficulty is having an ear for the tones (of which there are five), as Thai words can mean very different things (including bad things in some cases) depending upon the tone.

That being said, many English-speaking people do pick up the language with varying degrees of proficiency. Thai people are generally very good-natured when it comes to foreigners speaking their language, and I've never heard of a Thai getting upset because of a foreigners attempts at Thai (although they might get a secret laugh out of it).

I am rather tone-death and have learned to read and write Thai to some degree. I have found having a Thai-English speaking dictionary very beneficial and also the book/CD of Teach Yourself to Speak Thai (by Smith I believe) to be very helpful in learning Thai basics and learning to read and write Thai.

I have took one University level class in speaking Thai and found that useful as well.

As for the necessity of learning Thai, I have found that as long as you frequent the main tourist spots (including Bangkok), you can get by without knowing any Thai at all. 

If you get out in rural Thai it really helps to know how to speak and read Thai numbers when trying to buy or pay for something. I have found that I can often get a really good discount if I ask in Thai for a lower specific price (i.e. 20 Baht for a soft drink rather than the written English price of 60 Baht, etc). 

In any event it is just good manners to know how to say "Thank You" and "Excuse Me" in Thai.

Good luck 

RickThai


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## Xynoplas

*<<Snip>>*
I learned French in school and played around with Japanese when I was married. I don't know, that's a pretty easy language as long you don't dream of becoming literate. No tones, I mean, and a logical structure.

Most of the languages listed as "Difficult" are due to the need to learn a new script (or several in the case of Japanese).
The Hardest Languages to Learn - Business Insider

So I'm looking at getting some used Pimsleur CDs off Ebay. Plus there's a Thai Wat in the SF Bay Area where, if they don't have language classes, at least I can practice comprehension.

It looks like the actual sounds of the language are not well represented by the Royal Thai system of transcription (with all respects towards his Highness of course). But I think I've got a pretty good ear. Looking forward to the adventure!


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## Xynoplas

RickThai said:


> If you get out in rural Thai it really helps to know how to speak and read Thai numbers when trying to buy or pay for something. I have found that I can often get a really good discount if I ask in Thai for a lower specific price (i.e. 20 Baht for a soft drink rather than the written English price of 60 Baht, etc).


Haha, the fine art of bargaining, I'd almost forgot!


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## tod-daniels

This is long, but stick with it, you might find some value from it.

Well, you certainly don't need to speak thai to live here.. I know far more foreigners who can't speak "2-word-tourist thai" or even "horse-peak-thai" yet have lived here for eons..

With that being said, unless you're gonna have a "long-haired thai translator" following you around endlessly, speaking for you, there is NO down side to learning to converse with the thais in thai. It's certainly NOT as hard as some foreigners profess it is.

Now I disagree with Mweiga, simply by speaking thai you ain't gonna integrate or understand the thai psyche <- which I believe is why these people do the whacky stuff they do, yet pawn it off as being thai culture. Face it you're always gonna be looked at as a foreigner, even if you speak thai just fine. What you aren't is thai. 

First, toss the idea/concept and the word "fluent" right out of your head NOW.. Fluent is an imaginary place in your mind, it's a mythical bar which means nothing and only gets in the way of you actually learning the language.. Also toss out the idea that you wanna "sound like a thai", as that ain't gonna happen. You ain't a born-bred-rice fed native thai speaker. No matter what these over complimentary people say about your thai language ability, you're never gonna sound 'thai enough' to fool a thai for more than a few sentences. Okay, now that we got that crap outta the way. 

Let's get another thing straight right from the start; it's about a billion times easier for a foreigner to learn to read thai (as in look at a thai word and know the meaning) than it is to speak clear thai. Christ I could read thai before I could spit out the thai greeting "Sweaty Crap" (yes that's 'crap covered in sweat'!). Reading is nothing more than memorizing a group of characters (coincidentally called words) and having that thai'd, err tied to a meaning in your head.. 

I tell people I learned thai out of spite.. Honestly I learned it because, the first 2+ years I was here, I compelled thais to speak english with me <- (or I tried to). I finally decided I was done "pushing that rope" and realized it'd be easier for me to learn their language. Now after nearly 9 years studying thai I can speak / understand, read / write / type thai. Because I don't have a thai significant other and have to rely on myself to get things done, the thai language skills I do possess pay off for me in spades.

Interestingly enough my spoken thai doesn't sound anything remotely like a thai. That's possibly because I'm 100% American, born-bred-corn fed. My thai is errantly toned and has a definite Ohio hillbilly accent to it. It is (by thai standards) very blunt, terse and coarse. Then again I am not trying to "become one with the thai collective", or impress these people with my grasp of the language. Plain and simple, I'm tryin' to get stuff done. I routinely curse, use profanity and say snarky things. I like to tell foreigners I'm now an a**hole in both english and thai. The funny thing is, no matter who I've dealt with, be it the Soi side fruit seller, CEO's of thai companies, high ranking Police or Immigration officers, not even once have I ever felt the way I spoke thai to them was an impediment or detriment to me getting things done. 

This may sound like a shameless plug (and in a way it is). I have spent a good couple of years going to and reviewing thai language schools in Bangkok for my friends learning thai website (which has a LOT of free resources).. I did it because, way back when I was beginning to study thai there was nothing out there about what school taught thai what way, etc. Then I started writing about the trials and tribulations of my learning thai journey.
I am a guest writer on this website;
Tod Daniels

I hear the same old b/s excuses from foreigners all the time; "I'm old.", I'm not good at languages.", "I can't hear the tones.", "My thai wife, she speak engrish good." To an excuse, they're total b/s.. You don't learn thai for one reason and one reason alone, because you aren't motivated to, period, end of story..

I tell people all the time it is a fact that one percent of the world's population is smarter than you. However, it is statistically impossible that all 70 million of those people are thais!! If they can speak thai, you can to.. And don't jump on the "they learned thai as their native language" crap either. Over 60% of these people DIDN'T learn the government approved version of thai (known as Central Thai) as their mother tongue when they were kids, they learned it when the started school.

As you can see, my 'take' on learning thai may run counter to your ideas about it.. That's fine.. I'm not sayin' be like me, I'm sayin' this is me, an, old, dumb, hillbilly from Ohio, who is NOT good at languages, who couldn't hear the tones in the beginning, but I made myself learn thai because I wanted to. 

If I can do it, you can too, IF you want to. 

Good Luck, 

Note 2 Mods: if posting that link contravenes forum rules, just delete it.


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## RickThai

Hey TD,

I agree with most of what you say, in that "motivation" is the number one ingredient to successfully learning Thai (or any language for that matter).

However, I have severe hearing loss in both ears (I wear hearing aids) and that is a real (read no BS) impediment to learning any tonal language. That is just a physiological fact.

Sometimes I have Thais write down the word in Thai so I can understand whether something is "near" or "far" or other words that can be ambiguous if you can't hear the tone.

I agree that learning to read and write Thai is really not that difficult. The trick is learning to properly pronounce the const/vowel combinations correctly and remembering all the tone rules and exceptions.

Good to hear (i.e. read) from you again. I decided too leave the other Thai forum because I found the PC censorship way too offensive for my liking.

RickThai


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## tod-daniels

Hi Rick, 

Yep you're correct and that has got to be a real impediment to your hearing the tones. I too have hearing loss with specific frequencies, it just cuts out, mostly when thai women speak <- which isn't always a bad thing... 

However what I really meant about 'hearing the tones' is; 
In english we use intonation to impart emotional value to what's being said.. 
Where as in thai they use intonation to delineate words. 

Native english speakers who in the beginning say they can't hear the tones in thai are saying that because they're "listening for the tones" for the wrong reason. It takes quite a while to re-train your ears/brain to listen for the tones of individual words.

I too wanna track down the thai who thought up ใกล้/ไกล near/far and punch him in the head. To this day when I ask a thai about the distance to something I'll hold my hands apart as indicators of near or far.. It's a lot tougher to do that over the phone...

Take care man,


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## Asian Spirit

tod-daniels said:


> Hi Rick,
> 
> Yep you're correct and that has got to be a real impediment to your hearing the tones. I too have hearing loss with specific frequencies, it just cuts out, mostly when thai women speak <- which isn't always a bad thing...
> 
> However what I really meant about 'hearing the tones' is;
> In english we use intonation to impart emotional value to what's being said..
> Where as in thai they use intonation to delineate words.
> 
> Native english speakers who in the beginning say they can't hear the tones in thai are saying that because they're "listening for the tones" for the wrong reason. It takes quite a while to re-train your ears/brain to listen for the tones of individual words.
> 
> I too wanna track down the thai who thought up ใกล้/ไกล near/far and punch him in the head. To this day when I ask a thai about the distance to something I'll hold my hands apart as indicators of near or far.. It's a lot tougher to do that over the phone...
> 
> Take care man,


Tod, It's always good to read your posts. Wish you were on here a bit more and kinda liven up the place a bit..


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## MELODY_G

tod-daniels said:


> this is long, but stick with it, you might find some value from it.
> 
> Well, you certainly don't need to speak thai to live here.. I know far more foreigners who can't speak "2-word-tourist thai" or even "horse-peak-thai" yet have lived here for eons..
> 
> With that being said, unless you're gonna have a "long-haired thai translator" following you around endlessly, speaking for you, there is no down side to learning to converse with the thais in thai. It's certainly not as hard as some foreigners profess it is.
> 
> Now i disagree with mweiga, simply by speaking thai you ain't gonna integrate or understand the thai psyche <- which i believe is why these people do the whacky stuff they do, yet pawn it off as being thai culture. Face it you're always gonna be looked at as a foreigner, even if you speak thai just fine. What you aren't is thai.
> 
> First, toss the idea/concept and the word "fluent" right out of your head now.. Fluent is an imaginary place in your mind, it's a mythical bar which means nothing and only gets in the way of you actually learning the language.. Also toss out the idea that you wanna "sound like a thai", as that ain't gonna happen. You ain't a born-bred-rice fed native thai speaker. No matter what these over complimentary people say about your thai language ability, you're never gonna sound 'thai enough' to fool a thai for more than a few sentences. Okay, now that we got that crap outta the way.
> 
> Let's get another thing straight right from the start; it's about a billion times easier for a foreigner to learn to read thai (as in look at a thai word and know the meaning) than it is to speak clear thai. Christ i could read thai before i could spit out the thai greeting "sweaty crap" (yes that's 'crap covered in sweat'!). Reading is nothing more than memorizing a group of characters (coincidentally called words) and having that thai'd, err tied to a meaning in your head..
> 
> I tell people i learned thai out of spite.. Honestly i learned it because, the first 2+ years i was here, i compelled thais to speak english with me <- (or i tried to). I finally decided i was done "pushing that rope" and realized it'd be easier for me to learn their language. Now after nearly 9 years studying thai i can speak / understand, read / write / type thai. Because i don't have a thai significant other and have to rely on myself to get things done, the thai language skills i do possess pay off for me in spades.
> 
> Interestingly enough my spoken thai doesn't sound anything remotely like a thai. That's possibly because i'm 100% american, born-bred-corn fed. My thai is errantly toned and has a definite ohio hillbilly accent to it. It is (by thai standards) very blunt, terse and coarse. Then again i am not trying to "become one with the thai collective", or impress these people with my grasp of the language. Plain and simple, i'm tryin' to get stuff done. I routinely curse, use profanity and say snarky things. I like to tell foreigners i'm now an a**hole in both english and thai. The funny thing is, no matter who i've dealt with, be it the soi side fruit seller, ceo's of thai companies, high ranking police or immigration officers, not even once have i ever felt the way i spoke thai to them was an impediment or detriment to me getting things done.
> 
> This may sound like a shameless plug (and in a way it is). I have spent a good couple of years going to and reviewing thai language schools in bangkok for my friends learning thai website (which has a lot of free resources).. I did it because, way back when i was beginning to study thai there was nothing out there about what school taught thai what way, etc. Then i started writing about the trials and tribulations of my learning thai journey.
> I am a guest writer on this website;
> 
> 
> i hear the same old b/s excuses from foreigners all the time; "i'm old.", i'm not good at languages.", "i can't hear the tones.", "my thai wife, she speak engrish good." to an excuse, they're total b/s.. You don't learn thai for one reason and one reason alone, because you aren't motivated to, period, end of story..
> 
> I tell people all the time it is a fact that one percent of the world's population is smarter than you. However, it is statistically impossible that all 70 million of those people are thais!! If they can speak thai, you can to.. And don't jump on the "they learned thai as their native language" crap either. Over 60% of these people didn't learn the government approved version of thai (known as central thai) as their mother tongue when they were kids, they learned it when the started school.
> 
> As you can see, my 'take' on learning thai may run counter to your ideas about it.. That's fine.. I'm not sayin' be like me, i'm sayin' this is me, an, old, dumb, hillbilly from ohio, who is not good at languages, who couldn't hear the tones in the beginning, but i made myself learn thai because i wanted to.
> 
> If i can do it, you can too, if you want to.
> 
> good luck,
> 
> note 2 mods: If posting that link contravenes forum rules, just delete it.



hi
just want to say i'm enjoy reading your comment. I'm also not good in languages but i love to speak that's why people thought i'm pretty good at it but actually is not. Anything can happen if you really want to try.
Cheers!!


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## Xynoplas

I was puzzled by what you meant by near and far, so I did my own research.

Near and Far, Glai and Glai | Thai Language Blog
Glai for "far" and glai for "near" have different tones. 
*This is madness!*
I guess every language has its peculiarities. I'm just glad I'm not a foreigner learning English for the first time!


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## Xynoplas

I agree. Realistically, I'm not disciplined enough to achieve fluency, but it's fun to explore and learn.

BTW, the "near" "far" problem doesn't faze me, but I just learned that Thai has implosive consonants, like Vietnamese. Ew. 

Is it a common sound in Thai?


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## tod-daniels

Xynoplas said:


> BTW, the "near" "far" problem doesn't faze me, but I just learned that Thai has implosive consonants, like Vietnamese.


Good to know ใกล้ ไกล /doesn't faze you. 

However the thai penchant for dropping the second consonant in two leading consonant words ครับ/คับ (polite ending particle male speaker), เกลือ/เกือ (salt), กล้วย/ก้วย (banana) ปลา/ปา (fish) and about a TON of other words, often times makes ใกล้/ไกล sound like ใก้/ไก. Factor in BOTH are spoken with the exact same short vowel sound ไ/ใ, and it can throw foreign speakers off the rails..

Now, not being a cunning linguist, I had no idea what you're on about with "implosive consonants" and indeed had to wiki it to even rudimentarily begin to understand it. 


> Implosive consonants are stops (rarely affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can be modified by phonation. Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 13% of the world's languages.


In the brief perusal I gave that wiki page it does NOT appear that either vietnamese OR thai are in the 13% of the world languages .

I think you're talkin' over our heads, or at least you're talkin' way above my pay grade. Still, good luck with learning thai..


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## Xynoplas

I don't mean to talk over anyone's heads, sorry to give that impression.
Here in Calif, I hear a lot of Vietnamese spoken. They have a sound that seems like they are breathing in when they are talking (as opposed to out like we normally do).
It sounds weird, and I'll bet it's tricky to pick up. 
Anyway, looking forward to learning more...


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## Nanjo555

Hi all
I am moving to phuket soon and wanting to know of a good Thai Language school and approx
costs. Wanting to at least have a basic start.


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## Xynoplas

Got a copy of Pimsleur's Basic Thai CD, practicing in my car.


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## Thai Bigfoot

Most schools teach Bangkok Thai. This is not the same Thai that's spoken in the north - Issan provinces.


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## tod-daniels

Thai Bigfoot said:


> Most schools teach Bangkok Thai. This is not the same Thai that's spoken in the north - Issan provinces.


You're a little off base there.. All schools the country over teach "Central Thai", that's the version of thai taught to thais when they go to school.. Bangkok thai is it's own dialect.

I've traveled the length and breadth of this country and have yet to run into a thai that can't speak understand Central Thai and reply in kind.

If a thai spent even a single day in school, they were taught Central Thai..


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## Thai Bigfoot

I was referring to the schools that teach Thai to foreigners. At least, here in Phuket.


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## tod-daniels

Sorry man, you're still off base.. 

ALL private thai language schools which teach thai to buffaloes (สอนภาษไทยให้ควายฟัง) <- what I call the teach thai to foreigner schools teach Central Thai, NOT Bangkok Thai. 

There is a difference between Central Thai and Bangkok Thai.


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## Thai Bigfoot

Never knew there are 3 Thais.


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## Nedamame

I'm new to Thailand and so far have only learned "hello" and "thank you". I speak three languages and think I'm pretty good at picking up languages, but Thai so far seems entirely foreign. There is no link to any languages or even root languages that I am familiar with, so I'm starting from scratch. It feels overwhelming! I'm thinking of taking language courses too. What would people here suggest? I read some reviews of the YMCA course, the Chiang Mai University and a few others, but am not sure which would suit my needs. Anyways, any suggestions would help.


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## ericoakes

I do wish to learn how to write Thai but don't know where to start? Any ideas.


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## tod-daniels

Well, you don't say what three languages you speak so. . ..

You're correct for westerners thai is a completely foreign language with no root or connection with the "romance languages" or engrish...

With that being said, I always tell people this;
It is a given fact that one percent of the world's population is smarter than you... BUT it is statistically impossible that all 70 million of those people are thai... 
Close to 70 million people can speak/read/write thai in this country, so I'm sure you can to, IF you want to. 

The linch-pin to the equation is your motivation. I could send you to the worst thai language school in the country and if you were truly motivated to learn thai you would (albeit slowly).

CMU and Payap both have pretty good thai language programs from what I've read.. I got no experience in Chiang Mai, just bangkok.. 

Lest you think I don't know **** from Shinola about thai language schools that teach thai to foreigners.. I review thai language schools in Bangkok for my friends.


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## tod-daniels

ericoakes said:


> I do wish to learn how to write Thai but don't know where to start? Any ideas.


First I gotta ask you, can you speak/understand and/or read any thai script now? 

By read, I mean can you look at a group of characters in thai (coincidentally called "words") and know what they mean.. Reading is nothing more than memorizing many, many MANY words so when you see them they are thai'd, errr tied to a meaning in your head. 

While I hate to be the bearer of bad news; writing thai by hand isn't all that useful other than as a lame party trick to impress the thais.. I mean if you can manage to scratch out your name and address in thai you'll be fine.

Conversely, reading thai and TYPING thai (especially learning how to touch type it) are both worth their weight in gold!! 

A good free touch typing resource is here Thai Typing Trainer. I used it to teach myself how to touch type thai.

Many (in fact most) of the thai language schools teach reading and writing together. I could read before I learned how to write a single character by hand. Honestly, I can't even remember the last time I hand wrote something in thai. 

FWIW: even now I still can't say the 44 characters which make up the 'thai alphabet' in order (because there is no reason to, unless you're gonna sing the "alphabet song"). I know it starts with a chicken กอ ไก่ ends with an owl ฮอ นกฮูก and there are 42 other characters in between.. 

Good Luck. . .


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## Xynoplas

Actually, I found a Wat here in California where I can take Thai language classes before I leave for TOS. There's quite a community of Thais here, so ample opportunity to practice with native speakers.


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